I was thinking in particular about the way I handle emotions today. Sometimes, I make rather strange work of it, even though I haven’t realised it at the time. My ex especially accused me of this — and of the many things which he accused me — that one I’ll give him. I do go about them a bit differently than most at times.

In part, I blame the Asperger’s. Sure, one part of you may be pure genius, but the other is kind of lost over the most basic interactions.

We had a meeting today at work, and I’ve been taking a good bit of time off to catch up on other things and hopefully launch myself entrepreneurially. So far, so good. It was early in the morning, I’d slept maybe three hours after being up for most of the night dicking with the network which had been down for most of the previous night and all of that day.

Still, even after a single cup of coffee, and a bit of HBO Comedy, I was at the top of my game. I was jovially cracking jokes myself by the time I got to work, looking as if I felt completely comfortable and at ease with the world. I wasn’t. This won’t come as a surprise to those who know me well; when I begin cracking jokes, that’s especially an indicator that I’m experiencing a higher level of anxiety and am compensating with one of my primary defences: humour, evidently.

It took me sitting down and awaiting the meeting to start, ready and raring to go, having done all that I should beforehand, to realise I had been reacting the entire time. In a way, the meeting was a coming full-circle for me. My literal first day on the job was an all-employee meeting. Even before training, I was sitting in a large group of people, not knowing a single soul, trying to make small-talk where I was approached, but otherwise volleying between being gregarious and almost non-existent, and then standing shoulder-to-shoulder with these strangers in this sea of faces snapped for all posterity and hung upon the wall on the ‘commitment board’. I hadn’t even greeted a single guest, and already I had signed my name attesting to the fact that I would give my all as a member of this team, this corporate family. I wasn’t even a part, and already, I was affirming that I belonged.

It’s been ten months since that first meeting. I worked as the fulltime host up until last month, and have been predominantly part-time, and now occasional, for the last three weeks. I know everyone. I’ve seen managers, servers, and fellow hosts come and go, train and leave for other locations, quit, relocate, and be sacked. Looking upon that picture now, I can pick out a handful of faces that are no longer there, and several that still are. Plenty that are with us now, but not pictured. And me; there I am — joking, laughing, smiling, for all intents and purposes — belonging. Everything they’re saying to me, doing, showing says, ‘you belong here; you’re a part of us.’

So, why do I feel like such an outsider?

Why am I watching everyone sit at various tables scattered through Cocktail, waiting for the same meeting to start that I am, employees, like myself — some who’ve been here years, some months, others weeks and days? Why, as I’m watching them, do I feel adrift? Have I always felt this? Have I always been seeking, searching to belong? If so, why haven’t I found it? Why isn’t this it? Why, in their joking, smiling faces, do I not see myself? We’ve laughed, and even cried. We’ve hugged, and shouted for joy, celebrated, and given sympathy and compassion.

How can it be that I still feel like the odd one out?

I was still taking cues from everyone around me, reflecting in hind-sight on being surprised at someone’s friendly behaviour toward me, whereas they’re more inconsistent, or even surly. You’d think I’d have a handle on this now. I’d at least have enough of a collection of templates that I could readily pull whichever is needed at any given moment so as to give the appropriate reaction, or, even better, the one closest to the way I’m actually feeling.

That’s when it struck me. Again. There was that word again.

Feeling.

Wait; what was I actually feeling? All of my stupid jokes and mile-a-minute wit? Was it really hiding the fact that I had absolutely no idea what to say, or how to conduct myself? Why? I’d been away for less than a week. It couldn’t possibly be that I’d already forgotten my Restaurant Employee Schema. It had to’ve been in there somewhere.

Why was it so difficult to locate?

What had thrown me off?

Granted, I hadn’t seen all of my co-workers in the same setting, all at once, since I had first started — and there had been many changes since then. Was it some kind of overload to see everybody there at once? Too many potential responses, too many opportunities, too much potential for error or mis-match?

… And when the hell did I start viewing my emotional framework in terms of systematic model and simulation protocols, anyway?

At the very least, I was somewhat relieved by the comforting thought that, well — this was not a comforting thought.

Maybe the answers lie in my personality typology.

According to the world of Myers-Briggs, I’m a somewhat more rare type with an exact 50 / 50 balance between Thinking / Feeling, and Judging / Perceiving. It can swing either way if I’m more Introverted or Extraverted, but I’m an Intuitive without question. I remember struggling the most over the questions requiring one to choose between following their head or their heart. I could only relax on that one in knowing the following question recorded the exact opposite.

While I didn’t expect to be a true XNXX, it doesn’t surprise me. I’m not entirely sure how the Judging versus Perceiving plays out in my personality, except that I see-saw similarly between authoritarian firmness and permissive understanding. But, I could be wrong.

So, it’s possible I do analyse my emotions to the point of calculating rather than feeling. But the real danger — at least, to me — lies in when I reach a level of discontent because I fail to see how I should be feeling or reacting in a situation.

Rather than just feeling however damned well I’m going to, I seek cues from others as a means of determining how I should proceed. As such, sometimes what they do seems uncharacteristic and surprises me. It’s only until I’ve decided upon a course of action myself (usually, painstakingly, and with much prior consideration and deliberation) that I feel secure in my own behaviour and emotional reactions.

I don’t think this happens all of the time, but when it does, it always gives me pause and directs me toward some sort of greater understanding as to why it does. If there’s some root in something somewhere that, if I just uncover it, or make sense of it, it’ll help me better comprehend why it is my emotional framework breaks down sometimes.

I’m capable of very strong emotion — this I know. Passion, obsession, and drive almost to the point where it actually frightens me. Well … almost. At the very least, poses a reminder to keep such things in check.

So, given that, how is it possible that this happens to me? Or, are they, just like anything, another sort of emotional component I engage upon a decision to do so?

Pour example. I’m eating dark chocolate. I love dark chocolate. Cue the endorphins and warm fuzzies. But what of the times when I think to myself, ‘I like dark chocolate,’ and I’m staring at it and wondering just why it is I enjoy it? See, I feel that could be argued for anything. Once we decide upon a certain course of action given a particular state, once that state continues to present itself, we respond in kind. Is there any reason to quit loving dark chocolate? I’ve had a bad batch of it before, and it left a very literal bitter taste in my mouth. Occasionally, then, I can be a bit leery — I like dark chocolate, but will this be the kind I enjoy, or another disappointment?

(Oh, the metaphors to human relationships are all too obvious for those seeking them. … Funny thing is, that hadn’t occurred to me until just now.)

Perhaps, it doesn’t matter if I choose to continue enjoying dark chocolate as a conscious decision, or it’s more of an emotional reaction less under my control. Or, perhaps it matters a great deal, and remains one of my greatest dilemmas and sources of potential satisfaction and joy.

Trouble is, I’m just not sure which it is, or how exactly I’m to go about feeling it.

I’m sure I’ll figure it out eventually. … Or, not.