Tuesday, June 22, 2004

New goal: nice by 2005.

Now I know what you're thinking: 'nice' is a pretty tame ambition(or more likely you're thinking, 'who cares?' Whatever. It's my blog, and you'll think what I want you to think).

In Jr High we had to a silly class called 'health' where we learned about reproduction, birth control, and the importance of drinking enough water. I always hated those classes.

For some reason, in spite of my inherant egotism (see below), people always think (or at least thought, when I was 12) that I'm somehow lacking in self-regard (I'll say it for you: ha!). Anyway, at some point in the class we were asked (via mimeographed survey) what we thought our friends thought of us and what we wished our friends thought of us. I forget what I put down for the first question, but for the second, I wished my freinds would think I was nice.

Now, I didn't wish my friends would think me nice because I was - far from it. I was awful: mean, spiteful even, doing my best to enforce my end of the Jr. High-School pecking order (I wasn't cool, but I was cooler than some of the loosers I hung out with). And I knew it. I felt bad about it sometimes. I wished I were different.

The teacher called me to the front of the room. "Of course you're nice," she assured me, her face glowing with forced kindness.

"Ok," I smiled back, shyly.

But I'm not.

And its just as hard now as it was in Jr. High. So much easier to snark than to empathize. And part of me likes it that way - I mean, some people are just dorks, right?

Bleh. Nice by 2005. How hard can it be?

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