So you want to know who I am...

I’m not sure if I’m the nicest mean person you’ll ever meet, or the meanest nice person you’ll ever meet. I like to think of myself as honest and amusing, with a biting sense of humor.

I'm not mean, though. One of my most distinct memories from I was little is being at my grandmother's house while my older cousins watched Mommy Dearest. When the “No wire hangers!” part came on, I started crying and they had to turn it off. How could any mother be so mean to her child? I went home and cried and cried about what I’d seen. That's probably the first time my parents suspected I might be what they call, to this day, “overly sensitive.”

I have asked my parents to sponsor a sick kid at St. Jude's for my birthday, cried on Christmas because some people don't even have food, and burst into tears when I see the homeless veteran who sits in the middle of the intersection in his wheel chair on my drive home from work. When Sarah McLaughlin's ASPCA commercials come on, I have to change the channel to avoid crying for the next six years. And don't even get me started on the Pedigree commercials with the dogs in the shelter who say "We're good dogs. We just want to go home." I have tears in my eyes just thinking about it!

You get it by now. I have skipped classes, backed out of social obligations and made personal sacrifices for my friends, and I really do care about people.

Now onto the fun part: my mean streak.

I would never be outwardly mean to someone. Some may think this cowardly, or that I’m “talking shit behind peoples’ backs,” but I don’t see it that way at all. If I don’t like someone, I’m certainly not going to sing their praises, but I’m also not going to be nasty and cause unnecessary conflict when I have to deal with them. Conflict makes me cry.

This doesn’t mean I’m “fake nice.” I don’t go out of my way to be nice to people I don’t like. I just don’t go out of my way to be mean, either. I also know how manipulative I can be sometimes. If you were to talk to my old college boyfriend, he'd probably tell you he went home feeling like the worst person in the world a good 70% of the time we dated. I was great at making everything his fault when I was upset.

If I were this honest all the time, it’d be a huge problem. Sure, I tend to say what everyone is secretly thinking and not feel bad about it. But people don't always need to know. Do my friends really need to know that yes, I can in fact see their weight gain? Probably not. Does the man who just came to my office need to know his breath was so awful that I could smell it across the desk while he talked? No. But I bet there’s a good chance you'll laugh when I tell you about it.

With love,
S