Posted on by crystal · 22 Comments

Before twitter there was…?

I don’t know what’s more annoying – being a kid who thinks like a grown up or being a grown up who thinks like a kid. And I’ve been both!

As a child I stopped making friends coz I realised that kids hurt. All my little friends were more interested in what they could get from me than in what was really me. This may be a fact of life, but you don’t need to recognise it at age six.

By standard 3 I had convinced myself that any pals I made would dump me for someone taller, funnier or prettier, so I just stopped trying. And by age 12 I had taken it a step further. When I felt I was getting too close or too attached to anyone, I found some reason to ‘break up’ with them.

Now I am all of 27 years and while my friends are doing sensible things like reading Obama biographies, I am bopping my head to bubblegum pop and reading manga. I don’t get jazz, I balk at Afro Fusion, and I have no idea who Oprah is. I mean I know who she is but I don’t know who she is.

And the unthinkable has happened. I have acquired the dreaded 28s!! That fear that I thought I would never get – the fear of my sell-by date! I’ve always seen girls approach thirty with dread, and I just didn’t get it. I mean what’s the big deal, right? Why would it bother anyone?

Well guess what, it’s bothering me. Bigtime. I feel like my spring days are behind me and there’s so much more I should have done. Bye bye go the pencil jeans [argh cellulite!!] and endless streams of boys and smooth elastic skin, and yet I’ve barely had time to enjoy them!! Ridiculous thoughts given all I have achieved, but I can’t help thinking this is the year I stop announcing my age…

Anyway.

I was wondering what I ever did with myself before twitter. I mean I stopped being a mingler ages ago – yes, I was fairly outgoing before I decided that people suck, I can admit that now 🙂 Maybe that’s what people see when they think I’m an extrovert; my babyhood leftovers.

I do feel this need to reach out to people, to get them to open up their narrow minds and see beyond their noses. It’s just that I prefer to do it from afar. A magic wand would so rock my world. Wings would help too, and some kind of invisibility cloak.

Actually, now that I think about it, I’m not really an introvert at all – or at least I wasn’t born that way. I was pretty all-over-the-place as a kid. Everybody knew me, and I knew everybody. I used to like being with people, making friends, being popular, hanging out.

But somewhere along the way, for some reason I don’t quite understand, I just made myself that way. I fell into myself and stopped trusting people. I learnt to be uncomfortable around them, and made myself resent them. I got obssessive about my space and turned hermit. Now I just want to be far away from everyone, except maybe online, or with the few special ones that win my trust. That means you and you and you and you and you 🙂

Actually, now that I think about it, I realise what the trigger was. Sigh. Took me long enough. I wonder if I can change. Do I even want to?

Well it explains one thing. The rule states that opposites attract, yet I am more attracted to introverts that are ‘just like me’. Maybe that’s because I’m not an introvert at all. Interesting.

But I digress. What did I do before twitter? Well, I wrote mail. Real mail, with stamps and post boxes and everything. I started gathering penpals pretty early, and kept them for quite a while. Even racked the Sunday Nation and picked them from there. **blush** Then I wrote high school mail to former classmates and relatives. Long, detailed mails. I’m told they were quite entertaining, I guess the writer in me was alive even then.

When that passed I moved on to text, as many as 15 a day. I was always asked how I could fit so much info into just 160 characters. **grin** Of course none of my people ever actually replied my texts. Or even read them really. Hehehe. The main reason why all my phones must have a delivery-suceeded feature: peace of mind.

Then came email circa 2000 and the fun began. There are people to whom I would [and still do] write every single day. How they put up with me I will never know. Spam perhaps?

Then came chat, and then twitter. Same old me, making friends from afar, sifting a few to let into me, keeping the rest at a distance, pulling away when I get too involved, when I feel like I love them more than I should, or that I need them more than they need me. Yeah, I still do that **sheepish grin**

It’s kinda weird too, that the real reason I keep to myself isn’t that I dislike people. Granted I get tired of socials, and I feel like I need to pull away and recover. There are countable people in my life with whom I’ve been able to sit and talk endlessly. Very few. One is you, and you really have no idea. You too, and you.

But in all honesty, the real reason I stay away from people is fear. I’m afraid of running out of ideas, not knowing what to say or how to act, looking like an idiot. Those awkward silences terrify me. Which is why I was so into that one. The silences were many, and never awkward. Somehow I never felt the need to fill them, and that was really beautiful. I’ve only had that with one other person, and I doubt she even noticed it. How I love that girl.

Fear is the same reason I don’t dance. When I’m by myself, I forechoreograph a few moves, then my mind goes blank. I imagine being on a dancefloor full of people and simply running out of dance steps. The horror!! So I only dance inside my head.

It also explains why I doubt INFJs. I feel very much like it, the description is accurate, but my introvert score is unearthly. I’ve heard of other INFJs and I always thought they must have faked the test, because they are so unlike me! But now I realise it’s me who isn’t like them, coz I’ve hidden who I am so deep inside that I can barely recognise it myself. Creepy.

I’m done ranting now. As you were 🙂

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Posted on by crystal · 9 Comments

The blind men and the elephant

I read this poem in Reader D back in prima, and I always liked it, though I had no idea why. I was in Ndovu house, and later Ruwenzori house, all characterised by yellow t-shirts. The brainy blondes, so to speak.

Yesterday I found out something about myself. It wasn’t said as a bad thing, but it did shake me. Apparently, I’m a flirt. And a tease. I’ve never thought of myself that way, though it seems everyone else does.

Lots of boys have called me a flirt, and I always deny it. To me flirting is something deliberate and dishonest, which is not what I do. What I do is cheer people up, make them feel good about themselves, find the things about them that are beautiful and express said things long and loud.

In other words, I flirt.

I have not had many conversations with boys. Mostly because all the ones I like run away the moment I open my mouth, and the ones I don’t like, well, I generally act like they don’t exist. So it is interesting that the few times I have engaged in talks with boys, it has been online. And that these conversations turn nginginary within the first … well, let’s just say they head that way very fast.

I never gave it much thought until my internetary ‘baby brother’ did the same thing within five minutes of g-talk, and I was like wtf? His explanation was that I led him there. That really bothered me, coz in my mind he’s not really a boy – he’s my brother. And I do not discuss these things with my brothers. Eeew!

But then I got to thinking, and asked a few other boys I know, and they all agreed. I am a flirt, and I tease boys into talking about sex. 🙁 They all said it is not a bad thing, and that they like my open-ness. Did not help.

Some other people think I am an extrovert. I believe that I am not. So now that most people think I am a flirtease, why can’t I just assume they’re wrong and move on with my life?

Well, for one thing, I am susceptible to flirts. And geeks. They make me melt like Azam ice cream. Many many maaaaany times I have fallen for boys simply because they flirted with me. I like being talked to like some nubile godess – who doesn’t? And I got heartbroken soon after when they turned and ran. Coz really, flirts are never serious, and when they notice the darts are starting to land, they run.

So I make a conscious effort not to flirt. If I tell a boy he has pretty eyes, it’s not because I’m flirting. It’s because he has pretty eyes. Maybe it’s not customary for girls to say things like that. Maybe that’s why the boys call me a tease. I have no idea.

Then of course there are those who will swear they are not flirting with me when I am absolutely sure that they are. Maybe they are in denial, or maybe I just hear sweet nothings where none are being whispered.

My friend says he is so dense to flirting he simply never notices it – he says he has been called ‘aloof’ by many frustrated would-be dates. Maybe I’m the opposite, maybe I just hear flirtiness in everyday language, kinda like my orange season thing. Again, I have no idea.

A boy I like is flirting with me. At least I think he is. I have flirted with him before, and it backfired majorly. He wanted to be just friends. So now he has turned tables and I am unsure how to respond. Or whether to respond at all. I really like this boy. He’s one of my best friends and I don’t want to spoil things. No, he does not read my blog. I think.

I had a chat with him yesterday, whining about this whole flirtease saga, and he said, bless the darling sailor boy, that he has never noticed me flirting with him. Which is kind of a strange thing to say, seeing as he is the one person I have – in the past – consciously flirted with, and seeing as I think he is currently flirting with me!

He thinks maybe it is a cultural thing, and that maybe African men perceive flirting differently. He reckons maybe my being nice to boys makes them think I want them, a fact confirmed by one other chatmate from jana [Am I allowed to say your name? No?]

So yeah, allegedly I am a flirtease. I was told one other thing that made me laugh all the way into today, but I can’t say it out loud without feeling Mariah, so I shall simply say this … **grin**

Either way, flirt or not, this isn’t something I am doing. It is who I am. So I need to stop feeling woiye-woiye for myself and just embrace it. And then I need to take D’s advice – a flirt is a flirt is a flirt. I should not take them [or myself] seriously until or unless they propose. Period. It is all a game and nothing more.

Granted there are some people who flirt to test the waters, and if you don’t respond appropriately, they back off. Which is sad, coz maybe me here I was waiting for said proposal. I’m thinking people like that weren’t really serious to begin with. They like you, but they don’t like you enough to take a risk. So anything that came out of that would not likely be valid, or valued.

When somebody really wants you, they lay their cards down, all their cards, na kama mbaya mbaya. If they’re not willing to do that, they’re not really worth your time, and they probably would not try to make you happy. At least, they wouldn’t try very hard.

Anyway, this was supposed to be about blind men and elephants. I think I’m an elephant, different in different bits and pieces. I suppose we all are. One person in my life saw the whole elephant, and he didn’t like it, so I’m afraid to go Full Monty with anyone again. All people see now are bits and pieces – the knee, the ear, the tail. One day soon someone else will see the elephant in all its tusks and glory. I wonder if they’ll like what they see.

The blind men and the elephant

A poem by John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887)

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!”

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, “Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ’tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a snake!”

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” quoth he;
“Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!”

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said:”E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!”

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a rope!”

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

♫♫♫♫♫♫

I’m just saying…

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Posted on by crystal · 16 Comments

Soaked blue

At the school bus-stop this morning, I noticed that the sky looked rather ominous, so I made princess run back indoors and get her sweater. She usually carries it in her bag, just in case, but today is school-party day, so her bag is packed solid with junk food. No room for caution.

Five seconds after she came out it started drizzling, so I’m glad I made her get the sweater. Of course I had to go and get one as well. I picked an umbrella and my blue khanga and headed to work.

Two problems. One, the rain – which had now gone three degrees past drizzle – was the diagonal kind, so the umbrella did zero work. And I was walking ‘away’ from the rain, so my front stayed dry while my back got soaked through.

Problem number 2, my blue khanga, apparently, sheds colour. Now I know. I got to work to do the perfunctory mirror therapy to notice the back of my white skirt was now a sickening shade of blue. Oooookaaaaay.

Well there’s nothing for it but to turn the skirt so that the wet blue patches are on the front [sitting on it will turn the seats blue as well] and hope a sudsy soak will clear the stains. Coz I really like this skirt. It’s shortish and flirtish, and the only truly girly skirt that I own.

It was a birthday present from a boy I no longer like, but you don’t kick a gift-skirt in the hem, and it’s got such pretty embroidery :). It came with a gorgeous spanish-ish gypsy-ish top in burgundy-black, which is, again, the only truly girly top I own. I no longer like the boy, but I still adore his taste.

My pal W says I have a fetish for geeks. Guilty as charged. I’m going to marry me a geek with green eyes. Real green eyes, not the metaphoric kind. Contacts will do – except I like my geeks with glasses, so probably not. But geeks are smart – I’m sure he can find some way to fix the iris. Did I mention how much Big Bang Theory rocks? I didn’t? Well, Big Bang Theory totally rocks!! For real. Waaay funnier than the anti-commi-frigid HIMYM.

Anyway, yesterday one of my geeks introduced me to a shiny new toy. It’s nothing like Loco‘s Sir Shinesalot, but it’s a lot more fun. Thing is, I can’t figure out how to turn it off. Kaboro hun, where’s the sign out on google talk?

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