I saw this ad recently on a subway:

Do you avoid doing things or speaking to people because you fear embarrassment?

Do you avoid being the center of attention?

Do you worry excessively about being embarrassed or looking stupid?

I am the opposite of this ad’s target market. This opposition is also the reason that I feel very close to the shy people that are this ad’s target market. I think about all those things all the time, but I want the opposite result.

I purposely do things or speak to people in order to feel embarrassed.

I constantly attempt to be the center of attention.

I worry excessively that I am NOT being embarrassed or looking stupid.

Me and these shy people are not diametrically opposed, but rather linked through our disagreement. While our goals are direct opposites, our methods for achieving them are the same – our ends may be different, but our means are similar. That is why I tend to find shy people so attractive. I have fallen multiple times for women who drift out of conversations without saying good bye, or find the idea of bashing one’s own head with a hammer more appealing than stepping into the limelight, yet I maintain that my search for pussy is an ego-maniacal one – that is to say that my “type” is simply a female version of me.

So, while I search for the highest spot at parties so that the most people can see me, while I propagate my daily tribulations on the internet, while I talk to strangers on public transit just for the story, I am likely to see someone who can’t order ice cream without feeling so uncomfortable that they leave in a face-reddening silence, someone who finds the fear of stepping into a room with more than ten people tantamount to that of walking into a back alley at 3 am with fistfulls of cash, some one whose idea of hell is simply a dmv line of social interactions with strangers, I am likely to see them as a personality mirror. Though we come to different results, we have the same thing running through our head to get us there. I’m just a psychological and emotional masochist.