Who am I?

CRINGE FOLLOWS

Computer Scientist, IT and Cybersecurity Enthusiast, Simulation Engineer, Digital Artist, Fiction Writer and Poet…ah, but I also lift weights, run 5K through marathon distances, sing and play two instruments, and put a lot of work into my scent and appearance. Theme parks and roller coasters are a huge part of my life, as is gaming, and cartoons and webcomics, and I prefer the world of my imagination to the real world. 

I’ve always felt like an alien born not just in the wrong planet, but in the wrong universe altogether. Something was wrong when I was a kid, but I could not fully explain what or why. I’m not like the other boys. I do not understand how to socialize or make friends, but I cannot articulate why it is so difficult. I memorize the numbers of everyone in the class and the National Pokedex number of every single Pokemon, and am reading 5 grades ahead, but I don’t know how to make others like me. I’m quieter, more absent-minded, more cautious; I don’t like to rough house or play sports. I want to read, fantasize, learn, and study. I am placed in the Gifted and Talented program, yet I feel different even from the other kids there. I am not good at making friends and usually play by myself, but that’s okay, because I have friends from my imaginary world that come to visit me here instead. 

But why are the other kids hurting me? I don’t understand it, or what I did wrong. I’m quiet, I’m shy, I’m anxious, I like to read books, and I don’t talk much except for when I am at home. Apparently, this is a reason to hurt me. When they are spitting on me, pointing and laughing at me, throwing food at me, tripping me when I walk, following me around school and tormenting me, it’s not like a cute revenge of the nerds movie. It hurts, I am scared, I am all alone. Sometimes I wish to no longer be here, and other times I wish to make THEM feel MY pain. I didn’t do anything to deserve this or to make them hurt me. 

Clearly, I do not belong here, and so I start to check out. On paper, I look great. I throw myself into my studies, working myself into the ground and slaving for straight As. I even stop getting bullied. I join the cross-country and track teams, forcing myself into a higher social caste so I can be left alone. I make a few friends, finally, but they don’t really know me, and I go months at school hardly talking to anyone at all. I hate being the quiet kid, but that's what I am known as. Mentally, you see, I am dying. I fall in love with people constantly, but I know they will never love me back. After all, how could they love someone who was so worthless as to be physically bullied every single day of middle school? I complete all of my assignments and make the honor roll and the 100% club in sports and I cry myself to sleep. My temper grows along with the rage. I yearn for love and romance more than anything, yet I cannot achieve it, because I am too shy, and no one wants that. This causes anger and hatred, towards myself, others, and the world. But I am compassionate and caring to all those who did not hurt me. And of course to animals. I am funny and silly online, but with moments of vulnerability. I’m almost always online. Outside the internet, I hardly speak at all. 

I get older, and I channel my intensity into my daily pursuits. I work as a software engineer, lose my dream job as a technical director for DreamWorks Animation, end up back in software, feel anger and hurt for being laid off after only one year at my dream job - the place I was supposed to stay forever at. Even so, I know I will master all of the following: Theme Park Engineering, Lifting, Running, Languages, Music, Digital Art, Writing, Meditation, Computer Science, Computer Graphics, Cybersecurity, and Gaming/Game Development. DreamWorks' rejection of me only fuels the fire even MORE. I have a bachelor's and a master's in Computer Science and Animation, with minors in Creative Writing and Mathematics, and I work on IT certs and PLC courses, but it isn't enough. There is so much more to learn and to be mastered and to be excellent at. I show up every single day and I push myself to the highest possible level. I don’t really believe that I can be loved, so I make myself beautiful instead. My love for real people has diminished, only falling for fictional characters and imagined beings who cannot hurt me. I express my pain and suffering through art, and my desire to master everything I am passionate about — avoiding dabbling and filthy casualness like the plague — consumes me. I become more socially confident and funny, and people enjoy being around me, but I feel fundamentally romantically undesirable and emotionally isolated from others, and I live in my daydream universe while being highly productive on the outside — and always beating myself up for not being far enough along, having lost many productive years to ADHD. I also travel across the country to ride roller coasters, both solo and with others, and even dream of traveling the world. On paper, I look fine, just “why is he not married yet”. Mentally, I am not as sad as I once was, and even feel happy a decent amount - but I am still sad, and other than the theme parks and water parks, I am barely engaged with reality on a mental level. I’m not sure who I would be if I *wasn’t* sad. Of course I want love, of course I want marriage more than anything, but I am painfully shy, and who would I be without the longing for it? Would I just…disappear? I still have the old anger, too. If they hadn't hurt me then I wouldn't be like this. I don't forgive and I don't forget, I remember and hate, and I hold onto crushes, grudges, and regrets for decades - yet I just look so easygoing on the outside to most people. They just don't see the stress. They could, though, if they really wanted to. I can't open up to everyone, only those who will get it. 

Even so, love above all. Real or fictional, as SZA says in Kill Bill, "I did it all for love.” I say that vanity is what gets me lifting every morning, and that’s partly true, but it’s mostly LOVE. I want to be beautiful, I want a perfect body, so then I can be loved. I want to be the best digital artist and science fantasy author in the world, so I can be loved for the pain I express. I daydream about playing the piano and singing beautifully sad songs for someone to fall in love with. Surely, she or he would hear my music, and the longing and the yearning, and want to be with me, and then I could finally be loved. I will never settle for anything less than the love of my dreams. Every weight I lift, every expensive cologne I blow money on, every piece of jewelry I wear, it is all for love. 

And of course, no one notices it. The INFP extroverts through Ne, so I just seem kinda funny and “lol random” in casual settings. At work, I am extremely robotic, methodical, quiet, and precise. I sound like the Polar Express nerd kid when I actually talk, which isn't very often unless I have a friendly extrovert coworker who coaxes me out of my shell. I can roast, I can exude humor, but it's usually dry, crass, or mildly dark. But this is what is happening underneath the surface.