in a crowd it's hard to spot him. or: she's a single face in the crowd.

for a long time i wanted to be a passionate personality. the kind of person who defies ambivalence, those people who embody the law of excluded middle.
“she’s the kind of person that either you love her or you hate her. there is no middle ground.”
the appeal of igniting such fervent responses was very keen. "any reaction is better than no reaction," i thought.

i have spent much of my life being invisible.
even my friends would sign my yearbook: “ you’re so smart. and quiet.”
at maximum, that’s all anyone ever knew about me.
at rock bottom were the boys in 7th grade who when i answered a question stared at me in disbelief: “you can talk?! i thought you were mute.”

i grew to hate being called smart. i grew to hate the number “34” (which is now only ever presented to my remembrance by one Julia who knows i hate it and forces it upon me merely to annoy.)
i am smart. school is my thing, it’s where i feel most comfortable. i like being smart. but i hated being categorized by that.

nowadays, the more people i meet, the more i recognize the fall in their face, the disbelief, the twinge of guilt or almost panic when i say, “i (too) went to brighton.” the bottom here was my friend, and i do mean friend, who said, “well, you must’ve become a lot more hip since then, haven’t you?”
to which i firmly replied, “no.”

in response to a different question, i don’t think i am any more myself now than i was in high school. i’m just more evident (as myself) to other people now.
how this happened i don’t rightly know.
it took a long time, a lot of self-doubt and subsequent shoring up of self-esteem. some of it was at the cost of social acceptability, i gave up on caring and was thus liberated to do whatever i wanted. and discovered i enjoyed my own company immensely.

taken under the wing of a disenchanted socialite, i learned how to navigate the shallower waters of sociability and make my “idiosyncrasies” more accessible to my peers.

now i have become a harmless eccentric, still widely unknown, but smiled upon indulgently when forced on people’s notice.
people recognize my purse or my shoes, and then associate them with me months later. this i don’t mind. it’s much better than being known merely as smart and quiet.

as i started becoming aware of different personalities around me, i found myself repeatedly attracted to the people you either love or hate. i would think of damon albarn telling me that "anonymity can cost; it's never cheap or cheerful." and think he was right. think he was singing my own feelings on the matter. i used to think of 10000 maniacs singing “your silence is my greatest fear” and think that it would be better to be hated because at least they knew who you were.
but i no longer wish for that.
i can’t take the hatred.



and, come to think of it, i don't think i could handle the attention very well either. i like the anonymity after all.