Camouflage

My classes are pretty much full of the Popularese. No one else seems to have felt any sort of difference between those who ARE the popular type, and those who are not . . . probably because they are all part of one we-are-all-friends-here grapevine, which I just CANNOT get used to.

If you need a refresher on what Popularese are - something I made a name for - see my post on them: http://onlymetoeversee.blogspot.ca/search?q=Popularese

Anyway: I no longer think that there are Social Blocks here. I've been talking to almost everyone now, without problems - I mean, I'm reining in my stuttering, so I'm not too embarrassed. But I think that if I speak to them, they will speak back. I don't think they've noticed anything out of the ordinary.

Okay, that came out wrong. It sounds like I was expecting them to feel so awkward around me that conversations would be short and kind of painful. But . . . they're not. I've asked them for directions once, for instance. That went all right. I suppose I just have to maintain Casual Normality. I don't have to do that around friends (or, at least, Hopefully To-Be-Friends), but around the Popularese, you never know. Maybe a Deep Thinker is hiding under that popular demeanor, yes, but you can never be too careful.

And that last bit - "they haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary" - I meant about me. I don't fit into most social circles, and I felt sure that within a week of being in the same class with me, anyone would have felt it. Humans have great instincts when it comes to social standing (and facial recognition, but that's another long post).

It doesn't seem to have happened that way. Maybe it seems to every one that we're just in different groups of friends, but that we can intermingle as much as we like. And maybe it is that way - maybe I'M the strange and paranoid one, which wouldn't be a first by a long shot. Maybe no one feels that I feel out of the ordinary - maybe I'm camouflaging, somehow, having had casual conversations with several of the Popularese I'm not technically friends with. Maybe I'm a Deep Thinker hiding beneath the thin veil of Casual Normality.

That's not a good thing.

I mean, yes, it's a good thing that I have some sort of protection, but as a general rule of mine, Casual Normality is bad bad bad. I don't like being moored between full-fledged, Neon Lights Announcing Deep Thinker, and someone living by Casual Normality. With me, I think the veil is thinner than that for most people, but still.

I'm not announcing my relative strangeness, but neither am I hiding it. All my Hopefully To-Be-Friends have noticed these strange bits, and everything's still all right. Hopefully that's all it is.