Just a heads up that this post isn't about improv, and it's not about pop culture either; it's a personal one for me, so if that's not your bag, no worries, probably just keep on keeping on. If you choose to read on, caveat emptor, and don't say you weren't warned.
I had a best friend growing up; for the sake of maintaining some degree of anonymity, I'll call him "Ray". Ray was my absolute best friend; there never was a time that I didn't want to go to Ray's house, or play with Ray, or just be with Ray. Ray wasn't rich, but everything Ray had felt like just fun; he made every video game, movie, Lego set, or whatever, just cool by sheer virtue of his participation in it, and I, in turn, felt cool by sheer virtue of my proximity to him. One day, I insisted that Ray come over to my house to play Legos - I had come up with some story or adventure or some other nonsense that needed Ray to "make it". He didn't really want to go, but eventually I begged and pleaded enough that he did come over, and after that play date, he didn't speak to me again for three years. I had pushed our friendship too hard from him (though maybe squeezed, as in "blood from a stone" is more apt), and he didn't want me in his life, hanging on like a tick, any more.
I had a different friend in San Diego; he was the first friend I made out there, and I'll call him "Arnie" this time, and I really liked Arnie. He was a little younger than me, but we had similar interests and likes, and we got along real well. Over the two-ish years that he and I hung out though, we started having friction occasionally - things I told to him in confidence he would turn around (almost immediately) and share with other people, and he would never apologize or even seem to recognize a transgression. Eventually, he got a girlfriend and a new set of friends, and we had a (shouting) fight, and we didn't speak for three years, and not even once since then.
I used to work at a movie theater, and one day my parents came to see a movie, and one of my coworkers came up to me and said "your parents are so nice, why aren't you nice?". I was hanging out with a new friend in SD one Friday night, and I told him we probably wouldn't ever hang out again because I could tell he was starting to get tired of me. And sure enough, about a week later he got moved onto a different team and we haven't spoken since. And another SD friend of mine, who I'll call "Matthew" and I started out as very good friends, but over the course of 8 years of friendship we became barely more than colleagues, as I learned I couldn't trust him as a friend, and also that I was always going to be his "backup friend".
I need to break this up a little bit by saying that I have maintained a few friends; my best friend in college, JP (actual name) and I were near inseparable until he had to switch schools senior year, and my other best friend Noel (also actual name) and I lived together for about a year and a half after school.
What I have learned over ~35 years of life is that I am trouble for the people around me. Not in an Inspector Gadget, Mr. Magoo, physical peril kind of way, but in an eventual intolerable way. I'm never "not enough", and I'm always "too much". The real me is pushy, eager, but mostly just not "cool". He likes the right things, but never in the right way, and he likes the right people, but never correctly. He gets old for people, real fast, and I don't think anyone could ever tell you why, just that the real me isn't "right" and is off, just a little bit. The real me isn't wrong for any of the things he does, just the manner in which he does them. The real me wants people to like him, and really wants people to think he's a good guy, but he just can't do it. And I absolutely hate the real me. The real me has cost me so many friends, buds, acquaintances, friendlies, contacts, girlfriends, and a million other small, amicable relationships, because the real me is an absolute garbage fire. He just rubs people the wrong way, and most people don't want to deal with that. 99% of people want someone who is fun to be around out of the box, not someone who will always be the fourth friend.
My spirit animal will probably always be Pete Campbell from "Mad Men". Try as he might (and he really does) to be like Don Draper, he never will be. He'll get close, but in the end, he'll always rub people the wrong way.
The other thing that I have learned over ~35 years is to shut my mouth, stay out of people's way, and avoid overstaying my welcome. In friend groups, I have learned to very carefully measure the temperature of the room to know when my presence is about to reach people's tolerance limit. And most importantly, I never show the full, real me, because he won't earn people's affections. I have become Zelig-like, in my skill of matching and imitating the local flavor of the group and hiding the real me behind a screen of acting like everyone else is. And you can get pretty far with most people by mostly staying out of the way and matching their collective energy. I don't share more than a little of myself with anyone (currently only my friend Laurel bears the onus of my trust), and keep all my comments banal and tepid. Chances are if you've met me, I've never let you see the real me, because the real me drives people away and I hate that about myself.
I have come to despise phrases like "be yourself, everyone else is taken" or "live your best life" or "follow your bliss", because they only work if the big, bad, scary "U" on the inside is the kind of monster that other monsters get along with, and we humans are mostly social creatures. We're only thriving if we have trust and community to rest inside of, and for me, that person would be the first person voted off of every island, for no other reason than "we just kind of don't like him". This isn't an invitation for people to try to get to know me either. Every single person that I have let in has wished they stayed outside. We all have something wrong with us, sure, but for me, my defect is that I'm just not that likable. The real me doesn't deserve friends or companionship, but hopefully the me I wear everyday is at least tolerable.
As a parting note - I don't even think I know who the real me is anymore. I've buried, compartmentalized, neutered, and flattened all the parts of the real me that I possibly can. I probably haven't been the real me since maybe 2012, and seven years later I'm still trying to keep the rough edges sanded away enough to warrant others' sustained rapport, and the easiest way is to keep myself from persisting with people for too long.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to stop before you get sick of reading this.
