A Generous Helping of Self-Esteem at Near-28, Thanks to DC

I’ve never been a particularly outgoing person–as I a child, I was highly self-conscious and horribly shy, to the point where I would hide behind my father so that Barney from The Flinstones couldn’t wave to me at Canada’s Wonderland (though, to be fair, all kids are a little afraid of those life-sized, puffy characters). While I have worked on it a bit, it takes me a while to truly come out of my shell and be a bit more vocal. Oh, I think sometimes, will they think I’m an idiot? Will they absolutely disdain every little thing I have to say? Why is it that I can’t interact with anyone normally? I’m a freak, an outcast!

Of course, that’s not really true.

Living in DC has forced me to be a bit more outgoing. My job requires that I be aggressive, a quick thinker, and a people-person. I have to make people feel at ease and comfortable, and though small talk has never been my strong suit, I’m slowly but surely getting better at it. While I wasn’t a total recluse by the time I got here, the environment (fast-paced, decisive, and somtimes high-stakes) requires that I elevate my level of comfortable interaction with people. I’ve also made it a personal goal to be able to start the small talk–I’m notoriously bad at saying anything until someone else does, and I find that this is not always going to be the case or help me with my ambitions. I have to put forth the effort, I sometimes have to make the first move. No one will think I’m an idiot, and someone might actually appreciate the talk. Hell, just by telling someone that I’d meet up with them to escort them to a meeting got me major bonus points both with the person and with the head of the meeting. People are starting to love me.

Socially, I’m slowly but surely coming out of my shell. Even my boyfriend has noticed that I’ve been more of a talker (even if I do end up acting like a little kid at the end of the night sometimes ;) )–I surprised myself the other night by approaching a woman whose name I didn’t know just to gush over the book she had in her hands. It was, I have to say, fun to connect over a little thing like that. And while we’re not friends for life, it does give my self-esteem a bit of a boost to know I can do that and not walk away feeling like a total idiot. I’m starting to feel comfortable around strangers, less awkward and certainly more willing to break the ice than wait for it to be broken. I can let my limited wit have free reign, I can let people see that I am interesting to talk to and can be clever; it’s okay to be a smart ass, since most people will like it. Maybe one day I will reach my goal of having friends who are smart asses.

While reading another Sarah Vowell book (yes, I’m a new fan–thanks, Jon Stewart!), she mentioned that having a geek or a nerd or someone who’s simply smart around makes others uncomfortable, and to regain some sort of level of preceived superiority, the smart person must be brought down a notch or two–it’s a way for the jock or the not-as-smart person to re-establish their sense of equilibrium. She used Al Gore versus George Bush in the 2000 election as an example, and it’s so true. Issues aside, I like Gore personally for his utter geekiness, and I agree that if he had been self-deprecating about his intelligence rather than try to deny it on some level, then he might have solidly won the election (which, I know, he did popularly and probably even electorally, but never misunderestimate the power of brotherhood and crookedness and the desire to finish what Daddy started). The pre-emptive putdowns always disarm the jock (who, as you can guess, is George Dumbya Bush) so that they can’t get the final word or make fun of the other person’s intelligence–it’s all been done, so there’s nowhere else for the jock to hit. And while you might be thinking that it’s pretty poor of me to put down Bush when I’m discussing jocks putting down nerds, remember that I don’t feel like he’s a complete idiot or totally clueless (though he’s no genius)–I do think that he is probably a mean, mean person and ice-cold to the core, and definitely a sucky-ass extemporaneous speaker.

But it’s so true, this trying-to-bring-down-the-smart-person theory. The person doing the putdown knows, in their heart of hearts, that there is something that they don’t know that they feel they should know, but instead of conceding the point, they make fun. I’ve often felt that my friends, the majority of them, are like this. I’m not exactly Miss Highbrow, but I do know a lot of things in comparison to them. Their levels of dedication don’t exactly match mine–when you get an email complaining about English grammar that misspells a few words and doesn’t have cohesive sentence structure, you’re not exactly on the same level. But regardless of school-learnin’ (see what I did there?), most of my friends just don’t appreciate my erudite wit and amazing insights–when I make fun of Desperate Housewives, they’re going to come back with something insulting my geekiness. Which is okay because I’d rather be made fun of than watch Desperate Housewives, but the inane conversation does get to me after a while. However, it’s all made me a bit guarded, and showing flashes of intelligence around them is rare–I’d rather keep my mouth shut than start a war of words that’ll just leave them mad and, though it’ll prove my brain’s prowess, will leave me friendless, if only for a little while.

I’ve always struggled with the friends I have because they don’t appreciate my intelligence, and I don’t appreciate their attempts to get me to “let go” and like the “silly stuff.” While I firmly believe that they like what they’re told to by the media, they’re also just out to have fun. That’s okay, too, but their efforts to get me to subscribe to that way of life are futile. That’s why I want (coming back to my point from paragraph four) friends who are smart and smart asses. Who care about more than shopping and TV and music (which is also okay–I love some of that stuff, but it’s not all I want to talk about). People I can have ordinary, odd, or fun conversations with, who don’t mind me displaying some of the Med/Ren/Early Mod stuff I’ve learned over the years–people who’ll shoot back with something I don’t know anything about, but which I don’t mind learning about. I like taking an interest in what my friends do, if it’s worthwhile and not a conventional TV show–part of the reason why my boyfriend and I get along so well is that we can put up with each other’s sarcastic and overly-educated selves without wanting to kill one another. He can talk about roadside geology during our road trips and I can talk about “Titus Andronicus’” use of canabalism on a Saturday morning, and neither of us will roll our eyes or scoff at what the other knows. I’d like to have some friends like that, too.

For now, though, it’s enough to start to come out of my Michigan-built shell and not be afraid to show I can be interesting. DC is offering me that opportunity in a way that the midwest never did. Here, I don’t stick out like a sore thumb because of my book smarts or my ethnicity (that’s another story, though)–where I’m from and what I know doesn’t seem to be much of an issue, and it allows me to tiptoe forward out of the niche that was carved for me many years ago. Not only work-wise (which will get me the experience and accolades I need to move my wanted success forward), but socially, I should get to the point where I’m trading barbs with friends who are just as sarcastic and snotty as I am. I just need to make the effort to find the friends–if and when I ever get into a routine (also another story), I guess I’ll do that.