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Changing Faces...
Feb. 22nd, 2004 02:41 pmIf all the world's a stage, then our lives are a collection of plays to be performed, and we ourselves are actors putting on different masks for different scripts.
I've been kinda mulling over that idea today, thinking about the different faces everyone presents in certain situations. I can pull out bouncy sunshiny day girl at the drop of the hat no matter how shitty I'm feeling if I absolutely need to. I'm sullen, withdrawn and completely antisocial amidst my blood family, a basket case around people I trust not to make fun of me for it, a psycho bitch when the occasion presents itself. But then you start wondering who you are for real, not realizing that the answer is all of these and more. I guess that's why I don't like the expression "two faced." We are all different people to different audiences, I suppose.
It's sort of interesting getting different perspectives on someone you know from the other people who know them. You find out new stuff that you wouldn't necessarily have experienced yourself, some surprising, some not, some that's merely startling. I've been thinking about that lately, during the whole maelstrom that is my life right now, the faces I present to the world, wondering what would happen if everyone who knew me well got into a room and told their story what would surprise people, what would disgust people.... Like the whole Orson Scott Card Ender's Game/Speaker for the Dead thing. It wasn't a carefully sanitized account of the person's life - the Speaker's purpose was ultimately the truth, and so was bound to tell the good the bad and the ugly about a person, even if the truth was hard to hear for some of the audience. And so, to get a balanced and unbiased persepctive, the Speaker would interview everyone who knew the deceased, be they friend or enemy.
On Wednesday, during my random day off, I wandered in the sunshine over by UMass in casual pursuit of the other chick![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
timarok sees while he was home. She had been someone I was curious about for a while, but had no real way of contacting her until I put two and two together from the conversational hints I'd gotten talking to him and looked her up. Didn't catch up with her that day, but did manage to get her email address out of the deal, so I dropped her a line later that evening, and we started emailing back and forth and agreed to get together for coffee this morning.
The experience was a bit of an eye opener. I was glad to meet her finally and draw my own conclusions about her in general. She reminds me of a whole bunch of people I've known in my life - a couple of good friends I had in high school, a girl in our circle at Smith who she looks a lot like... and she puts on a far different facade than the one she has for him, which was interesting and unexpected. I spent much of the date just listening to her talk, fascinated. And of course she was a different perspective on the boy, which ran parallel to my experience of him from the most part, some of it more surprising.
There's this quote from My So-Called Life that Angela says to Brian thatharinezumi used to quote at me - "Everyone's an act. Even you." It's fascinating, really. The most hardcore bitch in the universe turns out to be the most loyal friend in the universe to those she's let get close enough. The philandering asshole winds up having a heart of gold. The sunny bouncy cheerleader turns out to be an evil manipulative type A with a future career in astrophysics. You think you know people and then they surprise you yet again with either something good or something horrendous...
Moral of story, don't judge books by their covers, or even by one or two people's reviews of them. See for yourself and draw your own conclusions. What you find out may surprise you. But keep in mind, there may be more story beneath the surface.
I've been kinda mulling over that idea today, thinking about the different faces everyone presents in certain situations. I can pull out bouncy sunshiny day girl at the drop of the hat no matter how shitty I'm feeling if I absolutely need to. I'm sullen, withdrawn and completely antisocial amidst my blood family, a basket case around people I trust not to make fun of me for it, a psycho bitch when the occasion presents itself. But then you start wondering who you are for real, not realizing that the answer is all of these and more. I guess that's why I don't like the expression "two faced." We are all different people to different audiences, I suppose.
It's sort of interesting getting different perspectives on someone you know from the other people who know them. You find out new stuff that you wouldn't necessarily have experienced yourself, some surprising, some not, some that's merely startling. I've been thinking about that lately, during the whole maelstrom that is my life right now, the faces I present to the world, wondering what would happen if everyone who knew me well got into a room and told their story what would surprise people, what would disgust people.... Like the whole Orson Scott Card Ender's Game/Speaker for the Dead thing. It wasn't a carefully sanitized account of the person's life - the Speaker's purpose was ultimately the truth, and so was bound to tell the good the bad and the ugly about a person, even if the truth was hard to hear for some of the audience. And so, to get a balanced and unbiased persepctive, the Speaker would interview everyone who knew the deceased, be they friend or enemy.
On Wednesday, during my random day off, I wandered in the sunshine over by UMass in casual pursuit of the other chick
timarok sees while he was home. She had been someone I was curious about for a while, but had no real way of contacting her until I put two and two together from the conversational hints I'd gotten talking to him and looked her up. Didn't catch up with her that day, but did manage to get her email address out of the deal, so I dropped her a line later that evening, and we started emailing back and forth and agreed to get together for coffee this morning. The experience was a bit of an eye opener. I was glad to meet her finally and draw my own conclusions about her in general. She reminds me of a whole bunch of people I've known in my life - a couple of good friends I had in high school, a girl in our circle at Smith who she looks a lot like... and she puts on a far different facade than the one she has for him, which was interesting and unexpected. I spent much of the date just listening to her talk, fascinated. And of course she was a different perspective on the boy, which ran parallel to my experience of him from the most part, some of it more surprising.
There's this quote from My So-Called Life that Angela says to Brian that
harinezumi used to quote at me - "Everyone's an act. Even you." It's fascinating, really. The most hardcore bitch in the universe turns out to be the most loyal friend in the universe to those she's let get close enough. The philandering asshole winds up having a heart of gold. The sunny bouncy cheerleader turns out to be an evil manipulative type A with a future career in astrophysics. You think you know people and then they surprise you yet again with either something good or something horrendous...Moral of story, don't judge books by their covers, or even by one or two people's reviews of them. See for yourself and draw your own conclusions. What you find out may surprise you. But keep in mind, there may be more story beneath the surface.
