Chameleon

One thing I've noticed about myself is that I'm a bit of a social chameleon. Without meaning to I immediately adopt some of the mannerisms, accent, posture and facial expressions of whoever I'm talking to. I often find myself mimicking and simply reflecting back whatever mood is being shown to me as well. The sudden change and hypocrisy that results when I need to switch conversations and speak with someone entirely different makes me cringe inside every time.

Despite my perfect English I also find myself speaking with a bit of an accent if whoever I'm speaking to has one. It is a broken thing, an amalgamation of the way I actually talk and the way whoever I'm speaking to talks and the way I'm trying to speak to counter this horrible mess. I suppose it is an evolutionary adaptation of some sort, even though I feel like kicking myself in the face whenever I notice, which is usually immediately. But it's very hard, near impossible to stop even though I'm probably trying to the whole time. Even for those without accents I find myself adopting some of the tone and style of speech that makes one person's way of talking uniquely theirs. I even adopt the way people stand, and the gestures or expressions they make regularly. These things I adopt as my own at least for the duration of time that someone is speaking to me, not purposefully but I suppose instinctively. I'd be lying if I said it doesn't usually feel ridiculous, especially if the person has some kind of expression they often make. Not because they look stupid but because I'm not them and so I most certainly do look strange.

It's not hard to imagine then why I have such a hard time sharing anything about myself or managing to pull off showing people who I am rather than who they are. It's easy to be a reflection. My surface identity is entirely malleable from person to person and situation to situation, I have no solidly constructed model of the person within myself that I so intimately and innately know. I exist abstractly, theoretically, a web of electrical impulses firing across the solid surface of my brain. I suppose that for too long I have had no real interest in constructing an accurate outward representation of myself. Even as I type this I can't help but think: Why should I care? I've always been more interested in data collection rather than transmission. And I suppose this is written also somewhere within the long lines of my DNA, and so I've been programmed to collect data fabulously. It doesn't seem too farfetched that merely reflecting a person makes it far easier for me to collect information about them in particular without clouding the data stream with pieces of myself. After all, real interactions that involve two people are more complicated.

So perhaps unquestioningly, and because it was so convenient and perfectly in line with my own interests I have been happy to run along smoothly, collecting information and transmitting very little. But I can't help but think my somewhat lonely situation is a result of functioning so "well". After all, how long can anyone really be interested with a person who appears to be just a crude approximation of everyone they meet, and especially of yourself?