Never in my left had I felt so offended. I lied of course, said “I was used to it” and it didn’t bother me anymore. But the truth was a felt a righteous indignation. To think, she was calling me judgmental (or, rather, she was calling my species, my so-called socially inept brethren—home scholars-- to be exact) because i had never been to school and thus had no place to say whether or not one received an education there. Perhaps, then, since she has never been home schooled, she ought to keep her lips tightly sealed.
She argued that when she first knew me, I had less personality then that of a vacuum cleaner, perhaps the latter had more, she wasn’t entirely certain. “It’s the best thing (working here) that’s ever happened to you.” I could have argued the exact opposite, for I felt as though I had lost touch with my humanity since I began working there. Surrounded by people urging me to do what I grew up knowing was wrong—peer pressure in the truest sense—I felt, and still feel very much the outsider.
To her, I lacked social skills. She pointed out how physical skills and intellect will only get you so far in the world, that many people earn their jobs because of their people skills. I had half a mind to tell her that people who get jobs that way are subject to their hirer’s finding out they were inept for the job, no matter what social skill they had.
Apparently I had not learned these “quintessential” social skills because I lacked and education where I would be forced to compete with 25 or more people for the teacher’s attention. That somehow, I ‘lacked’ because I was not accustomed to socializing with people within a year of my own age. However, I feel this is grossly an unjustified attack, because I can socialize just fine with people older or younger than me.
Which was, perhaps the greatest flaw in her argument; she never seemed to be able to identify what exactly I lacked or what exactly these precious social skills were.
Much to her dismay, for every reason she could come up with, I had an answer that proved that my home schooling background had absolutely no bearing whatsoever on my social capacity. I further informed her, that I was “socially inept” in her perceptions, by choice alone. The truth was and is, I truly only lack the “whim” or “desire” to become more socially engaged. This seemed quite ridiculous to her. Of course I couldn’t thoroughly explain it to her, or anyone else.
How do you explain the lack of desire in a strictly social being?
Thus, what appears to be, on the minds of my peers “socially inept” is rather more of along the lines of a disregard for the need of social interaction. And I’d like to keep it that way.
