Attitude, part 1

     Despite the fact that many people have said that they look to me for inspiration on being upbeat, open, and positive in life, if you look back at my past, you'll discover that it's actually relatively recent that this attitude has come to pass. When I graduated high school and joined the work force, I was depressed and angry about life (as are most teenagers), and when I moved out to Colorado six years ago, I was highly mistrustful, hurt, and still pretty angry at the world.

Yeah no, I was just antisocial.

     My first couple roommates out here didn't really give me any motivation to change my attitude, and I remained withdrawn and quiet. When I started my first job out here, as an IT support person, I found myself around other nerds, so the pressure to be social wasn't so bad. I found out I had things in common with some of them, and was, at the least, cordial with co-workers within my own department. A couple months after I'd been working there, they hired another strange, nerdy-type person named Sarah as a technical writer, and she and I struck up a friendship. We would go on walks during lunch and actually (gasp!) talk about our personal lives, rather than just work or public topics.

     Also during this time, I met someone on WoW (where I spent most of my time) who seemed to be a genuinely nice person. Britt started with our group in the same role as me, and thought I hated her guts because I had next to no social skills, yet was in charge of all the healers. After a while, though, she figured out that wasn't the case, and slowly we started spending more and more time chatting together, once again crossing the divide between public and private lives, and being a wonderful friend. Since it seemed like she knew everyone in the game, I would often get dragged into conversations with other people, and I learned how to interact (conversationally, at least) with other people.

     Despite my two "normal" (to me) friends, however, I still pretty much kept to myself. The motivation for leaving Virginia and moving far away included a very nasty breakup from a relationship of eight years followed by forced sexual contact and mental and emotional abuse at the hands of someone I'd considered a longtime friend. Trust and kindness were neither expected from anyone else, nor given by me. About a year after I'd met Sarah, however, something happened that really drove home how much I'd been damaged by past experiences, and that it was high time to face, address, and get over them.

     The place we both worked had been a startup company, and although it was up to 20-30 people by the time I got there, it still kept a very homey, family feel to it. Potlucks, mini-celebrations for each other, and holiday get-togethers were not uncommon, but I usually made the excuse of needing to cover the phones and got out of these events, returning after the fact to scavenge leftovers. On one such day, Sarah came to get me so I didn't miss lunch; I figured it had been long enough that people would have vacated the room, so I walked back with her. Upon turning into the doorway, however, I found that the president (a very tall  man) and two or three other people were still there. I literally froze, because Sarah was behind me, so I couldn't just leave, but I really, really didn't want to face people.

Yup, that look.

     Fortunately, the president was a generally nice guy, so he called me over, and made a joke to break the moment. I edged in, made a few comments, and was apparently so uncomfortable that the other people left fairly shortly thereafter. Sarah later related to me that the president had asked her if I was okay, as my face had portrayed something close to terror at that moment. Up until that moment, I had taken some amount of pride in the belief that I was not showing my inner problems, and that I could deal with my demons without anyone noticing. Apparently, I was highly mistaken.

     While my memory of the time before I moved out here isn't the best, I believe I am correct in saying that I've always played things close to home. I am a fairly private person (blog notwithstanding), and I deal with my own problems myself. While I will cheerfully listen to other people's issues, and offer as much help as I can, I tend to look inward for my own issues. Having the president of the company I worked for, a man whom I respected for being both a good businessman and an honest person, be able to see in the blink of an eye how utterly messed up I was... it definitely left an impression. Now all I needed to do was figure out how to fix it.