kicking puppies is bad

People generally like me, and I’m not sure why. Sometimes I think that if people had any idea what I was really thinking, I would have no friends. I’m a statistical programmer because I like numbers and data and keeping track of things. I like my job, which involves spending all day in a room with a computer, by myself. And that doesn’t bother me at all.

Because I like numbers, I tend to keep track of a lot of ridiculous things. For example, I keep track of how I respond to yellow traffic lights. I count the number of times where I am the last car to make it through, and the number of times I stop, and am the first car sitting at the red light. In my crazy logic, I assume that if the number is about equal, I am not driving too recklessly. Tracking my response to yellow lights is a little weird, but if that were my only idiosyncrasy I probably wouldn’t be worried. But that is just the tip of the ice burg. I have tons of crazy things that I keep track of. I don’t share this information with anyone. I know my stupid tallies are ridiculous, and people would mock me.

But those same people probably like me *because* of my stupid tallies. I use them in social interaction too. I figured out what made people happy, and I added those things to my interpersonal communications. I rarely *actually* care what my coworkers have to say about their lives. But people like to share. And they probably don’t care about my life any more than I care about theirs. So I let them share (60% of the time). I am an active listener. (I remember you saying your baby’s poo was green yesterday? Is she feeling better? … Wow. That is *so* interesting…). But I keep track of things in our conversation. Did they ask a question about something going on in my life or remember a personal story I told? I match them (and add a little) when it is their turn. And when I do this, they seem to like me.

I have this feeling if people knew how much of my social interactions were calculated, they really wouldn’t like me much. If they realized that it was just a game to me, they probably wouldn’t like me at all.  On the other hand, I have this feeling that if I stopped calculating and interacted with people the way I wanted (Yeah, I really don’t care about your baby’s crap. Do you mind if I keep working on this spreadsheet and completely ignore what you are saying?), people wouldn’t like me either.