Social Rejection

I passionately hate large groups of people. I’ve tried rationalizing it, exposing myself to it, and erratically changing my disposition in the face of it, only to conclude I don’t and likely will never understand my thinking. From my efforts, I’ve only come to a small realization: I lack social skills. My introspective questioning of my hatred of crowds and cognitively tracing my literacy development lead me to believe this conclusion does not arise from mere phasic social change.

            From birth to age 6, I chose not to speak. I attended public school, read, and gained a strong understanding of written English language through literature I received. During holidays, my father would inform me of my age and then tell me to continue my studies by choosing a book from his bookcase. In a small moment of exasperation, I would choose the largest book available and run off, hoping it would contain something interesting; these books usually related to science and mathematics. My simple choice caused me to excel in these subjects, becoming so obsessed with expanding my knowledge on them that I disregarded my language and writing skills.

            I met my sister in the summer of 2003; she talked non-stop, made many friends, and always subtly demanded attention with her presence. I, however, differed in my language grasp: I had been exposed to three distinct languages in these formative years. My father, an Argentine, strictly spoke to me in Spanish, hoping it would become my primary language; the same occurred with my stepmother and Swedish. I waited outside my sister’s school, one day, sitting cross-legged in the grass and feeling the heavy sun against my face. The children poured out and dissipated into the arms of parents, but she did not. I stood up, with the intent of going inside, when I heard small, halted cries from behind me. I quickly turned around to see her sitting in the shade of the trees, which seemed to glance down and pity her. I ran over to her with haste and concern, falling to my knees in the shade with her and lifting her head towards me. Her face, wet and red, stared with innocence as she sniffled and watched me gesture “why” and “crying”. She stared down into her hands and brokenly said “My friends asked me why you never talk to me…and I said I don’t know…and then Stephanie said you didn’t love me!” She whimpered and her face fell back into her hands. I held her shoulders, processing how to rectify the situation, until I finally said “Jag älskar dig.” She smiled, her sly six-year-old smile, and completely changed her disposition. Pulling out a napkin, she wiped her face and capped the empty water bottle behind her. She pulled her phone out and sat there searching for the translation of what I had said. As she stood up and began pacing, I looked up at her with confusion and astonishment, realizing the whole situation was an intricate performance. She stopped, having found it, and said “You have to tell me that every day, okay? You already said it, so you can’t take it back.” Finally taking it in, I accepted this and nodded.

            Words and phrases jumped from any of the three languages I knew, always making my sentences sound like gibberish. My siblings caught on, however, using contextual clues and Google Translate to understand the gist of my responses. My stepmother’s affection taught me my emotional statements in Swedish, my father’s logic and decisive disposition gave me short phrase commands in Spanish, and school filled in the blanks with English. Communicating with others, however, became impossible; no one could understand the flawed, hybrid speech me and my siblings developed. Bewildering my teachers, I maintained a high reading level, yet couldn’t ask to go to the restroom without saying Jag and baño. The same occurred with my classmates, who always asked me what I had said, or simply disregarded me in confusion. I found it unsettling, leading me to remain reserved, quiet, and shy towards others. I resented my peers for isolating me, so I intended to enhance my intelligence far beyond theirs by not focusing on the trivial. Physics didn’t allow anything on television to occur, winning and losing had no purpose since players surrendered control to a piece of plastic or a board, and small talk only led to wasted social introductions based on a false sense of courtesy; I became a morbid, indifferent, and realistic pre-teen. Sadly, because of my broad but unspecific lingual skills, I chose to understand life in its realest sense much too early and lost much of the optimism, fun, and social circle I could have had during childhood.

            School pushed me into advanced math and science classes, providing me with only basic reading and writing. I loved it, no doubt, but later realized that the system led me with interest, unconsciously forcing me to leave behind my language skills. I don’t regret it, I find extreme passion for my career in engineering, but I can’t help but wonder who I would have become had I been put in creative writing rather than computer science; would I have changed if my first book was a story rather than Theories for Everything? What kind of faith would I have? Even now, as an adult, the thought of such simple events influencing my thinking for the rest of my life frightens me. Any small change in events, the time I read certain books, what I read, the classes I took, the language I learned, the welcome or distance of others could have modified my present life on a grand scale.

The conditioning we undergo as children, mainly our literary sponsorship (which encompasses almost any type of learning), creates our matured personality and life path. Choice comes later, only after we make ourselves aware of the affect other forces have on us and are able to independently think in spite of their influence. I’ve come to realize independent thinking comes from solidarity, along with love, passion, fear, and introspection. Crowds, therefore, have no place for me, as I choose not to “small talk” with people who are trying to free themselves from the same conditioning. Until we can all free ourselves from the vicious cycle we call society, the only thing I can do to make myself feel better is accumulate more knowledge and hate crowds.