Being A Different Person

I am a different person than I was when I was younger. An obvious statement, yes...but why all the changes? It's not just in the fact that I have a larger body, don't gorge myself on chocolate as often, and don't yell as loudly as I used to. When I was very young, I was wild. "Electron" was my nickname because I wouldn't stop running circles around people. As I aged a bit more and went to Junior High and Highschool, I became more timid. Now--well, I have a bit of everything. The experiences that I have had have changed me into the person that I am currently. I will continue to change and evolve as I have more experiences, but having a larger impact on who I am than the events that I have experienced, are the people that I have surrounded myself with.

To be completely honest, I act differently around different people. I'm not saying that around some people I am a Hell's Angel's advocate, and around others I am a philanthropist who can't wait to bake cupcakes for girlscouts to sell. My basic traits are the same, but there are some changes that are more subtle. I realized this around a year ago, and I wasn't too happy with myself. "Am I being fake?" was one of the first things that popped into my mind. I despise hypocrites greatly, and it was rather shocking to see this trait in myself. I have struggeled with this thought for a while now, but have come to the conclusion that I am not being fake--different people just bring out different sides of me. It is true though--some of these sides I like better than others.

After studying myself when meeting new people, I have found that a major factor in how I interact with someone is how I acted when I first met them. Sometimes I can change my behavior around them after I get to know them better, but that doesn't always happen. Around some people I am quieter than others; around some people I let more swear words slip; around some people I am crazier. Around some people I tell sophisticated jokes, around some people I tell one-liners that they still don't understand, and around some people my jokes are rather innapropriate. Around some people I don't care if they see that I'm smart or not, and around some people I try too much to show it. I'm not proud of some of these--but it's the truth.

The real trouble comes when two different groups of people who I interact with differently with come together. I find out who I truly am when the two opposites clash. Lately, however, I have been less concerned with how people view me. This is a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, there certainly is a value to not burning too many bridges in relationships due to the horribly rude behavior that I sometimes exhibit. On the other hand, if the person doesn't like who I am, then that is their perogative. I have no reason to try to change myself to get them to like me, because if I am always trying to change my behavior to please others, than I really will be a fake with no personality. Who I am is all that I have to seperate me from a faceless crowd.

While I am striving to be my own person, there are still certain crowds and certain people that bring out different traits in me. The more that hang around these people, the more of these traits that I exhibit. Who I choose to surround myself with has a large impact on who I am and who I am going to be. I want to surround myself with the people who make me smile, the people who make me try new things, the people who don't judge me and the people who make me confident. Not the people who look down on others, and talk bad about people behind their backs, and indulge too much in the physical vices of earth. Most of all, I want to hang around the people who accept me for who I am, flaws and all, knowing that with time I can conquer them.