Seeking Compatibility.

If there’s one thing the events and connections of the past twelve months have encouraged me to do, it’s been to go inside and look for the real JJB. It’s been a process of giving up the role playing; no more masquerading; letting the long-suppressed attitudes and sensibilities rise to the surface where they have every right to be. In short, becoming what I always thought I was but probably wasn’t, at least not entirely – authentic.

And what I’ve taken to doing these past few weeks is to go into my own profile and pick up one of my listed interests or favourites, and then trawl through the summaries of other bloggers who’ve listed the same one. Frankly, it hasn’t been a happy exercise. There’s an awful lot of role playing going on out there, an awful lot of pretentious masquerading. Mostly I found that the mere name somebody chose to go under, or some not-so-casual remark, or the picture with which they chose to represent themselves was enough to send me scuttling onto the next one. Occasionally one would pique my interest enough to go into the full profile, and a few of those encouraged a further delve into their blog. Nearly all of them failed the compatibility test.

That’s what my search was about, of course: compatibility. It wasn’t about me taking a superior position. I’m nothing special, and I did enough masquerading of my own in the early days of my blog. It was about asking the question:

‘If I met this person in real life, would I feel relaxed in their company by just being myself? And would they feel relaxed in mine? Or would one or both of us have to slip into contrived ‘positions’ in order to make a stab at getting on?’

In nearly every case, I’m sorry to say, it was the latter. It’s why I appreciate those few people who’ve stayed with me over the last six months or so. And it’s why I’ve come to realise just how ingrained the role playing habit is. I’m sure we all do it to some extent – become subtly different people in one-on-one situations, so as to reflect the needs or expectations of the person to whom we want to relate. Just being ourselves can be a recipe for loneliness, because compatibility is hard to come by that way. Especially if you're as choosy as I am.