I made a new friend the other day. While we were talking, I felt out of place. Like I was cosplaying a guy who knew how to sit on a couch and talk about my ideas or opinions on current events. Like a guy who knows what to do with his arms and legs when he sits, one who would confidently splay himself across the cushion like a throw blanket.
I couldn’t just ask her, “How was your break?” to get into a conversation that we all know would go like “It was good, very relaxing. How was yours?” to which I would reply, “Yeah, me too. Very relaxing, didn’t get up to much.”
I needed content, something ripe and juicy to fall into my lap that I could present proudly. Something memorable. Something not so…mid.
Mid. Adj: boring, run-of-the-mill, equally unthreatening and unexciting.
Ex: I had the most mid conversation with Spence yesterday. It was kind of awkward. At one point he just started talking about the feral cats that live under his porch. He seems, like, emotionally dependent on them.
Then the gut-wrenching questions came. “Wait, I never asked, but what do you like to do for fun?” Despair echoed through me. I wanted to roll away. To knock a scented candle over and set the place in a pine-scented blaze. Anything to avoid answering this question. What do I like to do for fun? One unassuming question that could so easily make me hate myself.
Nothing I could think of was unique. And I wanted to be unique, because that is what we all want. To deliver such a scrumptious elevator pitch of myself that I’m undeniable.
I’ve grown so accustomed to presenting myself, showing others exactly who I am in a snapshot, a few sentences or less. I have curated my personality so well, put it through so many stages of prototyping and social market analysis that it might as well come in eco-friendly packaging. (Maybe one of my interests is sustainability???)
What set me apart? What was one thing nobody else would say? Something that no other person has talked about in the history of the entire earth.
