You know those in-depth but awkward conversations in which you engage with someone you don't really like, and then they think you've formed some sort of titanium alloy friendship? Okay, it's not a common thing. But, God, did it happen to me. Before Real World, I went into Red Rock to get a drink at the bar. A girl from high school was also drinking alone at the bar. She basically spilled to me how lonely she was and how she's so mortified that her life didn't amount to more after high school. When she was finished with her ceaseless monologue, she asked what I was up to. I told her I wanted to be in film, and she said, "Oh that's perfect for your personality! There's nothing to being an actor aside from being shallow and good looking. I can totally see that for you." Granted, for one who purports to be as "shallow" and "self-centered" as I do, I shouldn't mind when people tell me that. However, it's one thing for someone who knows me to say it. It's another for some unfulfilled fatass cheerleader reject to make calls on my character when I've just spent the last half hour hoping to O.D. on Jack and Coke while she talks about repressed junior high anger. To quote American Beauty, "I am so sick of people taking their insecurities out on me."

It's not as if I try to be one extreme or another. I don't go out of my way to play the role of asshole, just as I don't go out of my way to be really nice if I don't genuinely feel like it. So many people are hellbent on fitting into a stereotype ("the bitch," "the intellectual," "the rebellious intellectual," "the pop culture junkie," "the jaded loner," "the social one," "the victim," etc). I don't think there's anything wrong with playing the field. I might not act the same way that I do today as I did yesterday. More often than not, I'm happy exhibiting no personality, avoiding people and their skewed perceptions of me, and just watching a movie so someone else can portray a character for my amusement.

We're all insecure. We all want attention. We all have a perception that edits us into the best and others into the worst. We all think things through more than we should. Once we realize how similar we are, we'll get off those sand-based pedastals that pad our fragile egos. God I hate people. But don't we all?