As an awkward, socially inept introvert, it's no lie that I'm not a fan of small talk. I don't necessarily hate it and sometimes the shallow, predictable polite banter can be comforting to pass the time or pretend I'm actually socialising. But at the end of the day there comes a time when I just can't stand keeping another person from moving on with life when I can quite clearly see how much they don't want to be a part of this dull conversation.
But now that I'm 16, in year 11 in high school, small talk is one of the easiest things to do and for people to do with me. Why? Because there is a fail-safe topic that every person falls back onto and that is the future. My future, to be exact. What university I want to go to if I want to go at all, what course I plan to take if I go to uni and my absolute favourite; what I want to do after school and uni. Beautiful.
It's the perfect question for the other person. They get to seem genuinely interested in an acquaintance's life and dreams and goals and my answer is sure to go for a while and fill up the needed awkward stage of the meeting.
The only problem is that when they do ask me what I want to do, no one really expects me to have it all figured out. And that's great-except that, in theory, I do sort of kind of have most things figured out. And is it weird that I feel guilty for that? Like I'm not following the normal procedure of a high school teen who hasn't quite got it figured out yet? I'm not saying I have it figured out, not at all, it's just that I know where I want to go, ultimately in life and the road I want to be travelling along.
And so, because I feel like I shouldn't have a straight answer to the question of what I want to do with my life, I lie. Every time. It's actually become a sort of game. A game that only I know the rules of and only I understand. And, okay, only I'm playing. So it's basically a pretty sad thing is what I'm getting at here.
I wasn't actually consciously doing it at first. And when people first started asking me, I was truly confused about what to say and often I just ended up saying I didn't know. But that was boring. So in the split seconds after they deliver the big question, I'll make up my mind and blurt something like "law" or "international and global studies" or "media communications" at Sydney Uni. And they're not really lies. But even right now I can see just how slim the chances of me actually picking those subjects let alone getting into them.
Sure I would love to study law and I would love it even more to be able to tell people that I'm studying law but I noticed something after every time I chose to say law. I always got the look. And it's not a very well-disguised look. In fact, it's pretty atrociously plain to see. Basically, a person's first impressions of me are along the lines of nice, quiet, friendly, relaxed and maybe funny. The key word here is 'nice'. Once people get to know me even better that word is transformed into 'too nice'. And eventually, 'timid'. It's a bit like an evolution in pokemon. Except no where near as cool and actually a deterioration more than advancement.
What I'm trying to say here is that people show quite clearly on their faces that they don't believe I have the guts, the fight, the determination or the brains to do law, let alone become a lawyer. Which, you know, fair enough and whatever but at the same time..excuse you.
As for careers, I for one, know exactly what I want to dedicate my life to although I don't have a specific job. The strange part is that I've never really told people what I actually want to do. Well, no, I have. In the early days of the cross-examinations. I used to tell people, even acquaintances, what I wanted to spend my life doing and oh my word. Those looks were almost as shocking as the law ones. Maybe worse because it cut deeper into something I actually believe in. I won't get into the details of what I want to do for the sake of not turning this into an essay, but in short, I want to do charity work/humanitarian based thing such as travelling to third world impoverished countries and helping to educate communities, opening/building schools for children, teaching English and other subjects like art and music. And lately I've thought about becoming a primary school teacher (there are looks for this one as well), specifically one who teaches kids with both mental and physical disabilities such as the seeing and hearing impaired.
The looks are reserved mainly for the going to poor countries dream just because people think I've got this idealised, romanticised, glamourised version of aid/humanitarian work and think I'm trying hard to be some super great person by saying I'm going to do all these great things. I remember a friend of my parent said (behind my back), "Oh, that's what all the little girls say. Don't worry, she won't be saying that when she's in the real world trying to make a living." And I swear to the heavens above I was about the go awwww hell no and whip out a massive rant on how any living I make is more life lived than he will ever know. Except that I wasn't actually there when he said it and I don't actually care enough about his opinion to waste my energy on him.
But I know many people have thought that about me saying I want to 'change the world' and 'help the poor' etc and thinking it's not realistic and I'm being fanciful but that's ok because those people don't know me. They don't know how compassionate and passionate I am about this and I'm not passionate about anything as much as I am about dedicating my life to helping other people.
Whew. That was a bit of a tangent. And I don't think I ever got my point across. Oh well, this will have to do because I've wasted almost an entire night laughing to myself on tumblr, listening to The Walking Dead soundtrack and writing this.
It's Monday. I have an athletics carnival tomorrow.
I don't think any one (not even future me) will be able to understanding the misery encapsulated in those two sentences.
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