Perceptions
As usual, my first instinct when I hear nice things is to duck and cover. Instead, though, I find myself thinking about the bloggers I’ve met, the ones I know, the ones who have enough experience with me to form an opinion.
How those opinions do vary. Frank offers me “warm” and “brilliant” like desserts on a tray. For another blogger, though, I’m a rigid hypocrite who talks a good game about openness and honesty and friendship but never misses a chance to backstab someone who disagrees with me, or back cravenly out of a fight for the ideals I hollowly profess. I might be a shining example of post-academic recovery, or I might be a bitter loused-up old failure lashing out at my proven betters; depends who you ask. One blogger considers me anathema (is there a word stronger than anathema? if there is, this blogger would use it of me) because I don’t make any particular secret of not liking ill-behaved children and not wanting children of my own (ill-behaved or not).
So who’s right? Eh. They all are, to a greater or lesser degree. Perception formation is partly a function of the interaction, the dyad; I can’t control it because I can’t control the other half of the sketch. Even my perception of myself is dyadic, in a weird way, as I am both observer and observed. As I’m not exactly anyone’s world-champion for perceptiveness, I’m not at all sure I should privilege my observations of myself over anyone else’s.
I do have information y’all readers don’t. There’s stuff I’m reticent about here, both on the good and the bad side. For everyone who thinks of me as a favorite agony-aunt or counselor or general helping hand, though, there’s someone I tried to help and missed helping, sometimes pretty badly. So I certainly shan’t make the claim that my ugly spots are all above the surface, while the iceberg below is shining bright white. There’s an iceberg below, no question. It’s as polluted as anything else.
Do I use Caveat Lector to manage perceptions of me? Sure, now and then. I can think of a couple examples I’d like to take back, because they weren’t completely honest. Turbulent Velvet caught me cold once. Such is my weakness that I was angrier at her for finding me out than at myself for being such a lamer. (I will say for myself that I behaved decently about it, whatever my inner upset.) I’m not sorry I wrote the post in question, though, because the subtext was all in the juxtaposition, and by itself it’s a good post, one I sincerely meant and am happy to reread. Flowers from manure. Does happen, sometimes.
What’s most salient for me at the moment, though, is how the written perceptions of me I’m thinking of say at least as much about the people who produced them as about me. I’m sure Frank has a range of reactions to others, but I would guess he nonetheless describes a lot of them as he did me, because he’s the kind of guy who brings out warmth in people, and wants to see brilliance.
This gives me to ponder about how I talk about other folks, here and elsewhere. Sure, sure, this all fits into the blog-job thread (oh, and Rochelle’s on a roll; check it out!), but it’s larger than that. I would genuinely prefer to be someone who thinks and speaks well of others whenever possible. It’s better for them, of course, in these days of Google-employment-surfing, but it also builds a more decent and honorable me.
Shall have to see what I can do about that.