Pretense

I don't do well with pretense. I've been working really hard to rid myself of pretense for abut 10 years. Really hard at first, now- I just kinda act habitually. But, I notice when it tries to rear its ugly head.

Pretense reminds me of Tim'm poetry. There was one that talked about passing. I don't recall the lead, but most likely some allusion to racial passing and the costs paid by those who try and "succeed"; being thought to be someone that they are not, denied connection to who they are and where they come from. Secondarily, there would have been some exploration of gender constructs and "passing" within queer communities; both of transgender folks who pass as biologically sexed members of the communities into which they have transitioned, and queer folks who aren't gender nonconforming enough to signal their queerness in the broader culture.

Passing. (He may not have said all of these things, but as I listened to his reading, that was the conversation that I had with myself.)

And then, then, he said something that reshaped my perspective on myself. "Can I pass for the person you want me to be?" And in that moment, I suddenly realized what was at the heart of pretense. It's just trying to pass for the person that I think I should be. Could be the person I think I should be based on the context in which I find myself, could be the other people who are around me, could be based on the person I want to be but am not. Maybe I want to believe that I'm the person you think I should be. Whatever the condition that give rise to these contortions of self, pretense is the result.

It takes on many forms, but all of them can be reduced to our attempts to cover that divide between who we are and how we want to be perceived. MMmmm... pretense!!

It fucking nauseates me.

Well, I can have some compassion for pretense when I remember that that's all that's going on, but most times I can't remember and it gets on my fucking nerves.

I'm a new student (a graduate student!) which must mean I'm smart, and when meeting other graduate students from my cohort, they seem to have a need for me to think that they're smart. BUT!! They can't look like they're trying to be smart, so they have to try to look smart without looking like they're trying; you know, pretentious. Ugh, it was SO icky. Pretense oozing all over the table... gross.

So, there I was wondering if it would be rude to "remember" a conflict and leave. And, that's when I saw it, a Hemingway quote that will help me to get through the next several years of my life.

"An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools."

Excuse me ma'am, may I have a beer?