known

i wonder sometimes if i'll ever find a place where people get me. i think right now there are people who like me but they find me sort of odd and don't really understand why i act the way i act. it's nice that people accommodate my weirdness, but someday i want to meet someone for whom it isn't an accommodation. i want to meet someone else who feels unusual in the same way i do. or i guess i want to meet someone who isn't trying to make me more like them. the person i like wants me to go back to school. he wants me to go to grad school and study the same thing he does. he introduced me to his adviser because she teaches classes he thinks i should take. he told me that he thinks i belong in school. and G wants me to be more social. she scolds me when she doesn't think i'm being nice enough to someone i've just met. she thinks i take myself too seriously. she thinks i should try harder to get over things. she says i should just do things and not worry so much. i think they're both right about some things but it's tiring and it makes me sad when i feel like the people i'm closest to see me as a sort of project. i want to meet someone who likes me as i am and doesn't think there's anything wrong with me. i want someone to ask for my advice and imitate me and listen when i talk because they think i'm cool and interesting and they wish they could be more like me.

when i was younger i read the phrase "potential has a shelf life". as a kid people always told me i had potential and that i could achieve great things if only i stopped being so much like myself. if i worked harder, if i weren't so lazy, sensitive, unfocused, shy, awkward, unusual, then other people would respect and admire me. sometimes i think about the word potential and it makes me want to get myself together so i can do something grand and feel accomplished. other times, like today, i want to intentionally do nothing until all my potential runs out and people stop expecting me to do much of anything, because then i could do whatever i wanted. but i'm not sure if i know what that is yet.