Chatrooms
For someone as confused as I am, conversations should be hard. They are hard, when I am doing it face to face. But sitting in front of my PC or on my phone, I feel so comfortable in chatrooms that it is scary. I don’t know if I really want to find out why I feel so comfortable there, but I suspect that these places let me be what I want without revealing who I am.
It’s not that I am specifically ashamed of who I am. I am not that far gone, am I? I am generally ashamed because I know I am not good enough. I cannot deliver in my real life as I should have, I don’t meet expectations of people who are dependent upon me. That’s reason enough to be ashamed I think.
But in chatrooms, God I feel good. Picking up a persona feels easier than choosing a shirt for work. Making a conversation where the other person is not judging me for how much of a screw up I am feels so liberating, I actually feel like talking.
The only thing the person knows about me is what I want him/her to know. The only thing I know about them is what they want me to know. These selective identities make me feel more comfortable than my own skin does.
You must have understood by my self-hating rant that I go to these chatrooms as anonymous and without my facial picture. Not that I am not good looking, I am just okay looking. But a world expecting above average doesn’t deal well with average.
People say when they are on the ledge, that they aren’t afraid that they will fall, they are afraid that they will jump. Same is for me and these chatrooms. When I am in them, I am afraid the persona I am adapting there, might seem through my real personality. It hasn’t yet, thankfully.
But I am hoping to find someone I can be myself with, in real life. Before I completely slip and start hating my life too much.
When I have to abruptly cut short a conversation in these chatrooms, which happens a lot unfortunately, I feel like someone has woke me up from a nice dream. The lingering happy sensation remains until the dread of real life sets in. Slowly, slowly.