Notes from a Ghost

shyness / logic / social media

“I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self Reliance

When I was young, my mom told me I’d grow out of my shyness someday. Then she’d joke about how she was still waiting to grow out of it herself.

I don’t actually think of myself as shy at all – certainly not meek – I think the word you’re looking for is reserved. Fiona Apple once said, “I’m not shy. I just don’t speak if I don’t have anything to say.” She continues, “that’s what tact is. Tact is the art of saying nothing when there’s nothing to say.” I share this sentiment exactly, and between you and me, I sometimes wish more people did too.

Through the lens of social media, transparency is violently expected of us. My bouts of shyness are violent in their lack of violence – I’m left with lassitude to balance insatiable curiosity, and the inevitable desire to share it. I’m not popular by any stretch, online or off, but there’s a silent expectancy that’s palpable in many spaces in which it’s almost weird not to share. Still, I would argue many take it too far. Take, for example, the recent ovulation fixation, which on one hand could just very well stem from a seemingly global lack of education surrounding the menstrual cycle, but on the other, really seems like private information, no?¹ I see this kind of oversharing most overtly on spaces where digital communication of the visual variety have taken over, through strangers who preach to the masses via their own reflection on a screen, though it knows no bounds. In my rebellion, I sometimes second-guess posting photos of my very ordinary life, thinking who even cares... it’s not like it’s anyone’s business, or even a photo my cat, who is adorable, a gift and a blessing for anyone’s eyes. Then I remember there’s people making a living out of posting their orifices, and I wonder why I’m so weird.

On top of oversharing, we tend to measure our lives by logic – facts, accomplishments, careers, milestones. Is it odd that I don’t freely share the logic of my life? I don’t always think the facts are so important. I don’t even think my life aligns to factual structure, but I’ve noticed how many of us thrive within its cozy confines.

Is this unicorn in captivity or simply resting peacefully in the garden? A question for the ages.

At the start of the summer, I was at a party in the sun, and it was horribly hot and there were many people in attendance that I didn’t know. Forget, for a moment, my more sardonic center – I actually keep a relatively sunny exterior, am quick to smile, and usually become more preoccupied with making others feel comfortable before myself. But I don’t do well with crowds or hot weather, so I wilted a bit, nursed a wine spritz and hyperfixated on a crispy, sunburnt Boston fern that was forgotten next to the trash. In assuming my typical wallflower position, I hoped that I could just blend in. The thing is, there are certain people who naturally gravitate towards these more awkward characters like my own, usually the overbearing or chatty types, or people with loud voices who like to hear themselves talk. All my life I’ve felt like no matter how hard I try to fly under the radar, there must be something on my face that invites strangers to spill their guts to me. I sincerely cannot go anywhere without this occurring. It’s like some kind of Murphy’s law specifically for social anxiety.

For most of the afternoon, I ended up sitting under the shade of a tree and letting a woman that I quite literally just met fill me in about the drama on her swim team: tiny tidbits of jealousy, gossip, and competition, like someone talking behind her back and then pretending to be her friend, or another swimmer who she ardently believed was jealous of her own athletic accomplishments. She was free with the facts of her life – she’s won gold 3 times (!) in Special Olympics for gymnastics and swim. Fact. She and her boyfriend have been together for 13 years and they’re talking about marriage. Fact. Oh, and she’s throwing a big party for her 50^th in November, somewhere in Minnesota, and I’m invited. Fact.

Children are also very free with facts, and they’re only just learning how to be people. I admire this freedom in how they make so much about life look so easy. Somewhere between cake and the afters, I helped a girl about three or four get a rock out of her shoe, and then she just took them both off and told me plainly, “Violet’s one today.” And that is, in fact, a fact – Violet is one, we were at her birthday party after all. Another woman talked to me at length about the time she spent in Switzerland recently, but she’s from Germany originally. Fact.

So am I really a person if my life doesn’t revolve around facts? Am I really such a sparkling conversationalist if it seems like all I do is listen? And how is it that the opposite of “fact” is only “fiction,” therefore, the antithesis of truth? The rigidity of things gets so hazy to me. I want to challenge it. I can’t always remember the structure of events that brought me to where I am now; I walk a tightrope of hypnagogia – maybe you can see the mist pulled over my eyes. By abolishing my facts with my words and opinions, my identity has form only in chasing those thoughts and the memories that shape it. I can see that web that is weaved very clearly, and even the glimmer of the abyss where facts are suspended and have no value, no meaning, and I think many of us quiet types must live in there, safe, but with blurred boundaries. In this way my shyness has made a ghost of me, an entity, just passing through. I shudder at the thought of small talk, at an acquaintance asking what I do for work, though I like my job and find it quite interesting and fulfilling. I detest the part of socializing that’s just show and tell, and I’m afraid of how often it is mistaken for connection. Is my flippancy for a factual life a direct result of shyness, or are they separate, just two ships passing in the night?

Saint Humility and scenes from her life by Pietro Lorenzetti. According to catholic.net, a website I only just found out existed, St. Humility lived as a hermitess in a cell for twelve years near the church of Saint Apollinaris. Slay

I think a lot of social anxiety manifests itself simply in the pressure of always being perceived; in the assumption that those around us intuitively hone in on the very thing we’re insecure about. This of course is aggravated by the online world, where you can very easily keep up with the facts of those close to you, or even just people you forgot you went to high school with. Neat little identities tucked into circles and grids, glowing orbs of exhibition, my vulnerability hot in your pocket. In this way our insecurities, which can easily be recognized as false when we’re the only ones looking at ourselves, become more nuanced and piercing when suddenly they’re graced with the reality of another who perceives us. We’re not so simple or predictable as we appear to our friends or families, to strangers we see in the grocery store or people we meet at a party, even to the online masses. The solipsism that self consciousness stems from tricks us into believing that the illusions of other people are real. Real because they are illusions, illusions that can’t find ground in cognizance, illusions that make people into ghosts. So when I perceive myself outside of myself, through the eyes of another, or rather when I act as if I am being perceived, I am shrinking, performing, betraying myself, and quickly becoming as derivative as I fear. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy - best to remain vigilant.

It wasn’t always this way. As a kid, I always felt like I was being watched. I was mostly offline until my early teen years, but such a state provided freedom and liberation, not paranoia and isolation — and I spent a lot of time by myself. It was necessary that I picked flowers and tucked them somewhere no one else would notice – nestled near the arbor in the backyard where only I’d frequent, or in a cabinet in my room that only I’d open. It was compulsory to read aloud while completely alone, to work on cadence and so that anyone could follow along - imaginary or real, it didn’t matter (and is it embarassing that I still do this sometimes?). It was crucial that the melody that was stuck in my head be a perfect invocation, that the song I was learning on piano matured from stumbling sight-reading to satisfactory, not because anyone was listening around the corner, but because someone was always listening, be it angels, be it ghosts. I simply acted in accordance with what I thought would please them. Looking back on these harmless confessions now, these earnest exercises in peace and privacy, it seems I can define them as acts of self love, or even love unwittingly professed to a higher power (although one could argue that is one and the same). I pity that such freedom of necessity, such limitless self expression became expectedly public somewhere down the line – the natural play and lust for life somehow transformed into the automation of performance, into desire for outward validation and the yearning for an unobtainable perfection. I hate that screens have trapped us into believing the illusion is real.

“…people take on the aspect and the mannerisms of what they are not but would like to be sufficiently to create an illusion at first sight. To the outward appearance, affectation, imitation, and longing to be admired, whether by the good or by the wicked, add misleading similarities of speech and gesture. There are cynicisms and cruelties which, when put to the test, prove no more genuine than certain apparent virtues and generosities.”

Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove

It is disconcerting to me sometimes when I meet the eyes of a stranger. Even in my hyper-vigilance I am still so ignorant. I’m not ashamed of the nakedness that comes with perception, but that the nakedness alone is expected at all. There are men who get that look in their eye that’s somewhere between focus and daze, a look indicative of nothing loftier than canine appetite, and it makes me want to hide, or bare my teeth back. There are women that smile sweetly but I don’t always know how to read them -their eyes flick and flutter around like moth wings on a light bulb, and I can’t tell if they’re hating this conversation and they think my shoes are ugly or if they actually want to be friends. And they always seem to agree with me – haha, I looove that, yes, I knowwww, me toooo - even if their eyes look like they want to say something else. Part of this is perhaps just learning how to operate in a world that expects transparency of us in an instant, in a click of a button; learning to be a human being who doesn’t stare at shoes when the conversation lulls, but *gasp* asks if they’ve seen any good movies recently — something that, for some, might take longer to master than others.² But I also think socializing irl has shifted a bit simply because of the normalization, the expectance, of “being online” - the memetic invisible hand is outstretched long before pleasantries are even exchanged. As a tween writing on Xanga (#old), there was an anonymity implied that simply doesn’t exist online anymore. There were no blue checks and no Instagram stories for the nosy ones to peek into your day-to-day, yet I shared freely, probably even overshared quite a bit, under my thick digital curtain of course - and even made some internet friends that kept the same sort of guise that I did.³

As I’ve gotten older, I don’t think the shyness has gone away; I think I’ve just gotten used to it. It is not so much a deformity but a trait, presumably one that’s been passed down for generations. That realization alone has done wonders for confidence. There’s no doubt that being truly seen is a beautiful thing, but I think it’s also more rare than we’d like to admit in these days of incessant exposure. Like many afflicted with shyness, I’ve always found comfort in animals, cats specifically, and plants. Fellow weirdos and loners, absolutely. I find the most comfort of all in solitude, but I’m no St. Humility, so is that any way to live?

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As for facts of my own, I keep little notebooks on hand always and pens to write down beautiful words, phrases that describe the way the lake looks different at every hour of every day, entire etymologies to investigate, sentences constructed from their own music. All of this amid a to-do list, a grocery list, various things to remember. I hate the possibility of forgetting a thing. These scribbles fill up pages and pile up like sand in an hourglass, always at the brink of spilling over, or ceasing its flow.

I’ve been learning chess and it’s an exercise in patience, as well as an exercise to harden the side of me that goes against my true nature (that being overflowing intuition). Chess is factual, formulaic, and surprisingly comforting. I’m a fan of the Ruy Lopez opening, but I’m having trouble with my checkmates.

I’ve been going to the orchard at dusk, the one along the water, and sometimes sneaking an apple or two. I’ve been weeding my garden and routinely checking for ticks (fact: it’s been one of the worst tick seasons in recent history). I’m ambidextrous, though my left hand is slightly more dominant. I (clearly) have a love/hate relationship with being “on the grid” - in many ways I think it mostly sucks, it’s mostly silly and artificial, but so it goes. It’s a weird balance to try and strike - the desire to create and share and consume against the caveats that come with it.

Also, I guess I’m kinda shy, but I’m honestly okay with it.

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For further reading, I really resonated with these thoughts on “posting ennui” from The New Yorker, highlighting the weirdness of posting an ordinary life online given what the internet currently is: thick with AI slop, an endless onslaught of advertisements, and dead-eyed, veneered influencers with laundry so dirty you can smell it through the screen. Go ahead and try to sell me something! I love when you assume my head isn’t hard as a rock.

I also have to shout Emerson for Self Reliance — no explanation necessary.

1. I am all for women feeling empowered enough to speak of their experiences in excrutiating detail, but why am I suddenly met with the knowledge that someone I’ve never even met is dropping an egg while I’m doomscrolling? In an interview with Rolling Stone, Lorde cited ovulation as “one of the craziest drugs she’s ever done.” I was going to link a Twitter thread here too (it’s since been deleted) that touched on this weird obsession, as well as the hypersexuality that’s associated with ovulation, and how harmful it can be to discuss it this way - not to mention the fact that many times, this rhetoric is just used as another way to appeal to men. I’d also add that this fixation can be indicative of the earthy-crunchy-to-right-wing-pipeline which is so very concerned with “real women” and “peak femininity,” perhaps as it pertains to the cycles of the moon. Give me a break.

Many women chimed in against the idea (sorry, fact) that ovulation is not inherently sexual - calling it “puritanical,” among other things. Personally, I had no clue this was so controversial - I thought it was common sense. I guess we’re still not ready to have this conversation, or maybe just too preoccupied with the rush that may come with oversharing when you’re ovulating and horny. Nevertheless, I highly recommend reading the Observer article linked above, as it takes a look at this whole conundrum in a sober light.

2. My half-Finnish dad always tells this joke: “How do you know if a Finn is outgoing? They’re looking at your shoes instead of their own.” I tell you it’s hereditary!

3. Xanga is long dead but I still have the entirety of my blog posts from 2009-2013 saved on a flashdrive. Fact. A little cringe sometimes is good for the soul. Keeps you humble.