The PWC2 Introduction

I've known for a long time that I was different from everyone else.

I never had to go far to get any reassurance, either. Talk to my mother, she'll tell you I'm the smartest, most beautiful kid every to walk the earth. Talk to my father, he'll tell you I'm not only the most beautiful, but also the nicest person he's ever met. Talk to some of the people who read this stuff, and they will go on at length about how funny I am, and what a creative writer. Talk to the people who have heard me play piano and they'll tell you I'm a musical genius. Talk to anyone I've worked with and they'll wax effusive about my uncanny ability to learn new technology, whip it around, and make something happen. Casually mention me to anyone in my family and most likely they'll tell you about how they're so happy someone made it out of that mess alive.

It is so nice to have any of those people with me. To walk beside me like a binary star, feeding me energy, standing me up proud to walk amongst the little people of the Earth that I see every day on the sidewalk, in the stores, in the bars, sitting next to me on the plane...

But I don't need any of them to tell me I'm different from everyone else. I've suspected as much since I was about ten years old. Since I looked in the mirror that one day, and noticed for the first time... that I was different from everyone else.

Well, at least everyone else I was supposed to not be different from. Now, even as a kid, I suspected that I was just a tad on the portly side -- I mean, you don't see the word "husky" on your clothes for too long before you start to get just a glimmer of a clue -- so I was used to seeing a little extra around the middle. But what struck me at the time was not the extra around the middle. Hell, a new sitcom had just started with a guy named "Norm" who was the life of the party, so I figured I had it made there. No, what caught my attention at that time was the extra around the top.

This sneaks up on you. Especially as a kid, when you're far more interested in the latest Atari cartridge and making fart sounds with your hands than with checking out your physique. So it's like, you're going along, living your fart-filled life, and then one morning you notice that there is something different about you. At this point, of course, you have no idea if it's good, and everyone else is screwed up, or you're just going through a phase which everyone goes through, or if you're a frightening freak of nature. I really, genuinely hoped that the latter was not the case.

Then it was a year later, and believe it or not, P.E. was never my favorite class before this happened either. But we'd gotten our fancy new soccer uniforms, and were to change into them and run onto the field in our new glorious regalia, so we could once again run aimlessly around the same damn field as before and kick the ball in random directions long enough so the teacher said it was time to pack it up, go back to the gym, and have some orange Hi-C. So I'm in there changing into my new soccer shirt, and Warren (Warren... something... crap. I wish I could remember, I'd look him up, find him, and fuck his wife) says the following words: "Your tits are bigger than my sister's!"

Kids tease each other all the time, and being the smartest (funniest, nicest, most beautiful, etc.) kid in my class for many years, I'd gotten plenty of it. This one time just happened to validate and reinforce all of the serious fears I had about my place in this universe, and confirmed to me once and for all: I am a frightening freak of nature.

For a guy as witty and talented as myself, you wouldn't think the above item would pose that much of a challenge, would you? Somehow, though, it does. And, many times, I've tried to draw the timeline backwards to figure out what the hell the problem is.

Well, you don't meet too many people. Why's that? Because you never go out. Why's that? Because your friends are losers and never go out either. Well, that's certainly true, but why not just go out by yourself? Well, I've tried that, but I don't meet people too well that way. Well, sure, but who does? Well, some people apparently do. Well, then you can too! But I can't. Why not? Because I have social anxiety disorder.

Yeah! That is a good one. I love that one. It's got big words, and it really flows off the tongue. Oh, and it has a cool acronym! "SAD". Yeaah. I got "SAD"! That's right. Except for the part where I'm with friends and coworkers and stuff, and everyone else is boring the bejeezus out of everyone, and I am the absolute life of the party, and people are talking for weeks, months, years later about "Remember that? Man, you were awesome." Yeah, I'm awesome. So how socially anxious can I be?

Well, I can be pretty socially anxious, but you'd never know it, because if you were around to see it, it would never happen. Picture a courtyard, about thirty feet by thirty feet, and there's a large pool cutting out the center, with a fountain in the middle of it. I am at the southwest corner, and need to get to a door halfway along the northern side. Simple intuition tells you that the quickest way is to walk up the west side, past the pool, then turn right and go to the door. But at the northwest corner, there is a woman and her five year old daughter. My solution comes to me instantaneously, and it has two parts to it: 1. Walk around to the eastern side of the pool, to avoid any possible contact with this person, and 2. Rationalize it as "wanting to get more exercise." The rapidity and fluidity with which this line of thinking occurs is truly astounding. And I do it several times a day.

So, that's SAD. What's that all about? Well, it's about a lot of things, I'm sure, and it's grown and faded and grown back and faded back through the years, but when I am alone, it is a nearly constant, occasionally suffocating pressure. But you know what I think it's most about?

It is about being uncomfortable in your own body. It is about wandering around among these people who you try to intellectualize out of the equation ("who cares what they think?") but can't, and you know they're looking at you, and you know that you are a frightening freak of nature, and you can't escape, because everywhere you go, that freak just seems to follow along right underneath you.

It's about feeling different from everyone else.

And I think it all started because my tits were bigger than Warren's sister's.

Only in a species as "advanced" as humanity could this little insignificant inconsistency in nature even come close to posing a problem for any single individual within it. Alas, here we are.

People think I slouch because I have naturally bad posture. People think I like dark clothes because I think they look "cool". I love to swim, but can never go to the pool. I live in Southern California and have to stay away from the beach.

I would just like...

I would just like to be comfortable. For once.

So. There has to be a solution to this. I lost a bunch of weight (twice) over the past 12 years or so, and while I slimmed down everywhere I didn't care about, I didn't slim down in the one place I wanted to. Such is life. So now (for the umpteenth time, but this time I seem to be really committed to it, probably because it's an easy way to sneak out of work) I am doing a serious physical fitness regimen. You almost never see toned, buff fitness gods with this particular problem.

I decided to do some research anyway, and see if there were specific exercises which would address the "problem areas" I was attempting to address in the first place. Well, straight from the internet (a reliable source if I've ever found one), I've learned the following two things:

• The problem I'm addressing is an actual medical problem with an actual medical name attached to it. I don't want to criticize any top medical people out there, or nothing, but if you find a particularly troubling, life-sucking, humiliating problem that people suffer from, one thing you might consider is not coming up with absolutely the most horrendously embarassing name possible for it. Like, particularly, if you're addressing the whole "man-boob" issue, try not to give it a name like: Gynecomastia. Thanks!
• None of the damn exercises will help, and unless my problem was caused by drug use (which, the only drug I take is alcohol, and that started YEARS (at least five!) after I first noticed this problem) the only real cure is surgery.

Either way, I need to do something.

I have no solution here. This is a core dump after twenty years of secrecy. This has been my number one problem since before I can remember, and until about a month ago, I never told anyone about it.

Suggestions welcome.