I am so blank.

I am so afraid.

I'll pick out little objects around the room. The more interesting, the better. It's a corkscrew with a little slide out bottle opener? Oh, that's so cool, where can I get one? Is that a new TV? I had no idea you could install apps on them, now. My, your couch is so comfortable, did you really get it from Ikea? My eyes dart here and there around the room, picking out interesting little things that will distract the person I'm talking to if I start to delve too deep. Something I can bring up quickly. Something I can pretend to notice and marvel over until whoever I'm talking to forgets that I was finally about to open up to them. Other people prefer talking about their own lives anyway.

I am so confused.

I stand up straight, I look at your eyes, I do not try to speak. You are talking. You are explaining something, or asking me to do something, and I'd like to allow you to finish your thought. You pause for a moment, and give me a strange look. I'm about to ask what's wrong, but then you start talking again, slower this time. Strange, considering the urgency you showed before, but I'm in no particular rush if you aren't. I continue to listen. You're repeating yourself now. I wonder if you realize you're doing that, but I'm patient enough to let that slide and allow you to finish. Finally, another pause, and then you begin explaining-- in detail-- something you just said. A word, usually. Something I've known the meaning of for years. I'll interrupt you now, because your lack of faith in my intelligence is insulting. Of course I know what you mean, what makes you think I didn't?

"Well, you weren't saying anything," you respond.

I am so hateful.

My entire life, I have been taught not to objectify women. I was taught not to degrade them, not to abuse them, and not to emotionally manipulate them. I was taught that each and every woman has a beautiful heart, soul, and mind. That women should be cherished and adored. That their work and their voices are important to humanity. That they shouldn't be reduced to their body, and that they are never, under any circumstances, a sex toy. I've been taught that men and women work best when they work together. That men and women should lift each other up instead of tearing each other down. I was taught, from a very young age, that every woman deserves the utmost respect. Each one of these moral certainties was taught to me by the Catholic Church, an organization I've since been "informed" is hellbent on waging war against womanhood as a whole.

I am so creepy.

I'll analyze everything you said to me as I fall asleep that night. Were you trying to make some sort of implication with that statement? Did you disregard my response because you didn't care what I had to say, or because I reminded you of something you care about much more deeply? Were you, dare I say it, flirting with me? I'll analyze every word, every inflection, every face you made while we were talking and try to convince myself the conversation went well. This is necessary, because by the time I'm lying in bed, analyzing everything you said, I've already gone over everything I said. I went over it on the bus-ride home. God, why did I say that? How could I have said it better? Would you have responded differently to that? Could we have taken the conversation in a different direction? What if we had? Would things have gone better? Worse? And somewhere in the middle of all of this rumination, I glance around the bus, notice the people staring at me, and clamp my mouth shut. I hadn't even realized that I was muttering every sentence I could have said to you under my breath. 

I am so blank.

They've got that smile on their face, oh God. That kind of guilty smile, the one where they're about to say something mildly offensive that will probably be much more entertaining (to them) than it is offensive (to me). And then they say it, maybe with different words, but always with the same structure--

"You know, you're much smarter than I thought. No, really, I kind of thought you were an idiot when I met you. I mean, I know now that you aren't, but..."

And they expect me to take it lightly. Outwardly, I do. They don't think that way of me anymore, why should I express my anger? But I'll ask them, still, what made them think that. They never know. They're never able to tell me. It was just something about the way I acted. I don't act smart, you see, so it's not so obvious. They start to assure me after that. It's a good thing, really! To be consistently mistaken for an idiot, yes, I can certainly see why that's a "good thing." Sure. And as they power through their half-assed explanation of my apparent dim-wittedness, I can't help but notice their whimsical, nervous smile that hasn't quite gone away, and I start to wonder what my face looks like when I'm talking to people.