Our Lady of the Gutter
I have realized recently that I subconsciously strive to make myself as undesirable as possible. Most people don’t even notice, I take such care of my appearance that they assume that I must be obsessed with people liking me, looking at me, wanting me, and they’re right in a sense but rarely in the way one would think.
Yes, I make myself as lovely to look at as possible, but only on my own terms. Although I am incredibly vain I won’t bend my aesthetic sense to the preferences of others. I am often spiteful, I can even be cruel. I am petulant, snobbish, and impatient and I make no attempts to correct these characteristics, I can’t even quite bring myself to see them as flaws that need correcting. Although I am not sure if I chose my line of work or if it chose me, the fact is that I keep returning to a career that simultaneously affirms my desirability and places me in a category that most people consider either tragic or morally bankrupt and either way unfit for polite company or happy relationships. I dress up like a toxic person to see if people will open their arms to me anyway, and then I sneer when their arms and hearts stay closed.
This is all my way of testing people, of course, of seeing if they’re willing to push past the bullshit and see me, if not quite as I am, then as I’d like to be. Most of the time it doesn’t work, people don’t bother to look past their immediate impressions, and so I keep to myself. I’ve come to enjoy it, honestly. It’s easier to have few friends you love than it is to have many friends you don’t know if you can really trust. It’s calmer to be able to show your guts to a select few people, rather than always having to keep up a good show for a crowd. I suppose I wish that people weren’t quite so judgmental, but who am I to talk about superficial judgement?