Nineteen

Why do we all have two faces, the one we see in our own mind, and the one we share with the public? Is it just that we've been raised to be polite while out in society, or all the "to do unto others" bullshit we learned growing up? Why do we all rarely say or do what we're actually thinking? Why do we wear fake smiles when we're at the counter at McDonald's ordering a number one? Why is it inappropriate to say move your slow ass you stupid bitch and get me my fries now! When we meet a super hot guy why don't we look at him and say wow, let's have some sexy time right now- why do we coyly wait until the tenth date to say what we really felt on that first night? I know some people never learn to behave properly, that little switch inside of them never fully engages to the on position, and they grow up to be serial killers, or Republicans. We've all heard that phrase, children say the darnedest things, and when your three-year-old tells you, Mommy you stink, you think it's cute and you smile and laugh. But let your husband say the same thing to you, you get hysterical and want to slap him. Why is that? Why is it cute when a kid says something that is completely inappropriate for an adult to say? At a recent family gathering, we were playing a board game where we had to shout out words to fit into a story. The youngest child there shouted out "rectum!" and we all howled with laughter, but had one of the adults said that word there would have been outraged gasps and they would have been shunned for life. Why is being obviously truthful with people sometimes the most painful choice? Once a friend of mine and her small daughter were out, and they ran into another mutual friend of ours. The daughter looked at the other woman and said loudly "Wow lady, you are SO fat!" Both women were stunned, and my girlfriend wanted to die of embarrassment. But it was true, our friend was around 400 pounds. Surely she knew she was fat, no skinny jeans in this gal's closet. But for obvious reasons the mother was horrified and apologized and reprimanded her small child. As for me, I laughed my ass off when I heard the story, because I could just imagine the three of them all standing there on the sidewalk outside of K-Mart, where this happened. Film that scene and throw it on a hidden camera show or reality TV, and everyone else out there would have busted a gut laughing too. But it wasn't polite, and it wasn't appropriate, and it was very hurtful to the person it was said to. My girlfriend wasn't a horrible mother, she just hadn't gotten around to explaining the ways of the world to her little girl. That same child would one day grow up and learn that is wasn't okay to say things like that to people, and that "the truth hurts". Why is that? And why can't most of us take it? Most of us eventually start to understand exactly what "those things" are, we know what to say and what not to, in order to keep the peace with those around us. With X, I eventually started saying what was really on my mind, and where did it get me? In huge fights, in a courtroom getting divorced. Is that because I would raise my voice back at him, or because whenever he called me a stupid whore I would scream back at him he was a worthless bastard? With A things are so different, he is so different, he thinks deeply before he speaks, he's never hurtful to anyone. Is this the real him? Or is he just holding it all in, not wanting to be truthful because he knows it would upset me if he really told me how he felt when he comes home at night and I still haven't folded the pile of laundry sitting in the basket? But I am the same way with him. Whenever he gently teases me about something I make sure I laugh appropriately, when inside I'm wondering oh my god does my hair really look that frizzy today or is he just picking at me? Whenever A leaves in the morning to go to work and tells me to have a nice day, I always answer with a smile plastered on my face, not because that's how I'm feeling but because I know that's what he really wants to see, that's what will make him feel better about me. He doesn't see the real me, just my false face, the one I reserve for him. I make certain to remain in happy mode, because if he sees one slight slump of the shoulders, he'll suddenly feel bad because he upset me, and I don't want to make him feel bad, so the cycle just plays itself out. Now that I'm middle-aged in my 40's, I recognize that it's not cute for me to say, you are so stupid to someone, even though that's what I feel. A lot of us also hide our beliefs from others, or we talk around certain subjects, for fear of hurting or insulting the other person. When we do voice our true feelings, it oftentimes can lead to horrible fights or worse, we are misunderstood. In conversations with my mother on the phone, I hold back about 80% of what I really want to say to her, because she can sense the slightest of sarcasm or anger in my voice, and she gets her nose bent out of shape. So our conversations are very shallow and to me, wasteful. How do I tell her that I hate talking to her on the phone, that I think her life is boring and I don't want to spend 30 minutes listening about it, that I really don't want to know about her friends' whatever whatever, that whenever she talks to me I am actually holding the phone away from my ear and listening to Law and Order instead of her blah blah blah? But I remain polite and say un-huh in the right places, because I don't want to hurt her feelings by telling her that I'm really not interested and I have to hang up now. Hell, I'm even polite to those asshole telemarketers, because that's how I was raised when I really want to say fuck no I don't want to enroll in free credit card fraud protection for my Visa. Instead I say no thank you. My parents are devoted Christians, so we never talk about my atheism, even though my father's father was one as well all of his life. All the years I was married to X, I never once even hinted to family or friends that he smoked pot and stayed high. Only once we were getting a divorce did I tell everyone, always ashamed to before- afraid of their reactions that I would stay married to him. I gave his pot smoking as the reason for the divorce, and everyone nodded their heads in strong agreement. The real reason was I had stopped loving him and that I despised him for a whole host of wrongs, but trying to make others understand it would have been too burdensome. It was easier for me to say, and for them to hear, it's because he's a drug addict. I worked with a woman who had an enormous ass, just disproportionally so, and she would wear tight shiny silver pants or camouflage jeans to work, and everyone in the office wanted to say, what the fuck are you wearing, do you know how awful you look? But not one of us ever did, to her face of course, because we talked about it like crazy behind her back. That brings up the subject of gossip. Why do we say to others stuff about someone, that we won't say straight out to that other person's face? Why did I listen to one girlfriend natter away about how she was spending her son's child support check on the Margarita mixes and decorations for their weekend party, sit and grin and nod politely and say sure I understand, when inside I was burning with disgust and as soon as possible I would run to my best friend down the hall and spill the story, saying can you believe she is so fucked up and crazy? Why didn't I say that to the girl telling me the story? Why didn't I say, damn woman you are insane, listen to yourself! It was how I felt, but it would have hurt her, even pissed her off. And I didn't want to do that. Why? Maybe it's because that, no matter how much we deny it to ourselves, we really do worry about what others think of us, that we want to be seen as a likable person? That we really want the girl taking our McDonald's order to think, wow, what a nice lady? We don't know her, and by next week she'll have moved on and up to working at Wal-Mart, so we probably will never see her again. Why do we care what she thinks of us? And those that don't care, the ones who do show their real faces in public, are seen as rude or messed up or lacking the proper social skills. When in fact, they are just being authentic. What if we were all authentic? It would be World War III.