I was talking to K yesterday and we got on the subject of what I want to do with the rest of my bonus days. I’m working on some writing projects, but that’s not unusual because I always am. I’m also toying with doing video. I hate the idea because it’s so not my medium, but writing is dead and I have to adapt with the times.
I was mentioning how I’d said on Twitter once that I was thinking of streaming from my couch, Shadow on my lap, as I drank my coffee and surfed the internet. This was years ago. I actually had a few serious ‘I would watch that’ responses, which floored me. I mean, it shouldn’t. There are mukbangs, ASMR, people reading out loud, and a bunch of other stuff that is just basically watching a person existing.
Which, ok, fine. But it’s still weird to me. I mentioned this to K and she said she could see it (with me). She reminded me that I had acted in my twenties and that maybe because of that or something else, but I had a presence. I immediately jumped in and said, “I have charisma.” I know it. ‘ve known it since I was in college. But because of what I’ve seen my father do with it,
It’s hard for me to see it as a positive, but these are my bonus days. If I can’t do something differently now, then when? My brother has been saying for a long time that I should use my charisma for good. Not to mention my ability to read people.
I’ve been on a kick of feeling myself (literally and metaphorically). I tweeted Lizzo’s Good As Hell video (live from Glastonbury) because that’s my theme song for this year. Yes, I’m late in the Lizzo love, but I got there eventually. Someone on Twitter told me that his ex was jealous of his friendship with me. Like, it actually became an issue in their relationship. That floored me because I’m not particularly flirty on Twitter. Yes, I will talk about sex or my as or whatever, but it’s not as if I propositioning people. Also, I don’t do pictures. At least not at that time. I have posted a few selfies post-hospital, but mostly with my mask on.
I thought it was really wild that his girlfriend at the time had an issue with us being friends, but when I told K about it, she said she could understand. And it reminded me of when I was in college, I was friends with a lot of guys. Back then, I was into the cool chick meta for many reasons. One, I liked ‘guy’ stuff much more so than ‘woman’ stuff. Two, I wanted to be accepted by guys. Three, It was a way to hang out around the guys I liked without being threatening. I could be one of the guys and laugh at them about the other silly women. At some point, though, I realize that I was only there on sufferance and if I ever slipped in my behavior, I would become one of those ‘silly girls’.
Anyway, a friend of mine at the time burst out and said unhappily, “It’s not fair! All the guys like you.” To which I retorted, “Yeah, because I treat them like normal human beings.” That was cruel of me, but it’s true. I didn’t treat them any differently because to me, they were just people. I didn’t see the need to put them in a different category, so we got along like gangbusters. When I told my college boyfriend this, he laughed and said that every single one of them wanted to get into my pants. I protested, but he was convinced. Given that we were friends before dating, maybe there’s some truth to his statement.
The truth is that I know I have a presence. I know that people are drawn to me. Up until now, I’ve resisted using it, but I think i’s time to acknowledge that I can use it for good. I repeated my quip about streaming from my couch yesterday on Twitter and got a couple people encouraging me to do it. That’s not what I want to do, but I’m definitely thinking about how I can stream.
K and I came up with a few joke ideas, but there is a germ of truth in them. More to the point, I need to take a page from my brother’s book and just try something. We are at the very opposite ends of the spectrum in that he’ll decide to do something and just do it. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, oh well. Move on to the next thing.
Me, on the other hand….I agonize over something for years, then I make comprehensive lists of that I need to do in order to think about doing the thing I want to do. When I actually do the thing, it’s usually fast and furious. But getting to that point is agony. I have so much reluctance to do the things needed to do to get to the point of doing the real thing, I have to talk myself into it. In this case, it’s filming myself. I don’t want to do it, and I haven’t done it before. That’s not exactly true. I have videotaped myself twice for other people, and it was agony. I hated the way I looked and sounded, and I winced while watching each one.
But that’s something I’m just going to have to get over. I’m already more comfortable with my body and my face, so video shouldn’t be that much different. And I know that people like my voice, so I can hang my hat on that.
The bottom line is that I’ve been tamping down my charisma for decades because I feared it. I was afraid that I’d abuse it, which is valid. But it’s also valid for me to realize that I can use it wisely. It’s not as if I’m helpless to the grips of ‘charisma’. It doesn’t use me; I use it.
I’m going to set some homework for myself. My brother has a handheld camera he uses for his videos. He suggested it to me, and he’s offered to loan it to me. He also has a greenscreen that I can use for my backdrop. There is absolutely no harm in me making a few videos. I can delete them without posting if they suck.
I know one of my biggest issues is forcing myself to do things, even things that I want to do. K and I used to go dancing once every few months or so. We’d complain about how it was so difficult to haul ourselves up and get dressed, even when we very much wanted to see each other and shake our booties.
Side Note: One thing K and I talked about was a plus-size TikTok woman who got shit for having a hot husband. Many women commented that they couldn’t see why he was with her and were sliding into his DMs about how he should be with them instead. Ok, I don’t know for sure that they’re all women, but I can guess that most of them are. Women are catty like that. And if they were dudes, they’d just say she was a fat cow without commenting about why was her husband with her? They might comment on how they would never fuck her, but they wouldn’t mention her husband being with her.
I Googled the woman and she’s fucking hot. More to the point, she’s quirky and fun-looking ,whereas he’s….fine. I can see why he’s called fit and attractive, but if I met them in real life, she would be the one I was attracted to. Both physically and just as a person.
Anyway, even when I was going out with K, I would wait until the last possible minute to get dressed. Then I would drive to her house and watch her dither about what she wanted to wear for half an hour. Then, we’d finally leave and have a wonderful time.
This is me. I’ve accepted that it takes me F-O-R-E-V-E-R to prepare to do something, even if it’s something I want to do. I just have to factor in that amount of time and make sure I give myself plenty of buffer.