Know it all's.

Finally, I'm sick of getting viewed as 'dumb' or 'stupid', 'quiet' or standoffish and the butt of every joke.

I'm quiet in most places because I don't find it easy to socialise with people I don't know, and sometimes I don't know how to react with the people I do know. If you know me well, you won't think I'm shy. You'll think "Alie never shuts up, she's a loudmouth and crazy." If you don't know me, you'll think "Oh, that Alie girl is quiet, she always looks bored and standoffish etc" and if you're in the middle, well, you'll probably think I have a lot of mood swings.

I don't know why I find it hard to talk to some people, and why I talk wayyy too much to others, but a lot of it comes down to nerves and awkward silences, or maybe I'm just comfortable with you. If I talk too much, it's not because I'm trying to give you my life story, it's because I'm nervous, and I'm uncomfortable in silences. If I don't talk enough, it's because I don't know how you'll take the things I say.

People take all of this as me being 'weird' or something. Yeah okay, I am weird, I'll give you that one, but I'm not weird because I don't know how to act around every single person that happens to cross my path.

I talk about bands a lot, I like one genre of music more than I like others, and I'm not going to change that because other people find it funny to take the piss. I listen to a wider range of genre's than most people even realise. Just because most of the songs on my phone are of my favourite genre, doesn't mean I don't listen to others. Everyone is entitled to choose which songs grace their own ears, right? It's just like bookworms who like fantasy over scifi, or film addicts that prefer romcom over horror. It doesn't mean they don't read other books or watch other films, it just means they have a favourite. So back to where I was at the beginning of this paragraph. I talk about bands a lot, and the honest truth is, I talk about them because music, bands, and fanbases are what I know. 'Band world' as some call it, is the only place I feel I fit in fully. There are so many others like me there, that it doesn't even matter if I'm a little awkward or quiet at first, because the chances are, they're feeling the same, or similar, and then we mostly acknowledge that and suddenly get on pretty well. Of course there are arguments and people who like people less or more, and it's still a relatively catty place to be at times, but fanbases are like families, and talking about bands and music is something that actually brings the real me out of her shell.

As for intelligence, people constantly think I'm stupid because I don't speak up. They think I don't know my stuff because I don't come out with a lengthy speech about the subject at hand. I don't see the point in being a know it all, when I could quite happily keep my knowledge to myself and put it all into an essay. I don't take a lot of interest in politics, and I don't often read newspapers because I have an awfully hard time trying to learn about things that don't interest me, and that's a huge flaw of mine, but what I lack in those subjects, I make up for in things that actually interest me. I could spend weeks researching a subject. I love it. I've created and printed projects before that weren't for school or college, purely because doing that pleased me. I've scrolled through countless databases and archives looking for information on things like Phantom cat sightings in the UK and I even started looking at Australia when I was done with the UK. I created a 74 page project about the Dangerous Wild Animals act of 1976, I later used that knowledge in my year eleven English exams. I put my mind to things that interest me, I write books, stories poems, only a few end up on wattpad, but it doesn't mean I didn't write more. I write songs, I sing, I used to act. I was cast to play Sandy in a stage performance of Grease that was cancelled on opening night. I played Violet Beauregard in a small stage show of Charlie and the chocolate factory, despite the fact that I hate the film and the book. I was level 6 at horse riding before I quit, and I was published in four different poetry books, but why should everyone know this? Why do I need to tell people these things to prove that I'm not entirely clueless? Why do I have to spend my life explaining that I'm quiet because I don't like to toot my own horn?..

I'm fine with my friends acting high and mighty, go ahead, be better, be worse, go to a uni on the other side of the world if it makes you happy,  I'm going to a uni close to home, you know why? I have medical issues. Something you seem to forget. I've accomplished a lot for someone who has a condition that puts them in constant and never ending pain, I've done a lot for someone who has to take four different medications four times a day, but guess what? My condition doesn't define me. It doesn't make me less or more of a person, and I'm sick of being taken for a ride just because I'm one thing, QUIET.

I'm constantly walked over. People pick me as the butt of the joke 90% of the time, and I usually don't care, but this time, it's gone too far, because guess what? It finally broke me, so you people who talk shit about me, call me names, say you "hate" me when you don't know me, you need to leave me alone for a bit. I need to recharge. There's a reason I don't use people as the butt of my jokes unless they're fully aware that I'm joking, and it's because all of these years that you've taken the piss, it's been boiling under my skin.

So what if I'm not the same as you, not everyone can be the almighty god of socialisation and know it all-ism.

To all those people that know me, get me, understand me, and only use me in joke because they know I know it's a joke? I love you. Never change, carry on joking with me, about me, and I'll carry on doing the same with you. You people who do it maliciously? You people who do it because it makes you look good? Fuck off, none of us underdogs need you and your god given gifts and talents. Some of us work for everything, and we'll do it until the day we die.

If you reached the end of this rant, congrats, gold star, love and hugs all round. The people that did reach the end, you should know, one person tipped this over the edge, one stupid comment, and it all came flooding out. I'll rant like this in another ten years. Anyone who feels the same, you're not alone.

Thanks for reading,

Alie x