Expectations
I've realized that everywhere I go, I build expectations that I don't keep.
I'm great at performing at a high level—for a short period of time. When that period of time invariably runs out, people still expect me to do as good of a job as I previously did, and as I fumble more and more they realize they realized how misplaced their trust was in me, get dissapointed, and lower their expectations.
Consequently, there's very few non-solitary activities or relationships that I've kept up for a long time. The ones which I have are mostly those which I couldn't avoid maintaining—my ties with my family and my Taekwondo practice (my parents refused to allow me to quit), primarily. My best friend is an exception—we're both absolute screw-ups at life, although my failures are entirely due to my own actions while hers originate entirely from her messed-up circumstances. But we're both comfortable to an extent admitting how crappy we are to each other, which is why I enjoy her company.
Now that I'm in college, I've made many friends, made many more acquaintances, joined multiple clubs and participated in a variety of organizations over the course of the past month. I've been riding the tide of my temporary high performance and making an excellent impression of everyone—despite me having quit one of these organizations already. I made up an excuse which made them think that I didn't leave due to my recognizably increasing incompetence. Sooner or later it would've caught up to me, and I would've either had to leave or stay festering in my own failure and the contempt of others.
But now I can feel that tide widthdrawing, in every aspect of my life. My social responses aren't that fast anymore. I can't think of jokes in time, can't respond to people appropriately, can't act as extraordinarily confident. I'm performing poorly at physical activities. I'm not able to do classwork or explain things to people as well as I used to be. I can tell they are beginning to find me annoying, vapid, empty and not worth their time or attention.
I just want to go someplace, be somewhere, where no one will notice me as a distinct human being. Where I can't let down people because they don't expect anything from me in the first place. Where I can't fail to deliver because I owe no one anything in the first place.
Of course, it makes me genuinely happy to have people like me. I feel genuine joy when people call me by my name, compliment me, tell me that I'm good at something, that I contribute value, imply that my existence is preferable to my dissapearance. When they care about me, talk to me, make plans with me, it shows that they don't despise my company and it makes me feel like a proper human being. But it just can't last. And now that I've experienced a real social life, it's time for me to calmly turn it off instead of seeing it slowly rot, fester and finally collapse upon me.
I just wish I could do the same with every other part of my life.