lilianic's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- communal embarrassment I take the fact that nothing terribly interesting happens to me to be proof that G-d exists and loves me. I am easily embarrassed. Actually, that�s putting it mildly. Sometimes I find myself so embarrassed for others that I feel that if I could, I would gladly die on the spot, in their stead, just to extricate them from such a situation. I�m sure that sounds extreme, but it�s true. Not too many people know this about me, or would even suspect it. I can be quite extroverted, and often say and do things that others tell me they could never bring themselves to say or do. The thing is, the thing that others don�t understand about me, what I find embarrassing and what others find embarrassing differ greatly. Other people don�t like to make scenes in public, and I rejoice in doing so. Not the kinds of scenes that involve screaming things like, �You jerk! Of course I�m sure it�s your baby!� Well, okay, I may have said something like that before, but just as a joke, and only to mortify whomever I was talking to. Let me tell you, the only thing funnier than saying that and not meaning that is saying it to another woman. You all should try it. I like to sing loudly and dance in Wal-Mart and wave at cute strangers and to do all of those things that people are discouraged from doing once they�re old enough to interpret that particularly pained expression on a parent�s face. It�s not those sorts of things that embarrass me to the point of physical discomfort. No, I�m just sensitive to the excruciating emotional discomfort of fictional people. If I�m watching a movie on television and a character makes a total ass of him or herself, I have to stop watching. I�ll change the channel. Or pick up a book. Or leave the room. There�s no way for me to sit through that without squirming. For example, I was watching a movie this evening, and the lead character is talking to a man who is trying to tell her about a woman who he just met, but who he likes a lot for the short period of time that he�s known her. The man was not talking about the woman with whom he was conversing, but that�s what his conversation partner assumed. She began to act as though he was complimenting her. As if this wasn�t enough, other people witnessed her reaction and understood it before the man did. It was evident when the woman realized her mistake, because she turned red and almost visibly shrank within herself. As if this wasn�t bad enough, she had to continue participating in the conversation and act as though nothing had happened. Harsh. I ask you, how am I supposed to watch something like that? It�s harrowing, it�s pathetic, it�s almost more than I can bear, and it�s not even really my pain. More to the point though, how do others sit through it? I know that not everybody reacts to extremely embarrassing scenes in the way that I do. I mean, when I leave a room because there�s a television or movie scene that I find particularly painful to sit through, it�s not as though everybody else joins me. I�ll tell you something: this is the reason why I can�t watch movies like American Pie. Well, one of the reasons, anyway. Movies that continually place characters in amazingly humiliating situations are just too difficult for me to watch. I mean, I can kind of ignore it once, mentally balance my check book the second time, and close my eyes and hum internally the third time, but after that, it is just too difficult for me to avoid the realities of that movie. Don�t get me wrong, I�m not completely unable to cope with scenes like this. I won�t get up and walk out of a movie theatre, and if I�m watching something with my friends and it�s going to be a distraction for me to leave, I�ll stay where I am. I am not completely at the mercy of this sensitivity. Not really. It�s just that I like watch movies and television by myself, so I often have the luxury of indulging my little weirdness. Actually, this isn�t even limited to visual media. The same thing happens to me when I am reading. Whenever a character says or does something especially stupid, or has some humiliating thing happen, I feel like I can�t keep reading. I feel like I need to put as much distance as possible between myself and what is taking place. It�s weird. As much as I want to ease the character�s burden, I also feel like the best thing for me would be to put some distance between his or her reality and my own. I know that when I am reading, I have more control over this intense connection with the people about whom I am reading. For me, the act of reading, unlike that of watching a television program or movie, is an overtly active pursuit. I can�t just sit back, offer half of my attention, and wait for words to make sense to me. I need to decipher the text that I�m reading, force it to mean something. It is, therefore, doubly hard for me to read a passage that is particularly humiliating to a character. Not only am I exposed to it, but it is only by the act of continuing to read that I understand the scope of the embarrassment. In a sense, I am the agent of embarrassment, because I prolong it. Of course, I realize that the writing existed before I read it and will continue to do so once I�m past that point, but I cannot shake the feeling that each time that scene is revisited � either by me or by another reader � the humiliation occurs anew. I�ve been this way for as long as I can remember, and I don�t necessarily want to change. It�s how I approach the characters and persons whom I encounter when I read books, articles, and essays, etc, or watch television and movies. It just sort of gives me pause every now and then, when I am confronted with how very not usual this is. 23:37 - 2003-08-05 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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