Three Faces

There is a saying that every person has three faces. One we think we show to people. One is how the people see us. And the third one is the hidden one that we don’t show to anyone but ourselves. It is fascinating, isn’t it? It makes me think. What do I think of myself? Umm.. Moderately good-looking, moderately intelligent, overly sensitive, introverted, emotional yet indifferent, very caring, animal lover, unambitious, good friend, BAD girlfriend, bad daughter, socially awkward, indecisive, adventure loving, and of course, crazy. I am a stingy self-evaluator so I would give myself six out of ten. Believe it or not, I come with a huge ego-checker in my mind which rebukes me right away the moment I begin to feel condescending about myself. But is it also being condescending to claim that I am not condescending? Oh my god. You see where my trouble lies? I am always stuck in a loop.

Anyway. Let’s move on to the next face. The most interesting one. How do people see me??? Here comes the catch. There is a part of me that acts like water. It takes the shape of its current container. If you hold a few basic ones (smartness, appearance, emotional quotient, social anxiety etc) ceteris paribus, the other part of me changes behavior accordingly. So if you are a nice person, you will see a very warm, gentle, kind person in front of you. If you are an asshole you will see an arrogant, rude bitch throwing your own shit back at you. (Not proud of this one though.) And mostly, if you are unworthy of trust then you will see someone unusually chatty or unusually quiet and overall evasive and fake. Lately though, I try not to be arrogant. And often try to take silence as the best path to handle any stupid, filthy or mean person. No, I haven’t achieved Buddhahood; I am still a petty human. But in past few months I have realized it’s better to keep your mouth shut than get involved in some self-detrimental shit and then lose your own peace of mind over some asshole. And I felt happy when a fellow blogger expressed the same view. So it still brings us back to the primary question. How do people see me? Once a condescending man said that I was a domineering person. The very person is always out there imposing his own opinion on others without even considering what the other party has to say. Now you decide who is domineering. Anyway. That’s how he sees me. So later when I told my best friend of eight years about this she simply laughed for few minutes first then looked at me and said, “Dude, you are too lazy to be domineering. Tell him to go fuck himself.” There is a friend in Darjeeling with whom I often watch Bollywood romcoms and discuss that eloping is my dream way of getting hitched. He has seen only that side of me so he thinks I am not an intellectual person. There is a friend cum brother who loves to read my blog because of the 'dark stuff' I write. And then there is someone who is so hell-bent on this belief that I have BPD that the first thing after joining office on new year I find a self-help book on my table that apparently arrived when I was on leave. (I was HORRIFIED.) For him, that is the only thing that defines me. He doesn’t give a shit what else I am doing in life. He thinks my good side is just another phase of my true nature, the sick one. And yet, there is another part of him too. That part calls my bullshit and criticizes me so honestly that I have no other option but to rectify myself. It’s like looking into a mirror. I admire that.

Now someone might say, why the fuck do you care what others think of you? You are independent. You are a good person. Those judgmental pricks weren’t there for you when you were having hard time. So why should you give value to their fuckall opinions? True. I shouldn’t care. But I feel I am not a judgmental asshole myself so when others say something I pay attention. I listen carefully and try to fathom how my second face appears from their perspective. If I keep my mind closed and deem everyone as shit then I would never grow as a person. Whatever I am, I am not ashamed of saying sorry when I know I am wrong. Earlier I used to flip out and get all emotional and angry and make a total fool of myself. Now I sit back and think. So when some asshole guy verbally abused me for not reciprocating to his advances for the nth time, I did not freak out. True, I should have lodged a complaint because to even verbally abuse a woman is a criminal offense. But world is so full of creeps that it’s practically useless to go on full combat mode every time you bump into some prick. And instead of feeling angry or humiliated I rather felt sorry for the poor bastard. God, how desperate a person can be? My friend V said that it’s good riddance that the whole thing ended in 2017 so I could start my new year with a positive outlook. In the end we shared a laugh and moved on.

I do have a third face which is a private one. I do not expose it to others. It’s no BPD or anything, so fuck you. Apart from that it’s my blog where I am the most honest version of myself. Sometimes, little too honest. My honesty scares people I tell you. Sometimes I think what people must be thinking of me when they read my post. But in the end I say fuck it and just do it. So yes, if I love you, I will say it openly. If I feel there’s a part of you that is total asshole, I will say that out loud as well. You can call me sick. You can call me whore. You can call me unstable. This is how I appear to myself. And I guess I love this face of me. It's a damn good face.