Have you ever known someone, and felt like they should know you, but they continually display complete ignorance of your character?

I find it not only insulting but revolting when people treat each other this way.

My biggest heartbreak came from an incident like this. In a way, it's worse than the death of a friend, because they are there, standing in front of you. They just can't see you. They see something else, someone else. One of my friends was projecting, and saw too much of herself in me. Another person couldn't see me for the swarm of percentages and statistics surrounding me.

These two instances stand out to me so vividly, and they make me so angry. In fact, it has affected my attitude toward any percentage or statistic. I am completely turned off by arguments supported by statistics because of how they have been used against me.

When I was 16, I was discriminated against because "sixteen year old females have the highest" chance of getting in a wreck, or something like that. Therefore I shouldn't drive because I'm the most dangerous driver on the road. Never mind my impeccable driving record, cautious (like someone who is 103) driving style, and the fact that I had to drive to get time logged to get my driver's license. I was a straight A student, what most parents would consider the perfect child (I knew, because my friends' parents chided them for not being more like me). I didn't party, drink, smoke... I ran cross country, was stage manager for theater, sang in choir, volunteered at the library.

And I was still such a troublemaker, a rebel, in some people's eyes.

I guess in a way they come from a different world, a different culture, a different time.

...but they didn't even know me.

So now I have resolved to be myself, and to not give one single dam (for I am not a beaver and hence have no dams to give) about what anyone else thinks about me. I have been nice and people think I'm mean, mean and people think I'm kind, kind and people think I'm overbearing, overbearing and people think I'm decisive. Now I'm just me, and they can think what they want.

I'm done trying to change your mind, to show you who I am. We don't even need to talk anymore. I love you, so I'm leaving your life. It will be better for both of us this way. It has taken more than ten years, and at some point I need to decide which bridges to burn and which ones to cross. You can chalk it up to my being  a bitch. Or a rebel. But I'll know that I had to make this decision for you and me. This just hurts both of us.

Songs for this feeling:
Second Chance by Shinedown
Starts With Goodbye by Carrie Underwood

[Yep. Rock and country recommendations in the same blog post. Don't tell; I'll get in trouble. ;) ]

When you think that my pain is made up, an attention-getter, you drive my desire to share it further inside me, further down in the murky, freezing pond of my emotions.

P.S. If you have trouble with credit cards, try rubber-banding it to a spoon, sinking it into a bowl full of water, and freezing the whole thing. Random advice of the day.