Everyone has different sides to them, but what do you do when you don't actually like some of those sides? Sometimes I'm too shy, too socially awkward, too busy feeling sorry for myself. Sometimes my imagination goes out of control and I grow these ridiculous hopes for things that will never, ever happen, but a part of me still goes on hoping and then I'm wildly disappointed. I have a picture in my head of the kind of person I would like to be, but I don't know how to get there.
Whenever I think about this, I'm reminded of a scene in the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice, where socially awkward Darcy says, "I'm not in the habit of conversing easily with people I have not met before." Elizabeth unsympathetically replies, "Why don't you take your aunt's advice and practice?"
I would like to practice. I think that one of the ways to become a different person is to act like that person, and then eventually the acting will become real. But is that the case? How long will it take for the acting to become genuine, and in the interim will I be nothing but the oft-hated poser type? I don't want to just accept that it's difficult for me to hold a conversation, that often people don't notice me because I blend in to the background, but I don't know how to take a proactive stance and change it. If I took the "practice" route, I wouldn't even know how to practice.
So maybe that takes the dilemma out of the situation. I don't know how to pose as a conversation-savvy, always-confident individual, so I can't fake it. Maybe I'm just stuck being the person I am, with sides I don't like, and I just have to accept that.
