What lies beneath?

I am what some people would call a wallflower.

Who is this wallflower? She is the one who you may notice in the background of a scene in a film. A filler, the extras you see but don’t really see in your favorite Netflix show. She is the one in the office who keeps to herself but will smile at you as you pass by her cubicle or when she sees you chatting to that really cute guy . She is the one who does not have any particularly memorable features. She is the one who observes everything . She is the one who yearns for companionship but is incredibly shy and always at a distance.

I decided to write about my observations around me while at work and in social media. It is in social media I have noticed so many people who may otherwise be shy or keep their opinions or thoughts to themselves; will explode. Either as a SJW or promoting a sense of self that to people like myself wonder are they really like that? Outgoing, Life of the Party, Center of the Action, and so on. Other times I have noticed it is more like a cry for help or attention, human interaction.

For me it was always difficult to make friends , I was and still am quite shy and always found it hard to strike up conversations especially when they have such strong personalities. I do however find these people so interesting. I love watching from afar. What I find fascinating is some I have observed , is it a mask or some sort of front? The real person is the one I want to know.

Like an iceberg, what lies beneath the surface ? Are these people shy? Open? Hiding parts of themselves? Are we only seeing the colorful, exciting aspects like a film ? In order to know everything you must (and should *smile*) read the book.

I present to you someone I often wondered about after observing her behavior.

This woman, so desperate to fit in, to be liked. She had a wall around her where she frequently removed bricks from and threw them at friends and colleagues . She would joke with her male counterparts, a lot of innuendos. She was single then. She had made it known she was bi or queer as she would frequently state. 25 or 26 years old. I was never in that group of colleagues but I would see this same group of people , 25–35 years of age meet every day for coffee or for a quick game in our work cafeteria.

All of them were male but her and one other. She was friends with the other woman but acted more like one of the guys. The innuendos and jokes made if said by a male would probably have them signed up for sensitivity training or up on harassment charges. She would go on about various female character in comics or television series or film and what she would do to them. Some of her male counterparts would laugh, a couple would smile awkwardly.

In their conversations I would learn out of the group 3 of the 5 men were in committed relationships. Two had children. The other woman was engaged. Still I was baffled at how crude, blunt and crass my person of interest was. I would watch her over my book, when she wasn’t speaking or joking she would sit there and you could see flickers of insecurity, sadness even a slight pained look.

I would come to learn later the pained look was real as she apparently suffered from some form of arthritis. Still, everyday I would pop down for my late lunch and read while I observed the group. They liked to talk about Brooklyn 99, Star Wars and the Marvel Universe. They would get so involved in their conversations or their table top games they would often lose track of time.

One man, would constantly spring up , declaring “Shit” and would have to run to shut everything down before his wife arrived to pick him up. This woman of interest always seemed so disappointed when he left. She would just say “See ya.” but it was in her eyes and her shoulders would sag .

This place of work no longer exists as many employers seem to come and go these days, especially with the Pandemic. I would later see her and it turned out she actually “liked” this guy a little more than she should of. It was apparent when they as a family ran into her and I . I remember saying hi to her while at a mall. She was in between jobs and we politely chatted.

When she saw him, her face lit up like a Christmas Tree and when he hugged her like a man would with his kid sister, she was happy. Happier than I had ever seen her. This dissipated fairly quickly when she saw the wife and kids in tow.

Even though we never actually had a serious heart to heart conversation, she added me on social media. There is where all my suspicions were clearly laid out . She needs to be validated. She would remove a brick from her wall and throw it out there — a post and hope for reactions. So many people do this these days . Whether it is a response to a post, or a like. Sad really. Reading her posts she is with someone now — ironically not another woman. She looks to have found a very nice man who can handle her anxiety, depression and her incessant need to be validated.

The man she liked? He is another story.