The Outlier

2024-02-16

I'm the outlier. I know that since I told you that outright, you'll probably call me a liar. Whether it be out of pity or plain truth, that's fine, I don't blame you. This is what I've been trained to do. I try to charm and please [with  ease], tease but appease, beam and gleam. I'll tell you exactly what you want to hear, and I'll do it nicely too. I will cater my words, thoughts, and actions to your exact demeanor, and I'll take the feedback and patch my act. Delete the bad parts, edit, fix. Swap, cut, throw in a joke, remix. However, most of the time it isn't enough. Whatever I say isn't up to snuff. It's subtle, but people will catch on, that I'm not quite the same, something's off. And I'm not oblivious, I see it too-- with the awkward silences and shifting stances-- but I don't have a clue why. Why am I the outlier? What am I doing wrong? I've studied your kind since I was younger than five, but I'm still decades of light years behind.

This whole thing, I've learned, is an intricate play, full of specific roles, cues and things to say. Of course, they're never outright specified. Instead, they're supplied in the lines of the script, which everyone gets. With every detail and tip written,  things go pretty smoothly.... Until you reach me--that's where things start to slip. See, I don't have a script. While they were printing them, they ran out of toner, and no one knows when a new one will ship. So here I am, standing on stage, left holding only the title page.

 Now, you'd think the others would give me a hand, but every time I peek at their script they snatch it, man. No help, no tips, no fun, no quips: just learn your lines and you'll be fine.

And, it doesn't help when you single me out, either. I'm sometimes perceived as dumber and weaker, when in reality, I'm the same, just without a script to seek through. They've got it easy, reading out their lines, yet I'm out here surviving despite it..

So, I don't have a script. Yep, I improvise. And after eighteen years I've had to revise my act countless times. I've become okay at this, no surprise. It's patchy, not perfect, but I can get my point across. I understand what's going on and I sometimes even appear wise. But there's a cost to this.

By the end of the day I'm nothing more than a beating heart and a pile of sticks. Why? Oh, my. Because doing this kills me.

It's akin to chemotherapy. I need to do it to succeed but it's also killing me. I need to speak, and be friendly, and engage, but it also means my whole world is a stage, and at this stage, I can't take it.

Is the stage worth it? Is it worth having that connection, having that marginal respect, just to feel cool, and be able to stay in? Am I cut out to be in this mould of social niceties, of rules and regulations, and of regular participation, or will the overwhelming information cause me to become insane?

Maybe I should just stay inside, and hide away. Then, nobody would have anything to say.