Texty

This piece about unflattering photos feels especially relevant to me today, as I'm sorting through vacay pix to find some I feel comfortable posting.

As is the case with most of our travel pics, I'm behind the camera, and 90% of the photos are of landscapes, buildings, etc., with M in a few of them. The majority of our travel photosets don't have me in them at all. It's almost like I wasn't even there, since there's no telling who was wielding the camera. There are plenty of pics of me on Flickr, but most are carefully edited and chosen shots I did myself. No candids. No photos of me actually doing something or being somewhere. And almost none of them are fully public--friends/family only. I avoid being photographed so much it's like I'm attempting to erase myself from my own life.

When I bought photo shoot tickets for Collectormania, I did so because I wasn't sure whether there would be a proper chance for an autograph or any other one-on-one contact with the folks in question, not because I actually wanted a photo of myself with them. They're so beautiful that it seemed like putting me in the pic with them would be somehow blasphemous. I got the photo anyway, largely because I promised someone I'd do a photo shout-out for her. The pic of me is decent, as that goes, but I still don't want to scan it in, because the contrast of how gorgeous they are with ... well ... me ... is just so stark.

As the person in the link above noted, though: I look like that. Flattering or no, and allowances for the odd physics of 2D stills considered, those images of me are more or less what people see when they see me in person. I've not yet become a complete hermit (though I seem to be aiming that way) so other people do see my physical existence regularly. But that's not really by choice. Who I am as a person is so detached from my concept of what I physically look like that they're entirely incongruous to me. Given the choice, I'd rather present myself in a way that reflects who I am, rather than what I look like.

But, some might argue, aren't those the same thing? Isn't what I look like part of who I am? Well, insomuch as it's influenced how I've developed as a person, yes. But that's not necessarily a good thing. My physical self has earned me so much horrific abuse that all I've built from it is a crapload of internal scar tissue. My desire, therefore, to ignore it as much as possible should be understandable. And when I tell people who try to encourage me to live in my own skin, and be more present physically to fuck the hell off, they need to understand why I say that. Only people who are chronically clueless or have been blessed enough by the genetic fairy that they don't get abused by strangers for how they look would think there's merit in that. You may as well tell someone with terrible allergies that they should get out and smell the flowers in spring.

I'm an odd duck: a vaguely post-modern realist. As I've argued about other things before, I recognize cultural and social constructs for what they are--malleable, changeable and in no way biologically essential--but I also acknowledge that just because a thing is built by humans rather than naturally grown doesn't mean it doesn't exist. A building is entirely a human construction, and just as it has been assembled where it is, so can it be dismantled. Yet it's still a very real thing, it still affects its environment, and it still changes, in ways both large and small, the people who encounter it.

The social constructs we have around gender and physical appearance aren't inherent and unchangeable, no matter how much quack evolutionary psychologists may like to argue otherwise. But that doesn't mean they don't exist, or that they don't have the power to do harm. Much as a well-meaning parent might try to teach a child that beauty is only skin-deep, and looks don't matter, and it's what's inside that counts, the reality of life in a gender-stratified environment in which appearance is commodified means that yes, looks DO matter, especially for girls and women. They shouldn't matter, and children should of course learn not to judge people on things over which they have no control, appearance among them, but they also should learn that other people WILL make those judgments. And that those judgments can, in some cases, do some fairly serious damage. If you want your kid to come out without too much of that damage, you help them learn how to avoid it. It's just like teaching a kid about crime. You teach them not to steal, and that stealing is a bad thing, but you also teach them to lock up their valuables, because other people steal whether they're supposed to or not. No, I don't want my kid living under a cloud of paranoia, and the onus of responsibility for abuse lies with the abuser, but I also have a responsibility to keep my kid safe as much as possible--and that includes teaching them how to avoid becoming a target for the world's awful people.

So, this is why I don't make many pics of myself public. I know my looks don't define who I am, but I also know other people will define me that way, and that most of the people who do will judge me a lesser creature, and someone worthy of torment, because of them. Anyone worth my time, energy and affection won't abuse me that way, of course, but as I can't live life surrounded entirely by only those people, I still have to make adjustments to avoid the jerks who will. I don't personally think that being fat or having an unattractive face makes me a bad person. I think I'm a very good person, in fact. But I'm not stupid. I know other people do think that, and that if they're given enough of an opportunity, they'll do anything they can to make my life miserable. It's a form of closeting, of course, but it's an essential one. Just as I wouldn't be stupid enough to out myself as queer in a rural town full of violence-prone holy rollers, neither am I going to go pasting my picture everywhere that the attack dogs of the intarweebs are going to see it. I've already been the victim of some pretty hardcore bullying, both online and off. Why on earth would I voluntarily open myself up to more of that? If other people want to martyr themselves like that, fair enough. I'm not going to be happy about pressure to do so myself.

So, no. I'm not going to post vacation pics of myself in public spaces, and when someone does post an unflattering pic of me, I'll ask them to untag it or otherwise make it less obvious who the person in the pic is. People who know me already will know my face, and know that's me. Strangers don't need to connect that face with my name, because far too many of them will use that knowledge to hurt me. I've been hurt enough already. Sue me if I'm trying to avoid suffering any more.

Thanks to a link from darkhorse_99, I took this empathy quiz, which is apparently related somewhat to ASDs. Got a 28--on the high side of low. For the record, I've taken similar quizzes before for Aspie markers, and scored in the "yeah, probably" range, so I can't say as it's surprising. But I also think, in my case at least, the results may be a little misleading.

First off, a lack of understanding nonverbal cues in communication isn't the same thing as a lack of understanding of emotion, and definitely not the same thing as lacking compassion. I'm actually incredibly sensitive to others' pain and joy, even if I'm not great at reading subtleties in individual situations. I get that some ASD folks are low-emotion to begin with, and therefore don't have a good point of reference to use for empathy, but that's definitely not the case for me. Hell, I'm a big ol' bleeding-heart progressive. Hardly someone who's incapable of caring for others who are experiencing a crisis, even if they're different from me and I don't know exactly what they're going through.

Secondly, preferring plain-spoken communication to passive, coded stuff doesn't make me a bad person. It just means I'm nowhere near fluent in Cisgendered American Woman. This often leads to major social weirdness when I'm with women who expect me to speak their language; I'm interpreted as cold or rude when I'm actually just communicating more like a guy.

Also, I'm perfectly fine with reading people so long as I'm just an observer. I'd even say I'm pretty good at it. It's only when you put me in the middle of it that that goes out the window. I get very wound up in trying to monitor my own feelings and behavior (given that I'm chronically un-self-aware) and then my ADD kicks in, and can't sort through the mountains of incoming data to get to the important bits. If I'm just doing chitchat/banter with someone who's good at it, I'm fine. Same with situations where I'm in a leadership position, and people are predisposed to listening to me babble (lectures, performing, answering questions, etc.) It's when I'm in a personal social situation and we get beyond initial small talk that things get weird for me, because I don't have a road map for that.

FWIW, if I'm with someone I know well, and am already familiar with their personal language (and they also know not to expect me to talk Girl), then I'm fine. Also helps that I'm less worried about major consequences if I screw something up. I figure if someone's been friends with me for at least a couple of years and haven't dumped me yet for something wonky that escaped my big mouth, then we're good. ;)

It is frustrating for me that this isn't easier. I'm such a social person that knowing I'm so bad at the intitial getting-to-know-you dance makes me want to scream sometimes. But I spose it's also an asshole filter, too. If people can get beyond the weirdness long enough to see that I have a good heart, it usually means they're good people.

Sometimes I wonder why, if so many things I want in my life are in place, or at least close to it, I'm still so unhappy much of the time.

Then I remember: There are still millions of people out there who would love to see me dead (or at least wouldn't care if I was) because I'm not the right kind of person, according to them. I still, pretty much every day, encounter at least one person who considers me less than human. Less deserving of basic respect. Less deserving of support, of success, of even breathing.

And what's awful is that there's no guarantee that even folks who'd support me on one aspect would support me on the others. I can't guarantee that fellow queer folk aren't fatphobic, for instance. Or that fellow fat folk wouldn't have a problem with me being atheist. Which means that I don't easily have a refuge--a safe haven--I can run to when I'm under attack. The person I trust to save my ass from $hater1 may actually be $hater2 when a different aspect shows up.

This is part of why I'm so obnoxiously out about my various oddities. I don't want to be closeted about any of them so I can more easily filter for the folks who'd be horrid about one bit of it or another. I don't trumpet these things because I think being an oddball makes me special and interesting or edgy or whatever. I do so because it's critically necessary asshole repellent. It's how I stay safe, and keep from getting close to people who might be inclined to hurt me.

Of course, everyone's hated by someone. There's always some crank out there who thinks you should die because you have attached earlobes or a three-syllable last name. But most people can disregard all that because they know that plenty of other people have their back. No need to be scared of one nitwit with a cap gun when you have a thousand-strong army behind you.

If I knew that--if I knew for sure that I'd be protected if I was under direct attack--I could get by. I could blow off those people who want to eliminate me because I'd know they had no chance of actually doing so. But I don't know that. And so even with all the other good things in my life, I can't ever fully rest and relax and enjoy what I have. Every morning's hope is always tempered with dread. I'm always looking over my shoulder, wondering when that bullet's going to fly.

But maybe that's the secret to unlocking my happiness: knowing that someday, that bullet will come. And instead of fighting it and fearing it and desperately looking around for that army I need to protect me from it, I can just know that when it comes, it'll come, and there's nothing I can do to change that.

I've never had a fear of flying. Not because I trust those tin cans to never fall out of the sky, but because if the one I'm in does happen to do so, there isn't a damned thing I would have done wrong to make that happen, nor could I do anything to stop it. Same goes for living in the shadow of a dormant volcano. Will it puke all over me someday? Maybe. Can I do anything about it? Nope. And anywhere else I'd move would have its own natural disaster risks, too. May as well live somewhere beautiful while I'm waiting for Mama Nature to do her thing.

My chances of suffering something terrible at the hands of someone who hates me are much higher than the average muggle (and I have, to be sure, suffered quite a lot already.) But it's not like I can just stop being who and what I am. It's not like hiding those things would keep me safe. And, I'm finding, it's not like I can easily drum up my own personal squadron of bodyguards, either. So, the best, smartest thing I can do, I suppose, is to accept that fate's going to get me at some point, and stop agonizing about it until then.

They say that terrorists win when we change our lives in fear of another attack. And the same is true of the social terrorists who have been bombing my life since I was a chubby little tomboy who got sick a lot. There are, undoubtedly, more bombs waiting for me. But holing up and refusing to live my life isn't going to help. They win when I die inside as well as out.

Just got back from a terrific evening out celebrating heyokaboy's birthday with much of the gang. So good to see a bunch of people I haven't seen in ages.

I seriously need to get out more often--especially to roam my own city. It really is beautiful, and I spend so little time in the city proper these days. I haven't even been to the Market in probably four years. That needs to change. I generally like living where I do--we have a far nicer house than we would've been able to afford had we bought closer in at the time--but I do miss being more in the thick of things. We're not really trapped in suburbia--this isn't exactly Bellevue, after all--but it is kind of a trek to get out here, which limits how much city crawling--and socializing--we can do.

Still, I'm happy with what I can get--which is a lot more than when I was living in the Ham--and I'm in a much better mood than I have been in a few days.