I know you better than you know yourself

Last night after work, I came to a bitter conclusion: I am misunderstood. As is our weekly tradition, four of us went to a co-worker's apartment to play board games after work. We were in the midst of an intense game of Monopoly (and I was losing like Susan Lucci) when a fifth (uninvited) person showed up. The other three wanted to scrap Monopoly and play Trivial Pursuit so that everyone could play. Fuck that! When I protested and informed them that I would be leaving in lieu of Trivial Pursuit, they practically pounced on me and called me a spoiled brat. "Oh, so because we're not playing what CHASE wants to play, he's going home." I was going home because I didn't want to play Trivial Pursuit and because I was tired. Simple as that. It wasn't a threat. It wasn't an ultimatum. It was a declarative statement.

But noooooo. Because I believe in the notion of finishing what you start (and because I was about to buy Park Place), *I'm* the inconsiderate one. And apparently I'd been snapping at everyone all night. It didn't help that one of them had a cold and would NOT stop bitching about it. I'm sorry. I've lived with a sick sister my entire life. Pardon me if a common cold doesn't send me frantically running to a faith healer on your behalf.

When a person is as...outspoken as I am, it's easy to villainize him. Every minor thing I do, no matter how insignificant it might seem to me, is magnified in the eyes of others. When someone makes a harmless joke about me and I do not laugh, it must mean I automatically want to murder his or her first child. When I say I'm tired and want to go home, it certainly shows that I'm pissed off about something. It couldn't be that I'm actually tired. And when I become livid when someone offers some dime store psychological evaluation of me and I vehemently disagree, the only possible explanation is that I'm in denial of the the truth of his/her assessment.

Just because the lot of them are head-nodding harmonists who wouldn't dare speak up when someone inconveniences them doesn't mean I'm about to become someone's doormat. Granted, a game of Monopoly is a slight quibble but...Oh nevermind, you probably don't understand anyway.