“The Thing”
Any of my friends who have known me for long enough know that I sometimes do a behavior nicknamed “the thing” by my best friend in college.
It starts when I let down my guard about something I’m interested in. It could be as simple as a name of a favorite character or as complicated as any of my headcanons (ways that I like to imagine certain things happening during or after the plot of my favorite books/movies/video games). I get caught up in the thrill of sharing, only for the other person to ask me a question.
The question is always something simple, because I always leave out the most important details out of shame or fear. And when I’m confronted, I freeze.
My thoughts begin to whirl. The euphoria of sharing my favorite things is gone, leaving behind raw panic. It’s a classic fight-or-flight response, where part of me wants to answer the question with aggressive pride and the other part just wants to hide in the closest available spot.
And while I’m sitting there playing tug-of-war with myself, I miss out on important moments in conversation, and frankly, seem strange, as if my brain has left my body for no reason at all.
When I get like this, my mouth gets dry. I feel others’ eyes on me acutely even if it’s nothing more than politely making conversation. I feel pressure to answer in a timely manner, but can never think of a good way to be honest because I’m too afraid that if I reveal too much about the things I enjoy, I will lose friends.
It started in college, when I discovered a deep passion for Greek mythology that I worked into my senior-thesis-turned-novel. I was so ashamed of working with mythological characters and concepts in my thesis that I would blush deeply whenever anyone brought anything up. Even just the name of some of my favorite gods and goddesses could cause me to flee from the room or, in one memorable occasion, actually hide under a table.
It started when I was mocked for having this particular interest and working it into my writing, and ever since, I’ve responded to the familiar shame of being too interested in things in this way.
My “thing” is a predictable enough response that people who have known me for a long time know it’s “the thing” and to just wait or be encouraging. But now that I’ve been making more attempts to find new friends, I find myself facing this behavior like a newcomer all over again.
This past weekend, I went to a new friend’s apartment to marathon all three extended editions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which took around twelve hours. That kind of commitment isn’t for the faint of heart, which made me feel more comfortable - I wouldn’t be admitting to a level of interest that other people in the room wouldn’t have - and for the most part, I was right.
My friend baked a variety of things based on themes in Lord of the Rings. We all offered background commentary during the viewing. Someone offered up a drinking game with an option to “experience an emotional connection” to a particular character instead of drinking whenever they did a certain action on-screen. We all chose a character. (I got Frodo!)
But as the movies rolled on, we started talking about other things, including video games. Fire Emblem: Three Houses came up, and I quickly got into a conversation about cosplaying with someone else who cosplays a character in that game.
And then, before I remembered to stop myself, I brought up the fact that I have a favorite “ship” (a romantic pairing between characters that people enjoy imagining; very common in the fandom community). Naturally, a question followed: “Who are the characters?”
I felt the feeling come on again.
This time, it wasn’t just the familiar “thing” that comes at me even when I’m with my close friends. It was an additional feeling of knowing that I was being weird in front of a room full of people by not answering the question, and even if I did answer, they might think I was weird for liking this particular ship, which tends to be unpopular. It was a no-win situation.
But thanks to my whole “year of yes” thing, I decided to try to speak up. I couldn’t quite get words to come out at that very moment, but I flipped my phone over to show off my case, which has the two characters in question on the back. My potential new friend looked down at the case, then at me.
“Cool,” she said.
She doesn’t love that ship, I came to learn, but she doesn’t hate it, either. Nor does her like or dislike of fictional characters have anything to do with how she feels about making a new friend. We’ve talked a few times since, and my fledgling attempt at openness didn’t ruin everything. It probably even made things better by not leaving me stumbling for far too long and making myself the center of unwanted attention.
It’s hard for me to “unlearn” things after certain behaviors of mine are reinforced. It’s hard to break the behaviors that I get complacent about fighting because people who know me are used to it. But it’s time to fight past that complacency.
This won’t come overnight, but I hope that the next time someone asks me about something I’m interested in, I admit it right away rather than beating around the bush. I hope that even if I’m nervous and sweaty and my words come out squeaky, I can still muster up the courage to share something that matters so much to me that I keep it a closely guarded secret.
I tell myself that there will be people who are fine with what I have to say, and people who won’t be. There’s only one way to find out, and no matter how scary it is, I want to turn my “thing” into a thing of the past as I diversify the ways I look for friends.
Ellie, a writer new to the Chicago area, was diagnosed with OCD at age 3. She hopes to educate others about her condition and end the stigma against mental illness.