"You'll Dance to Anything by Public Image Limited"

I'm feeling so conflicted today. I feel like I'm compromising my value system. I saw ol' what's his name, the one from the sex dream, last night. He practically ignored me, but when he did talk to me he seemed really fake and nervous. I can't tell if he actually likes me or not.

Here's the really sad part: he looked really good, and really fashionable. The guy he was with was really cool, like some kind of punk guy, or some kind of club kid or something. It really distressed me; I can't compete. So I've been all trying to look "cool" today, seeing if I can do it. Unfortunately, whenever I start to think about my self-image, and start trying to look "cool", I get into this really negative mind-frame, where I start being really judgmental towards other people; like, instead of judging them by their personality I start to judge them by how they look, and whether that look is going to fit in with my look, or if it is going to make me look "cooler" or "dorkier". It's really sad. I don't like it. It makes me feel like a dick (not to say that dicks are bad things, but you know what I mean). It goes against what I believe to be right, and it keeps me from having satisfying relationships (just friends or more) with other people. There are more than a couple people that I remember rejecting in my youth (and yes, in my adulthood as well, even in the past few months), because they were not what I considered "cool", and then later found out that they were really interesting people that would have been fun to be friends with. Like, when I was a teenager, there was this guy, named Pat, who I totally discounted as being below me and my friends, and who I actually avoiding introducing to my friends. Later on though, by methods beyond my control, he did get to know us, and I got to know him pretty well. When I look back on that time of my life, and think about the people that were really interesting to me, and who I actually considered to be my friends, Pat stands out a lot more than anyone else in that group. I actually connected with him a little bit, while almost everybody else in that group seemed like strangers, and later on like enemies. And while I couldn’t care less about what became of the other people in that group, I would find it really interesting to meet up with Pat again and have a nice conversation

Later on, after I realized how fucked up I had been treating people (especially after I got treated in the same “you’re not cool enough for me” way by other people) I started consciously staying away from people that seemed like they cared a lot about being cool, and tried really hard to not do things that make me look cool myself. I wanted to identify with common people, regular people. Unfortunately, after trying to make connections with the people that I did not consider cool, I realized that in fact they did think that they were the cool ones; it’s just that they were going by a whole different standard than I was. Obviously, I did not live up to that standard, and I’ve gotten a lot of criticism from them for that. It drives me nuts. What I’ve sort of unconsciously decided is that I’m going to talk to whoever I want, respond to kindness wherever I find it, and blow off all criticism of my style as besides-the-point. Usually this works, because I actually really don’t see most other people’s styles as “cool”, and even though I really like these people, I don’t feel a strong need to emulate their style or worry about what they think of my social status. The problem comes in when I find myself interacting with a nice person who does match that idea of “cool” that I have in my head; then all of a sudden I can’t just enjoy myself; I want them, and I want them to want me, and it feels really pressing. I start worrying about what I’m wearing, how I’m acting (like, apart from just worrying about being respectful, which I worry about no matter who I’m talking to, I worry about acting “cool”). I start obsessing over my public image (“you’ll dance to anything by Public Image Limited” –The Dead Milkmen), and to my great shame I start avoiding people that I like or who I would like to get to know because of what I think the “cool guy” will think of me.

It really makes me sick.

But I like to look good, and I like to dress up. I like to play with my image, and try on different personas. I don’t think it’s bad to look cool, or to associate with people that look cool. There are a lot of people who look cool who also have really interesting personalities. And at the very least they are aesthetically pleasing. I just don’t want it to affect my relationships with people that don’t look cool. I want to appreciate coolness, without having it dominate my life.

Wah!!! But if I don’t try to conform to others, then no one will ever accept me; I’ll always be outside of their system, and no matter how much they like me, they’ll never be able to accept me as one of their own. Wah!!! Eternal solitude!!