Miscommunication

Thank God for Nick Matchen*!

Turns out the reason I have no friends isn't because I'm anti-social (though my agoraphobia is getting much, much worse, I can assure you, but you'd have to come over to my house and well, yea, maybe you should just stay away). The real reason I have no friends is because one of my text messages was misread (I'm pretty sure this is the case, because I remember it vividly in my mind, though perhaps I mistyped a sentence and the syntax was severely violated). What I meant to say and what I thought I said was:

Being black is not equivalent to being poor and not having a father.

What was read and what my ex-friend thought I said was:

Being black is harder than being poor and not having a father.

Oh! Where is Kenneth Burke when you need him?! I bet he could fix this mess in a jiffy, if only because he would be overqualified to settle this dispute (he did write Philosophy of Literary Form; I doubt he would be amused by Texts from Last Night).

It's odd, actually. My only ill-feelings result from my ex-friend misreading my text message and assuming I would argue: "being black is harder than anything else." God knows why. They're non-comparable issues, really. Completely incomparable. I'm offended that she'd think I'd think that. But now do I get upset because I think she thinks I'm a crummy human being (sad)? Or do I get upset at her for being incapable of reading sentences (anger)?

Sadly, I can not get into actual fights with people because I have severe PTSD from the good old days when I'd fight anyone and/or was exposed to a lot of fighting. My general feelings are either sadness or apathy. If I ever feel happy or angry, well, bad things happen. 

This argument is similar to the time when I was thirteen and got in a fight with another thirteen year old about what was harder: being Jewish or being black. With maturity, I guess I could hazard a guess at that answer, but I am still under-prepared to fully understand the situation. Just like I'll never know what it feels like to be poor or not have a father. I guess I could try to figure out what it might feel like, but I don't really want to kill my father, I don't want to disown my wealth, and I have other problems that I may as well deal with. Does this mean I don't relate well to humans? Probably. Or maybe it's because I am very honest: I will never understand what her life feels like.

Kenneth Burke would agree with me. I wish there were more crazy scholar rhetoricians in the world. *sigh* Alas, rhetoric isn't the powerhouse it used to be, and as a result, being a rhetorician is kind of, incredibly, disarmingly, alarmingly, very, pretty, lonely.

Oh well. I don't feel bad that I no longer have any good friends at home. I feel worse that I was misunderstood. I have trouble communicating, it would appear, with people who are not me. I feel angry about that, but only about that. I still haven't cried. A lot of things happened in the last week that I think could have made me cry. A lot of things I would've and probably should've cried about. But nope. Dry eyes.

Sadly, my ex-friend will probably never read this, but it's been a good thought process. And any blog entry where I can bring up Kenneth Burke is probably a good idea. Furthermore, I take back my other blog entry "black baby boy." Though I do still question how not racist you are. But I question that with everyone. It's very disarming. But it's not something I'd expect you to understand.


*Can you die from sarcasm? Because I think I'm trying.