You know what I don’t do very often anymore? I don’t allow myself to just write. To just level with the blank pixelpage in front of me. Am I overthinking it? Am I trying too hard? I’m not sure, but most of the time I feel so scattered and mentally depleted that I can’t seem to write the “normal” way.

The “normal” way requires so coherence; a write-and-read conversation, if you will, and that sort of simplicity baffles the hell out of me.

As a highly-verbal person, I yearn for some kind of conversation. (I mean, I watch TED talks when I get too isolated socially, since it’s kind of like interaction, right?) I yearn to be able to chitchat. More so, I’d like to chitchat and enjoy it. Am I the person that wears a suit and tie to the family barbecue? God, I hope not.

This social awkwardness extends itself into my blog-writing, and diminishes the lines of communication, and places the reader (you) in an observation room. The reader (you) stands in the room, watching the spectacle (myself) from a two-way mirror. Two-way is a misnomer, though. It is one way, and that’s what I dislike.

A one-way interaction occurs between myself and the world around me. My abstractions and obscurities have placed me out of the reach of person-to-person interaction. Listeners smile and nod when I speak, but there is nothing being communicated, save the disparaging difference between the individual and myself. In a way, it feels like people are intimidated by me. Like, they act as if I’m going to judge them for each of their words, and maybe even spit fire at them if I find them uninteresting.

I mean, my intense facial expressions may come off as bitchy, but I have a headache most of the time and am probably sleep deprived.

So, I retreat back into my elaborately constructed mental world, only to poke my head out like a turtle, curious of what the outer world is experiencing in my absence. Maybe I, too, am a spectator in that sense.

Now, I mention something I would only share from the safety of the internet mask; in December of last year, I discovered that I have an exceptionally high IQ. In the top 1%. Typically, I’d never even utter the acronym “IQ,” due to the rage it incites in so many people, but you should know a few things before you write me off.

1. I dropped out of high school at 16 and now attend an incredibly uncompetitive university.
2. I did not grow up in a middle class family. In fact, my formative years were played out in a trailer park. Poor. I’m poor.
3. I also have a severe case of ADHD. This means that I, young unruly girlchild, was never considered as a candidate for the gifted program. Since high-IQ kids tend to compensate for their learning disabilities, I was not even diagnosed or medicated until my 21st year of life, and I had established a horrible academic track record.
4. Having a high IQ doesn’t mean that I know how to answer every question on Trivial Pursuit. I still have to learn things, and since the standard academic setting does little to address my ADHD, I usually have to teach myself.
5. Having a high IQ does mean that I experience the world drastically different from the people around me.

Number 5 is the kicker. Listen, I sometimes tear up about the morning dew on spring grass. I think math is fun. I don’t know how to relate to people. These are hardly glamorous details. Often, I think that the nature of my intelligence is a burden; it’s kind of my “antihero.” Or maybe it’s the wand Ron breaks in Harry Potter. Analogy-schmalogy.

The reality is this: I wouldn’t know how to have a friend or even how to be a friend if I tried. Or maybe I just haven’t met the kind of person that’s compatible to be something like my friend. I just want someone to cry about the beauty of the dew drops on the damn spring-green grass, okay?