I don't pretend to be captain weird. I just do what I do. -- Johnny Depp

I've been giving it a lot of thought. Giving stuff a lot of thought is what I do. I give stuff a lot more thought than action. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that I'm weird.

I don't mean weird in that I'm-so-mysterious-no-one-else-is-like-me-or-could-ever-comprehend-me way. I mean more like, Why-is-that-girl-over-there-wearing-a-princess-crown-and-smelling-all-the-televisions-weird.

Most people do not make sense to me AT ALL. And, I am often upsetting to people, which I think means I don't make sense to them either. But, they don't say it that way. They say, "you're being a jerk right now and you owe everyone an apology." It confuses me.

Usually I dismiss people not understanding me as either their unwillingness to care whether I make sense or their inability to comprehend very obvious logic. But, in all my thinking about being weird, I realized that I might be the problem. Maybe I only make sense to me and perhaps to a select few people who are like me. (Honestly, I might not make sense to anyone, but a maybe a few people don't have it in their hearts to be able to tell me that I'm a lunatic about everything.)

Ric spent a long time explaining to me yesterday how the other humans think. He's super smart (maybe even as smart as me *wink*) so I tried to listen closely and ask lots of questions to get it clear. I determined I will have to learn LOTS of tricks to be able to figure people out. I think I've been working with very few tricks the last 40 years and, consequently, I travel in rather small social circles.

This might have continued for another 40 years had I not married into a unquestionably large social circle and I am surrounded often with lots of people who do stuff that makes perfect sense to all of them and no sense to me at all. My Connor has a tendency to get way too mad at people who haven't slighted him in any way (like someone sat in his chair when he got up and moved away from it, not realizing he'd want it back so he freaks out trying to get even with them.) What if this is why I get so hurt at stuff that makes 18 people look at me and say, "What is WRONG with you? Stop being a jerk."

I choose the word "weird" because it seems the most apt description. It doesn't trouble me. Ric is really against describing me as "weird" and says that if I'm off the curve somewhere, it's perhaps only slightly. But, you know, slightly can be very obvious sometimes. And slightly off over a long period of time can cause major course deviations.

Here's a for instance: Now and again a decision needs to be made with a group of people. Great. I know how to compromise. I can even compromise sometimes if other people's ideas have gaping flaws in them. I've learned how to humor people who are bad at thinking.

But, what if all the people are saying, "You know, I don't care WHAT we do about this situation. It doesn't matter to me." So, doesn't it make sense that if other people DON'T care and I actually DO have an opinion, that we should use my idea? I mean, if no one cares but me, then let's go ahead and please me. That makes sense doesn't it?

Well, in practical application it really never does. It seems that when people say they don't care, they often do care, they just don't say it. Why? Why wouldn't a person just say, "Hey, I kinda care about this, not enough to fight about it if it's a problem to anyone, but, this is what I'd want." Is that rude? I don't know. Ric says some people might think it's rude and so they pretend they don't care even when they really do care. Ric says a lot of people learn how to READ INTO the things that other people say and interpret the underlying meaning.


?????????????? Seriously? I thought that was only something that boys had to do because boys date girls. Since I don't date girls, I thought I'd be spared all the mind reading and interpretation of body language. Seems not. Bleh. Lots and lots and lots of tricks to learn.

Ric says this is also why sometimes people think I'm trying to start a fight or be difficult when I just say something flat out, like, "Hey, how come you did that? That seems like something a mean person would do. How come you're acting like a mean person?" When really I'm just looking for an explanation. [I actually have also tried asking much more gently and still sometimes people back off and stop speaking like if I'm trying to pick a fight.] Ric says this is because they think I'm saying MORE than I'm saying.

Wow, humans are hard. It's hard because most of the rest of them do seem to have it figured out. They don't seem to need any tricks. I think there are probably many other weirdys like me but they avoid people and read lots of books. (Forming an Odd Squad is actually not an idea that works, I think, because we all think WE don't belong in it and everyone else does.)

So, what to do with the information? Well, I don't know what a non-weirdy would do, but I think I should try to learn some tricks and maybe talk less.

[an interesting side here: When I talk less so that I don't accidentally say something horrible, it makes people think I'm mad at them. It takes a LOT of concentration for me to not be me and maybe concentration makes me look mad or maybe just the STARK change in me suddenly having nothing to say looks like mad, or maybe I'm doing something completely different that the humans interpret as mad and I have NO idea what it is.] Or maybe I'm flyin' kinda fast and loose with the word "interesting".

I need to remind myself that, no matter how much sense it all makes inside my head, the probability favors that I'm not getting it right.