So the other day, Eleven said to me completely out of the blue (and I paraphrase): "I would never ever double-cross you. I'd be afraid you'd have my balls."

Now, initially I was offended by this because it made me sound like I was some sort of excruciatingly vindictive kind of person, a "rabbit in a boiling pot of water," Fatal Attraction kinda individual. After he explained a little bit more, I realized it was intended as more of a compliment...

But it gave me pause.

You see, I scare people.

(Here I will pause and let Harvey and Patrick amuse themselves with all the witty responses that are popping into their heads. And... done.)

Anyways, when I say I scare people, I don't mean like a monsterly, Leatherface kind of scare. I mean, I think people are leery of me. This is something I've noticed ever since I was young--maybe as early as primary school. And it became ever more apparent to me in grad school. My friend Michele says, "It's just because people don't know what to make of you." And I know this is probably the case. But it's something I find both terribly amusing and yet disheartening at times.

Because I'm not real complicated. So I'm not quite sure what makes me so difficult to pin down. Yet, I kinda dig the fact that apparently I am this weird little shape-shifting entity that no one can quite put their finger on.

International (wo)man of mystery--that's me!

I think if this weren't the case, I might be an inordinately dull person. So it's not something I'd ever really want to change about myself. (Not like I could anyways, seeing as I'm not really sure what it is about me that "scares" people in the first place.)

And it does help me weed out friends and lovers. Most people are "afraid" enough of me that they don't venture to bridge any sort of gap between us. But some people (I call them "the weirdies") are intrigued and attracted to my "scariness"--they flutter kamikaze-style at me like determined little mosquitos gunning it towards a bug zapper.

These are the people I hit it off with so very easily from the get-go. These are the people who just *CLICK* with me and whom I end up sharing my deepest bonds with. But these folks are few and far between.

And most of the time, those folks who aren't willing to bridge the gap really just don't interest me too much anyways. Yet, sometimes... every once in a while, I find myself wishing that perhaps I wasn't QUITE so scary as I seem to be to people--that more people would be willing to bridge the gap between us instead of standing off in the distant, staring at me, wondering WTF.

So yeah, I "scare" people. It's something that becomes evident to me each and every time I enter a new social situation. And it's something that comes up even with the closest of friends. But at this point in my life, there's really nothing I can do about it.

So I guess all I can do is just keep dealing and move on, hold my little mosquito friends close and keep that light burning.

Random Question of the Day:
Why do people find me so damn "scary?"

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