Finding Diana

I understand the need for people to put on a façade and hide their flaws.  I even think it is necessary most of the time.  After all, it’s kind of selfish to impose your misery on the rest of the world.  It takes up other people’s emotional time and energy to be constantly responding to someone else’s problems.  That energy should be spent trying to deal with your own crap. When someone is constantly complaining there are two responses I have.  The initial response is to try and listen and determine if they are asking for advice or simply want sympathy.  However, if the same person is consistently moaning and complaining, I find it hard to repress saying “listen bitch, you think you have problems.  I have my own problems.  Some people have terrible illnesses or addictions.  Some are homeless or living in poverty.  But please, tell me again how your internet is too slow or how you can’t find the Lululemon sign on your pants.”

Who doesn’t love to complain?  After all, it’s kind of fun to express your problems and have someone else acknowledge them.  But, it also takes something from the other person.  After you have unloaded, they are still thinking about the problem and feeling sad that you are upset.  For some reason, I think this is true for fictional characters as well.  I am still really mad at a character in one of my favorite TV shows who left his wife, that bastard.

On the other side of the spectrum is those people who go around pretending their life is perfect.  I hate those people more because they are closed and unreal.  I never feel comfortable talking to someone who always says her kids are great.  No one’s kids are always great.  Every kid is annoying and does something that you wish they didn’t.  But the mom who pretends her kids are great makes me angry.  It makes me want to hire a private investigator to find her kid doing something wrong and post it all over the internet.  Perhaps that is insane of me, but this façade of perfection makes me think that this person is dishonest and completely unreal.  I cannot relate to someone who claims their child goes to bed on time, is never disrespectful and hates sweets.

Since these are my thoughts and I get to decide how the world should exist, I decide that people should have a scale of 1-10 for their façade.  If you are talking to a sister or best friend, you get to be a one.  You can complain, cry your skin blotchy and wear unflattering sweatpants. (As if there are flattering sweatpants!)  If you are going on a job interview, you should be a ten.  Although I must confess that I feel totally fake on job interviews and want to yell at the job interviewer that I will only wear spanx during the interview and will devolve into a sensible-shoe wearer by the third day on the job.  In fact, I got the job I have now because I already had a job offer and was less concerned about the façade.  I was a little more real, without cursing or referencing my undergarments, and was offered a better job.

Anyway, it’s important to read your audience and figure out what number they are on the scale and then act accordingly.  Too much on one side or the other and you will end up with the wrong crowd.