Nov 29 2007
A horrible hump of a day. And gossip…
So, today sucks. I shouldn’t be sitting at this chair, and I hate my blog. In fact, right now, I am finding it as excruciating as my back. Instead of feeling like this is a place to clear out all the negative junk in my head, I have succeeded in projecting my worm-eating mentality onto it. The move to cerebralmum.com, my Christmas present to myself, hasn’t helped.
In spite of the irrelevance of things like Technorati ranking and hit counts and click throughs the dive in those numbers have left me feeling a little alone. Like nobody wants to talk to me. I realise the utter ridiculousness of this but for some reason, I seem to care right now what everybody, and anybody, thinks of me. Even people I don’t know. Even people who are imaginary.
I don’t think this is a new phenomenon for me but it isn’t something I have always made myself a victim of. I used to be entirely oblivious to it. There is one thing that has slowly worn me down though, and that is gossip. I’ve been on the receiving end often and I don’t like it. In fact, you could probably say I’m afraid of it. In fact, I am probably so afraid of it that not only does what people have said about me cut me down but what people might say about me, or even think about me, leaves me frozen.
Right now, I worry that my posts are all over the place and this blog makes no sense, that this blog isn’t interesting, or insightful, or that it has no personality. I worry that by talking about such personal things, my opinions on particular issues are undermined.
Oh, she’s that poor little victim girl.
Oh, she’s depressed and has no perspective.
Vulnerability and authority do not go hand in hand in people’s perceptions, regardless of how commonplace those vulnerabilities are, so I worry about the image of me that is presented here. I worry about how divergent it is from my own self-image. I worry about how much fuel I am giving to people who will use it to diminish me, to reduce me, to misinterpret me. And yes, I know I shouldn’t.
But I do.
The truth is, I have always been misinterpreted. (Yes, everyone has, but hey… This blog is about me.) My self-image and the things people perceive have always been widely divergent. The things that are most central to who I am are my writing and my critical thinking and my exploration of human behaviour. Those things are my identity. Those things are not very visible to the human eye. So what is it that people see? And what do they talk about behind my back?
One thing that has always been “seen”, and caused much gossip, is my sexuality. Or some fictitious version of it, anyway. I have never understood why, but even when I was young, I was considered to be the girl most likely to “lose it” first. The truth is, I didn’t lose it until 2 months before I turned 20 and and at that stage, I had only ever kissed 4 boys, mostly under pressure. The truth is, my sexuality is more like that of an ice queen. I don’t think about it, I’m usually not aware it and I have never played with it as a way of relating to the world and the people around me. I was always, and I still am to a certain extent, sexually naive. In spite of that, I am frequently perceived as a slut or a vamp or a sexual predator. And boy, is that some fodder for gossip.
I have often wondered why I am seen that way. I don’t have the answer. Part of it is probably because of the way I dressed. I wore costumes, I played dress ups. I took pleasure in the artistry of the self the same way that a painter colurs his blank canvas. Perhaps some people perceived that “art” as pornography. Perhaps my lack of inhibition, my complete lack of awareness for the social rules of dressing, sent mixed signals.
Or perhaps beneath my naivete there has always been a certain “vibe” I was unaware of because I was sexualised at an early age. Perhaps beneath my strengths there was always that Marilyn Monroe kind of vulnerability, that little girl lost which in our society is seen as a sexual cue. I have often wondered about that.
Whatever it is though, it has been the basis of much gossip about me and I do not like it. I do not like being attacked by other women. It offends me, as a feminist. And it offends my sexuality which is extremely private and shared sparingly. And I do not like being made a target of the “hunters” which, as well as giving other women more cause to bitch, has always seemed vaguely insulting. What makes a man come on to someone they have never spoken to? What attracts them? It certainly isn’t Me. To be attracted to Me, you have speak to me.
And then there are the people who have been part of my life who have cherished an abiding loathing while I continued on, blithely unsuspecting, until someone did me the courtesy (kindly or not) of informing me of it. And the dirty looks, and the doors literally slammed in my face and the great, big gossip merry-go-round of twisted facts or completely made-up facts used to influence others to respond to me negatively, to view me negatively.
Some friends have explained this away as jealousy, but I have never been comfortable with that. It seems like such a reactionary self-validation. Really, how many people need to perceive you in a certain way in order to make you question whether or not they are right and you are wrong? How many times were those perceptions thrust at me like knives before I lost my blitheness?
I want it back. I want to be however large I am, even if it is too large. I want to dress however I dress, and talk about the things I want to talk about, oblivious to the petty stereotypes of people who lack imagination. I want to revel again in the artistry of self, without feeling like an offense. I want to feel confident in my vulnerabilities. I want to be comforted again by the truth of them, instead of hiding from them and fearing them, and fearing the people who feed on them.
Perhaps the history of gossip which has surrounded me, and the betrayals of trust, and the dishonesty of those who have spoken behind my back and left me defenceless should be deleted from the equation altogether. Actually, that’s not even a perhaps. They need to be deleted. I need to escape from their clutches. But while I have said that I am arrogant time and time again, I have never been arrogant enough to comfortably say that I am better than someone else.
Why do I even think of it that way? That is not critical thinking. It is not arrogant to say that you know better than anyone else the truth about yourself. So that is one wrong thought process gone. But what else traps me there?
Injustice. Gossip is unjust. I rail against it and that leaves me arguing in circles with clouds of myself which slowly scatter from the gusts of a hollow, echoing wind. It is hard for me to let that go. To let injustice stand. I am the type who would stand silent in front of the firing squad. I really am. I am a martyr type. I would die on principle. When principles are so deeply offended, how do you let them go?
And another trap for me? The fear of hurting others. If my mere existence reduces people to maliciousness and cowardly attacks, aren’t they defensive behaviours? What are they defending themselves from? What is it about me that hurts them? I don’t want to be responsible for other people’s pain. Perhaps it is the martyr in me again, but how do I resolve my conscience with another person’s pain, regardless of how destructively they wield it?
Riddle me that.
Then perhaps I’ll find a way to no longer victimise myself with the gossipers’ mirages.
This post is a Hump Day Hmm, very appropriate for someone who hates their blog right now. This week’s subject was The Gossip Game and, strangely enough, I like my blog better now I’ve written it. If you want to take part, visit Julie Pippert and follow the instructions. There’s a new topic every Wednesday.
