Revolting Door

They all have girlfriends. And wives and someones. You’re just their daily breather; their fantasy; their “If I were single…” moment.

My housemates and I went to a house party. S’s mom is visiting for Easter so she came with us. It was a one-year birthday party for the son of one of S’s students. She’s Mexican so the culture of warmness and high spirit is a given for her and her family. There were tons of people - singles, families and about twenty kids running around. Altogether it was real pleasant. I enjoy the Mexican culture tremendously, probably because it is so close to my own. At a party, you can totally be yourself; you don’t have to be super loud and chirpy to be accepted; if you’re slow to open up to people, you just take your time, do your thing, and people respect you for who you are; people might see you as a quiet and nice person but they wouldn’t judgmentally label you as timid or shy; in my culture that’s just a type of personality, it’s not a flaw. While in the US, at a party, if you’re quiet you’re automatically scorned as a social outcast and that’s the end of it.

When we left, my housemates’ mom exclaimed “Oh my, I would never survive in such an extroverted culture. I wanted to crawl in a hole.” This exclamation led me to realize a few things.

First of all, I realized how much I miss being surrounded by and living with extroverted (or at least less introverted) friends. My behavior is profoundly influenced by the people I’m with, and I know, if I did go to that party with more outgoing people, things would’ve been different, I would’ve met and interacted with more people, I would’ve talked more, I would’ve had more fun, I would feel charged with much more positive energy by the end of the evening. Point being: Living with these folks is detrimental for me. Just the way living near a factory is bad for your physical health (breathing the poluted air - bad for your lungs), the same way living with very reclusive folks is bad for my mental health, and my mental health is just as important as my physical health. So what do people, who live near a factory, do? They move. To another neighborhood. Neighborhood without a factory and maybe even near a park (you know - fresh air, trees and whatnot).

Second of all, all this time up until now, I thought that the reason my dear (and I’m saying this in an honest non-sarcastic way) housemates are so socially inadequate, was because of their dad; they claim he has autism. I thought their mom was fine. But now I realize their mom is not much better in terms of social skills. The poor kids were brought up by these two totally incompetent and inadequate, deeply introverted and socially unskilled adults, and they still turned out pretty fine. But the point is: It’s not their fault they are the way they are. Given the parents they have, they could’ve been even worse. S is actually pretty good and covering her awkwardness in public. I know she feels awkward in side but she exhudes this dignity about herself that can only bread respect. (Well, except in a club but I’m sure she can work on that.) A, however, you can literally see how much he’s suffering around strangers and in public. He just literally shrinks; becomes nobody; stares down at his plate, and when he forces himself to look up and look around, his eyes frantically go in all directions, checking out the environment and then going back to his plate. If you meet his eyes during one of these environment-scoutings, you might get scared of the fear you see there. These folks are really afraid of being in public, and I can relate. I’m tired of trying to hide it all my life; trying to cover it with a mask of coolness and dignity, even arrogance. Sometimes I have spells of exstrovertedness, and despite that they don’t last very long, they help me get a glimpse of what it’s like to be an extrovert, and it’s FCUKING AWESOME! You perceive the vibrancy and colorfulness of the world around you, without worrying about how you look, how you walk, who’s watching you, etc; you soak in all the awesome stuff of the world around, without getting overwhelmed; you are actually able to enjoy the world without getting tired of it.When I’m in those states, I try to hold them a little longer every time, but I inevitable go back to my inward-looking and being stuck up in my head.

Third of all, which was a confirmation rather than a realization - why would you want to have a child with another introvert just to create another suffering human being. I don’t know a family where the parents or I’s and the child miraculously turns an E. Think about it - my housemates’ parents are two I’s. My parents are two I’s. I’m sure I can come up with thousands of other examples. And the thought that naturally follows - your only way to even have a chance of having an extroverted child - your only way to break the vicious circle of introversion, is to have a child with an extrovert.

There was an introverted young couple at the party - a young couple with a little girl. The dad sat in one corner of the TV room, the mom sat in the oposite corner. They had the sweetest little girl, and the mom was trying to make her go play with the other kids. But no matter how much the mom was telling her to go and playing and trying to make her to be outgoing, the little girl would make a quick trip to the other kids, and then immediately come back and sit with mom, or want one of her parents to go with her to the other kids. Point: you can’t force a child of I’s to be an E, if all she can see is I (her parents’ behavior) because kids involuntarily copy their parents’ behavior, no matter how bad it might be.

Some of my worse qualities have been surfacing in the past week or two. I don’t know if it’s because it’s April and it’s still winter, or because I literally have no money to wipe my ass, or because my housemates’ inability to detect the way I feel or to understand it, for that matter, drives me insane. …the serenity to accept the things I can’t change… courage to change the things I can… wisdom to know the difference… They’re just sitting there, numb, completely unaware of anyone or anything around them. Unaware of the rusty pans, the smelly kitchen, the wall in the living room that’s literally falling apart day by day, the tons of rag-remnants thrown over the old couches. They cook in those rusty pots and pans and eat that food, they eat seven-days-old leftovers, they cook chicken and beef that’s been sitting in the fridge for over a month… They are very interesting species. They annoy the heck out of me but at the same time I can’t stop analyzing them; they fascinate me in a weird, annoying way. The poverty and ugliness doesn’t bother them, they don’t detect facial expressions, vibes or type of energy in others. They’re introverted to a degree which bothers even me - I, who is supposed to understand introverts and accept them, me being one of them. But this is really some extreme case of introversion - it might be okay for them, but it’s unhealthy for me. The neighbors downstairs are interesting species too - their place is an even bigger dump than ours, and cluttered with three times more crap stuff, on top of everything else. Now I understand why mom was always bugged by my dad’s lack of need for aesthetics in living, and I want to never make that same mistake. I miss Miguel. He was the other sensing person in the household. We didn’t speak the same language but he understood me the best - just a look at my face was enough and he would instantly see the rainbow of emotions I was experiencing at a glance. He was so good at that, sometimes I wish he wasn’t - when for example I would come back bummed out from school and I would like to hide it from everyone but he would notice instantly. Now I miss that. I’m all alone. Now, when I come back from somewhere and I pass through the living room, no matter if I’m overwhelmed with joy or sadness, their reaction is always the same - NOTHINGNESS.

But back to my worse qualities - yesterday I felt like I wanted to grab A by the collar and shake him, shake him and yell “I can’t take this anymore” or something along those lines. Poor retard probably wouldn’t understand. I’m also still mad at S about depositing nearly $800 without notifying me. What thoughtless and insensitive person does that?! I feel like telling her these exact words; I feel like telling her that I’m mad at her. I feel like telling her that I’m also mad at her for eating my last grapefruit without asking. I feel like telling both of them over and over again, in every possible way, mostly passive-aggressively, that THEY LIVE IN A DUMP and DOESN’T IT BOTHER THEM?!?!? DON’T THEY NOTICE IT? I feel like asking S how come she doesn’t mind to have lived in this dump for the past 8 years, and didn’t she at any point want to move somewhere better, or this was sufficient for her in terms of living conditions? I don’t want to be mean, I’m just curious how their minds word, how they perceive things? Obviously so differently than me. She also bugs me because she never admits if she’s upset with you. She’s passive-aggressive instead or just tries to suppress it altogether. Which is unhealthy; no wonder she “felt like killing somebody” (citing her) when she was off of her pills.

My bank account bounced at -$650 a few days ago and I just noticed today, enough time for fucking “insufficient funds” fees to pile up on top of everything else. Normally I would cry in this situation but nothing came out as I was staring at the screen, so I calculated the damages instead. My housemate apparently cashed checks that had been piling up for the past two months that I had forgotten about - rent, gas, el. I wanted to go and yell at her but really what’s the point, just create additional tension for both of us.

I know what I’m gonna do in the morning - go to the bank and beg to waive the fees. But I don’t know what I’m gonna do after that. I have a box of cheap jewelry in the drawer… Silver, nothing golden unfortunately. Hmm. My financial situation has never been *that* desperate, and yet I don’t feel desperate in the comfort of my bedroom tonight. Oddly enough, I don’t feel like I’m capable of going out there and doing desperate things, not at all.

I’m doing something wrong, but only after I start doing the right thing I’ll realize what I’ve been doing wrong.

I’ve been joking lately how I have to find a rich husband asap. The 18-year-old emancipated Me would strangle the 25-year-old pragmatic (and, okay, slightly desperate) Me for bringing shame to Womankind, but a nice rich guy really wouldn’t be that bad right now. Judge me, I don’t care.