Short story fiction, excerpt.
I don’t think anyone is normal, but there are a lot of people following the social norms, whether they work or not. So I’m the type that comes along and puts hiccups in their world that they don’t particularly like-and its different for each person. Everyone tells me this won’t happen with them, but it always does because I’m an anomaly not following these patterns in socialization. Its hard to explain.
I know I sound like I have low self-confidence about how normal I am, but I assure you, after the life I’ve lived, I know myself all too well. And even complete strangers know I’m different.
A lot of men, find this particularly attractive about me, and I often hear “I’ve never met anyone like you.” I also hear, “I feel so connected to you, and we’ve made such fast friends.” I cringe when I hear that now. Not because I don’t appreciate the compliment, but because I know they are only seeing an aspect of me that fits into a fantasy or else smoothing me over for sex. They aren’t seeing the whole picture, and so at the beginning of meeting, things seem a lot different than they will later. That is dangerous ground and starts to feel like hearts are being played with, which I don’t do. I always get blamed for this anyway though. So now I’m not doing that anymore.
Because of who I am, it is not possible for me to make friends and date people the same way everyone else does. So I am making up my own rules, not to be a dictator but to keep myself safe, but also to keep the other person from feeling like I’m doing things to hurt them. I never was, but now I will know that I am not because I’m taking preventative steps and thinking things through. After that, its up to them. I can only lead the experience to a certain point and from my perspective before the other person has to do their part and with their perspective and let that unfold as it may.
All I know for sure is, figuratively speaking, I’m living between a lot of worlds. I’m not willing to rush out anymore and get run over on the highway of life or love, now that I’m realizing how many “worlds” there are, and many of them are crashing together.
In Through The Out Door 