I remember telling my old therapist, the one I used to see before I moved for school, that I imagined having a lot of conversations with people, and he looked surprised and told me that was something to be aware of. It seemed strange to me at the time, because I'd never questioned it before. As far as I knew, everybody had conversations in their heads like that. Isn't that why we have so many memes about people only thinking of good comebacks hours or weeks or even years later?

The tiniest bit of reflection makes it seem like a strange thing to assume everyone does, though. I spend a lot of my thoughts on thinking of what to say in a variety of situations, maybe as some form of social preparation... Socializing still isn't super intuitive for me, so I guess this is how I compensate.

My friend Mike asked me to take a character strengths test, which gave me some... interesting results. Like all self-report tests, it's pretty subject to error depending on how self-aware the respondent is (and most people are not good at knowing themselves). I tried to answer to the best of my abilities though, even though many of the questions were ambiguous and didn't account for context. Social intelligence was one of my lowest-ranked strengths, which according to the site doesn't mean it's a weakness, but rather that it doesn't come naturally to me and takes more effort. Mike was really surprised by that, because he thinks I carry on conversations well and am decent at understanding people, and at first I was surprised too. After reading the site's explanation of the ranking though, it made sense to me. Social stuff is really hard and I just happen to put a lot of conscious effort into it, I guess to the point where it might come off as natural to some people. Still, I'm continually shocked when people can't tell how nervous or uncomfortable I am sometimes. Maybe I don't show it as much as I feel. I don't feel it as much as I used to though, so I think things have gotten better over time.

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The internet is once again flooded with calls to defend net neutrality... Everyone is saying to call your representative, make sure they know you're demanding that they support net neutrality. My representatives are already supporting it, so I wonder if I should still try calling them. I've sent a bunch of emails to various congresspeople already, so at least I haven't done nothing.

I feel put off by people who refuse to do anything and just adopt lazy fatalistic stances like "it doesn't matter anyway." Maybe some of it is learned helplessness, but that doesn't mean you're incapable of doing things. Some of the most frustrating people in my life have been the ones who wouldn't try. Then again, I suppose not everyone has my perspective. I had a big existential crisis almost ten years ago and I decided to embrace the absurdity of life and persist despite everything. I can't force that mindset into people. Makes me wonder if it's better to just stay away from them. I just don't have the energy anymore to let new people into my life if they're like that.

Speaking of new people though... I think I have something of a pen pal now? Nothing too interesting so far but it's kind of cool to message back and forth with a different person.

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