So I have a strange observation about myself. Maybe it’s all in my head maybe it’s not. When I was a kid I had what I believed was a strange knack for putting on a mask during stressful social interactions. Specifically to certain people. People I deem better than me or above me or something. So basically teachers and adults. I was able to say what they wanted to hear and express what they wanted to see. I didn’t really think about what I was doing. It was like autopilot. I said things I didn’t really mean and showed emotions I didn’t really have. One of the more significant moments was during my final interview for Eagle Scout. I actually posted about it way back when. I didn’t believe I deserved it. I knew that my achievements weren’t my own. I knew that if I got it, it would become one of my greatest shames. But I did and said everything they wanted to hear, even though I felt none of it. The post I was talking about detailed the anger and frustration I had the entire time I was there. How I wanted to scream that I didn’t deserve it. And my immense hatred I had for myself when I shook their hands. As I grew up I found that I had lost that ability. Talking to professors and TAs felt more difficult. Like I couldn’t bullshit them even if I wanted to. To be honest I was glad I lost that ability. I despise lying about myself to seem as if I’m actually something. But lately I think I’ve been feeling that same mask sensation. I hate being around my lab mates. I want nothing to do with them. But lately I’ve noticed that when I have prolonged conversations with them, I don’t act like myself. What I’m saying is still my own thoughts and not bullshit, but how I carry myself seems different. It’s affable. This is such a strange topic to post about. Not really hopeless or angry or anything like that. But it was strangely on my mind.
I guess to add to this, but I hate talking to my lab mates. Feel like a total dumbass every time I’m near them. I’m not good at communicating my thoughts. My genuine thoughts. Being alone 95% of the time will do that. When all you have is your thoughts, you forget that other people don’t have your frame of reference. Obvious things to you are obvious because you thought them up. The process to get there anyways. I had to talk to one of my labmates to try to figure out this stupid math problem. BTW my problem was I didn’t have a negative somewhere. What a shocker. Talking to her I get this mask effect I was talking about. She’s easier to do it with because she’s probably the most friendly. I tend to avoid conversations entirely with most of the others. So for an hour I’m floundering trying to get my idiotic thoughts out, showing her what were essential a child’s scribbles that were supposed to be drawings and equations. She’s probably the friendliest to me, which isn’t saying much. But even I can tell she views me as lesser. Or at least in my head that is. She made a good rational suggestion at the end of whatever that hour was supposed to be. To clearly write my process down so people understand easier. The most simplest of concepts. It’s a correct suggestion. Completely logical. But at the same time it felt so condescending. It really shouldn’t be. It’s the correct choice. The obvious way to do things. The way any competent engineer would operate. Yet I was too stupid to do that from the beginning. I know she did not mean for it to feel that way. She was being nice and gave a suggestion. It’s more of my own perception of myself that made it feel so condescending. I know that logically speaking, I do not take up much space in any of their heads. Not important enough to even have anything more than a surface level opinion of. Something that could be boiled down to 3 sentences or less. It makes sense. Not like I work closely with any of them or go out of my way to talk to them. Hell I’m surprised some of them even remember my name. I don’t with certain people. So the idea that they would even consider me lesser would suggest they have any thoughts about me at all. Which simply isn’t true. Now for the nice one, the advisor, and the programmer I’ve talked to enough to where they have already fully grasped the magnitude of my stupidity. They know to not use big words around me cause big words confuse me. To say “Wow that’s something” when I hand them the engineering equivalent of a child’s crayon drawing. So when they state the obvious like “write clearly”, I can’t help but feel as if they are speaking to a child. And the funny thing is those scribbles in my notebook was my lazy attempt to write clearly.