May 19th, 2005

Well, a good friend of mine was reading my post yesterday, and indicated that there was a falacy in it. He said that the crack on my literary skills was unfounded. Whether that’s true or not, I’m not gonna debate at this point, but it got me thinking. I make cracks like that about myself very often. I tend to call myself a moron, or an idiot, and that’s on the good days. I actually enjoy telling people that I’m dumber than a sack of rocks. And sometimes, I wonder why.

Now, it’s not like I don’t know when this started. I know because I started conciously doing it. I was quite unpopular through most of grade school and high school. Yeah, wah wah, I’m not the only one, I know. But it still sucked to have almost everyone else call me a loser pretty much every day.

Of course, I got advice on how to deal with them. My dad told me to beat them up. Yeah, I was a scrawny weakling who had no concept of how to fight. Growing up with 3 sisters meant I didn’t employ fisticuffs in the house very often. If I’d tried to hurt any of the guys who teased me, I would have ended up eating dirt. My mom told me to ignore them. New flash, this does not work. Bullies can tell when you’re specifically ignoring them. They know they’re having an effect just because you’re so obviously ignoring them and will keep bullying you harder until you can’t ignore them any more.

So I came up with a defense of my own, which I called Self-Degredation. If they called me an idiot, I happily agreed with them. If they asked why I was doing something, I’d reply with “Because I’m a moron!” with a big grin on my face and go on my way. I confused the heck outta them, and they stopped bugging me because you really can’t get any joy out of teasing someone who’s taking joy in the abuse. Basically, I beat them to the punch.

Nowadays, I’m a lot happier. I have my friends, I have a good job, I actually like my family, and people tend not to tease me anymore. My life is nothing spectacular, but it’s still pretty darn good.

And yet, I still compare myself with intoxicated long-tailed primates, and tell people that I have all the cognitive abilities of a sack of rocks. This self-degredation has become my security blanket. Kinda funny how something so negative can be taken as a positive, isn’t it?

Entry Filed under: The Black Hole