I'm going to wax personal at you: I have never been popular. I am not even good at being popular. I remember going to a summer party back in 2005 and this girl I went to HS with was like, "OMG, B. I can't believe you're being so nice to me. I always thought you hated me." and I was like, "Derp?! lulz. No, never." (and it's true, I never hated this girl, and she just shrugged and was like, "Well I was just pretty sure you hated everyone." My head probably tilted like a pinball machine and I almost 100% definitely pouted. However, this was not a new phenomena in my life, in Kindergarten my teacher had to call my mom because some girl ran home crying because I vehemently refused to play with her. I never offered an explanation as to why. PS. I still don't know why, sorry, girl. I hope you don't hold it against me and somehow in the future have the ability to influence my life in a negative way and opt for vengeance.
I do have a lot of popular friends. I have always had well-loved friends and have lingered like a creep on the fringes of their social groups silently judging those I didn't like and wistfully wishing that the ones I did like would be nice to me. Unfortunately, my 'I don't like you and am silently judging you face' and my 'Plz come play wif me' faces are strikingly similar and I am oft misunderstood (FYI, I also look like that when I am trying to get something out of my teeth, so sometimes I'm not doing anything except eating). Anyway, I have always been a tiny bit jealous of my friends who always know a bazillion people and everyone remembers their birthdays and wants to say "hi". This envy has never paralyzed me or made me feel lonely and in fact I feel that my inability to be nice to everyone has actually given me a beneficial position in life. I am only surrounded by the people I chose to be and by god they better live up to my insanely high standards of friendship, valor and zombie fighting.
The problem is this: when I do become liked or slightly popular at a certain place, I become ferocious. I mean, I go ballistically Regina George, I get jealous of new people who enter the room, I sulk when someone gets more attention than me, I over compensate by talking loudly and flailing my arms...it's embarrassing and I get mean. What? Why? I have no freaking idea. I could blame it on my only childhood but I was never attention starved. I could hypothesize that it's because I have, on numerous occasions been mortified by people I pledged an unyielding loyalty to, because every time I make a friend I make a promise of Musketeer style loyalty (It's kind of creepy and often not reciprocated and then you are little black Xs over your eyes in all of our pictures dead to me). It could be because I never really looked like a child just a small, very creepy adult Anyway, there are a bunch of fingers I could point and a million savage tears I could cry but I don't like to place undue blame anywhere.
The point is: it's a personal problem and I clearly need to work on my people skills. This is kind of wedding related because if I teeter on "Judgy Face" and "Attention Starved Rapid Chipmunk" then my guests will probably hate me all day. I also need to get a grip otherwise I will probably cry myself to sleep if we prove not to be the most awesome trivia team of all time in Sweet Ups' finals on the 27th. I feel like the bartenders there genuinely like me and that gives me heartburn - I don't want to let them down. If we don't win, we will no longer be the center of attention, we'll have been abandoned, everyone will judge us instead of us having the ability and right to judge them. Is my point coming across? I am nuerotically inappropriate with this! And yes! It has to do with something so frivolous as popularity. Over the years I have tried to adapt to be all like, "I don't care" exterior and to an extent it's true, I honestly don't care about most people's opinions. But, but, but...the other team was so snarky to us! I never want them to win a danged thing in their entire lives! You see? It's a vicious cycle.
OK. I think I'm done. I'm sorry if this sounds really stupid or whiny. It's just how I feel right now.
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