I loved Politically Incorrect when it was on.  The comedian from that show now has a new one called Real Time With Bill Maher (?) – not sure if I spelled his name right.  Anyhow, there are many expats who like to rag on the fact that Americans have a seemingly unquenchable self esteem.  Bill Maher showed a clip on his show of an advertisement from before my time illustrating how everyone is equally important.

Now most people either find me nice, intelligent, compassionate, and passionate OR they find me intimidating, arrogant, and uncaring.  How to account for the bipolar verdicts?  I really think that it comes down to self-esteem.  While I do not feel that you should hand out awards to every child on the field for participating or tell everyone that they are wonderful just the way they, you do need to instill some sort of self esteem into your child.

Most of my friends who do love me will say that my attitude is due to a healthy self-esteem followed by wanting to accomplish things.  While they do find my lack of attention to surroundings and sometimes other people’s feelings irritating, we have very logical and factually based conversations which I find stimulating for work and play.

People who have no idea what I am about and who are extremely emotional will never get along with me.  I just do not feel strongly about things that have nothing to do with me and prefer to just problem solve.  Also, for the most part, I do not engage in speculation about people or things that do not directly effect me which makes me a very boring conversationalist when coupled with the fact that I do not watch enough television and movies.

Basically, I lack pop culture and cannot get along with people who lack substance.  There are only so many jokes you can crack and so many facts that you can spew before it becomes all the same.  This leaves me two choices, either leave the situation entirely or start an argument so that you go away when I cannot figure out a nice way to tell you to stay away.

So upon self reflection, maybe it is true that I am scary and intimidating and I do need to find a better solution.  I am very bad at pretending so I am not going to survive faking and lying through my teeth.  I did meet a girl who was very good at hiding her emotions without being dis-ingenuine but I have no idea how she does it and asking her would probably be insulting.

Current Mood: Trying to find the correct social balance.  Really hard.  Dinner was eye opening.  Had a How I Met Your Mother moment with glass shattering a few weeks ago but dinner tonight just reaffirmed my first impression and everything that happened since.