I work best as a hermit.

Where do people learn to create that “normal” filter that allows them to keep to pleasantly impersonal chit chat? I listen to them talk and they mete out these tiny little details that are just enough to make them seem relatable but tell you nothing about how they feel or think. They do that laughing thing that doesn’t reach their eyes and that nice thing that sounds like good people from a distance. They are acceptable, accepted. Comfortable members of the comfortable tribe. It feels like watching animals at the zoo. I don’t know how to do that. I am all of me exactly as I am or I am nothing. I have to communicate more now. I know it’s better if I don’t get too unused to it or I start freaking out when I come to a place where I have no choice. If I’m going to be weird, I’d rather be authentically weird than just downright mental. Sometimes there is no ideal choice. So I talk, I interact. I let my heart bleed when someone is struggling. I say the words that tumble through my mind and call it a success when I manage to stay on topic. I hear the pauses, see the frozen smiles. In a way, it shows me who the flexible ones are. The ones who don’t mind interacting with those on the other side of the glass. I can’t tell if they can only tolerate me in small doses or if that’s all I can stand to give and they sense that. It also shows me the inflexible ones. The short and condescending. The ones that hurt because I feel too vulnerable to begin with. I wonder if this isn’t just daily life for us all to varying degrees. If everyone else is as raw as I am, but I can’t see it through my own noise. In that way I suppose we’re all on our own. Sigh. I do what I need to do, but I tell you, mostly I just prefer being nothing over all.