Part 1- The Anxiety of Being
To all of my literate friends (so about half
of you): you know that passage from a book you've read that seems to stick with
you for no apparent reason? Avid readers will have many of these. The
not-so-avid will have one passage from a book on the same plane as Thomas the
tank Engine- but you still have that one passage. It’s rarely prolific or
crucial to the plot line- but for some reason you remember it.
For me, one of those passages is a scene from
a book written by David Sedaris. Sedaris is my favorite author because there
are different kinds of crazy in this world, and I am under the impression that
we are the very same type of crazy.
In this story, Sedaris sets the
scene with a physical description of himself: he was 50 years old, unshowered, acutely
aware of how creepy he looked, and on that particular day, extra-prone to psychotic episodes due to a
lack of sleep. So when he stepped into his hotel elevator and there was only a 4
year old boy in it, logically this sent him into a downwards mental spiral.
Sedaris proceeded to have a 5 page panic attack not unlike the panic attacks I have via this blog because he imagined a scene where the boy stepped into the lobby, pointed at David, and started yelling that he had been touched inappropriately on the elevator ride down.
You may be questioning why someone would become upset over a scene entirely constructed by their imagination, however I sympathize with Sedaris. Had the kid actually done this, Sedaris's disheveled appearance would have stamped a big old "pedophile" on his forehead to everyone else standing in the lobby. Who would believe creepy
looking David over this cute four year old kid?
Because Sedaris knew that he looked guilty, he then started to feel guilty. The panic he was experiencing was really due to the realization that he would have to go through life looking like
a potential creep. It was a major adversity when any four year old at any given time could
call fake-sexual harassment.
I think I connected so much with this passage
because I too live in a constant state of guilt over things I haven’t actually
done. I am on the same page as David- sometimes it’s not about who you actually
are to the outside world. It’s about the idea that the outside world has of
you.
So maybe I’ve watched 400 too many movies; maybe
it’s because the entertainment industry is a bit edgier than the anti-doping
internship I did last summer; or maybe it is due to the recent resurfacing of
Lewinsky publicity. Either way- I live in a constant state of paranoia that it
is assumed I am taking on NYC and prepared to sleep my way to the top.
Some people feel the need to prove their intelligence- As a 21 year old female intern- I feel the need to prove that I’m not trying to seduce my superiors. Is this normal or based off of anything legitimate? Absolutely not. But this is what my brain chooses to stress about on a daily basis. Let me elaborate:
I put my intern badge on, walk into the office filled with a core of 25-35 year old writers/producers, and the paranoia begins. Every time a male in the office walks by, my eyes shoot down towards my feet and I become as turtle-like and awkward as possible. It’s as if the more awkwardness I exude, the more my conscience feels at ease. It is my biggest fear in life that my superiors will think I am trying to sleep with them.
A hi, I can handle. But if a co-worker wants to have an actual 2-3 sentence long conversation, that’s when I go into full-on meltdown mode. It is a beauty and a curse working around a sea of comedians because there are no conversations; there are simply verbal competitions- who can come up with the wittiest way to convey the message.
If a co-worker engages me in a wit-battle (aka speaks to me at all), I then have to quickly balance the pros and cons of sparring back- “Do I let myself become personable at the risk of seeming flirtatious?
Farrell do you even know how to speak without flirting? We really don’t know,
so do we risk it?”
Most of the time I just freeze up, laugh, and answer in plain wit-less speak (to which comedian coworker is bummed by the lack of challenge). But on the rare occasion a witty retort pops out, I launch into a 15-minute post conversation inner monologue asking myself things such as, “did I really just tell him to shut up? How many lines did I just cross- 10 or 20? If I were him, would I think that the intern is open to sleeping with me?"
I even walked up to the intern supervisor one day and asked if I was going too far in terms of joking around with everyone. He laughed at me and asked if I had mixed up my office behavior with one of the other interns because I was one of the tamest there.
So my worries may be slightly irrational, however stories always seem to pop up that re-legitimize my fear. For example, a friend of a friend works at a company who wasn't hiring their recently graduated interns at the rate that was expected. It was noted that the girl's shirts got lower and lower towards the end of the internship.
Well I'll be damned if that's said about me, so despite my seemingly fine behavior, the paranoia lives on. Just as the manager of the restaurant I work for has to prove that he's
not a creep, I have to prove that intellect is the only weapon in my
arsenal that I will engage when working my way to the top.
All in all, this is simply the stress I go through at work. Going out is an entirely different ball game.
To be continued in Part 2
-F
