off base
It's odd to consider the divergence between how people see you and how you see yourself.
It recently came up, although in what context I can't recall, that my dorm-mates once got me a stripper. It was my 19th birthday, my sophomore year. When I asked "What made you guys decide to hire a stripper for my birthday?" a set of them told me they had decided that I was "unembarrassable". I think they just wanted an excuse to see a guy in a aqua banana hammock.
But unembarrassable? My god that is the furthest thing from the truth. I'll confess to being bold, up front, direct, blunt, confrontational, spirited, passionate. It seems I show my emotions readily and apparently. However, I am most certainly flusterable and, since I do show my emotional state so obviously, I am overtly, visibly embarrassable.
2 comments:
Maybe they just really, really liked the way you acted when embarrassed. :-)
I was told a few years ago that I come across as invulnerable. At six feet with a fairly low voice and a direct manner, I guess I do. So people don't think twice about whether what they say will be hurtful. The truth is, I'm really sensitive, but I've developed this "shrug it off" response because, you know, never let 'em see you sweat. But that contributes to the perception that I'm invulnerable, and so the cycle continues. I wonder if, being easily embarrassed, you've learned to get over it quickly, thereby leading to the assumption that you're unembarrassable. Silly, eh?
Well I'm not tall but I have a low voice. People have had a tendency to assume a thicker skin on my part than they should, I hadn't thought about the possibility that the "unflappable" demeanor could still be in effect. I just assumed they were assholes.
No, I don't have a shrug it off attitude. I sometimes can muster up a good "someday they'll fall down and I can only hope I will be there to see it" attitude which allows me to pass as if I don't care. More often, I harbor an actively vendictive grudge. I'm not usually nice to a person who's crossed a big line in pissing me off or offending me but I suppose my habit of patient civility might lead people to think I'm over it and therefore unembarrassable/offendable.
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