The Million Mes

One of my best friends and I had a drunk conversation once (one of many, not solely) and somehow we started talking about relationships. We came to the epiphany that in every relationship there are actually four people going out - there's the person you are, the person you're interested, the person you are "pretending" to be, and the person that they are "pretending" to be. The word "pretending" is pretty terrible but it gets the point across rather quickly and easily. Of course, the interactions between the four people is even more complex. For example, the "pretend" me might do something out of the ordinary like cook a three course meal for the girl that I like and she might love it but the "pretend" version of her might pass it off as just okay, in a vane attempt to get me to improve or cook more often. This is an odd example but you get the point. There are a few different interactions going on all at the same time.

Well, all this his me really hard because I have the type of mind that tends to think in extremes and once it got a hold of this piece of information it ran with it. It decided that there are probaby a million of me running around in people's minds. There's nerdy me, cool me, party me, business me, hungry me, stuffed me, happy me, sad me, and probably even jerk me somewhere out there. These versions of me are numerous. People that've known me for a long time have a better understanding of what the "true" me is like and people that have known me for an instant are really just seeing a snap shot of me. I know for a fact some people that I've met only for an instant think that I'm smarter than I really am, or more well-behaved, or more of a drunkard...

This also got me thinking about the me that I see myself as. How accurate is that? I'd like to think that nobody knows me as well as I do but some people might be pretty close to understanding me better than I do, which is kind of cool and scary at the same time. Everyone's heard someone say that they feel "like they can be themselves" around certain people. You also meet people that are themselves all the time - unwavering and unwilling to change themselves for other people. Depending on the person it can either be really annoying are refreshing. I've met a fair share of both and they always get me thinking about this.

Anyways, this all gave me an interesting idea - it's something I think that everyone should strive for: condense or collapse yourself. If you can combine all of those selves into one person, if you can be yourself all the time, that'd be amazing. Obviously, there are going to be some situations where it really isn't all that feasible to be one-hundred percent yourself but shoot to be your true self as much as you can. Am I crazy? Is this a ramble? It's nothing if not a quick, unstructured idea but that's just the way I am.

See what I did there.

Clever, eh?