Two Separate People

Do you ever feel like you're two separate people? And not in a "multiple personality"/DID sort of way (though more power to you if you have that).

I took a speech class at a nearby community college this past summer. Okay, I took two English classes, a government class, and a speech class. But I was only really involved in the speech class. I got good grades in all of them, but the speech class was like a family. I love speech classes for that reason; I'd previously taken two debate classes and a different communication course in high school.

I digress.

In that class, I never got a score below 96/100. And the teacher had other students aid in grading, because they were the audience. I got to grade my peers, and my classmates always circled the 'excellent' category for my speeches.

I'm not writing this to brag or to be conceited. I think I've gotten pretty good at public speaking. That's all. I smile; I laugh; I tell jokes and take shots (usually at political leaders, which is always fun). I make sure no one gets bored and make my accent plain enough to be easily understood, though some people here tend to complain that I talk fast. But not incomprehensibly fast. I've been told that I'm generally a pleasant speaker. I know how to give a speech.

That's not me.

I mean, it is. But that's not how I normally act when I'm not in front of an audience. People in my speech classes and who've seen me like that have a very inaccurate impression of who I actually am. They try to make friends with me, and I'm afraid that they're disappointed.

Even if the speeches aren't directly scripted, they're structured. You could say that I'm acting. Because in a plain conversation, when I'm not in social-smooth-speaker mode, I'm pretty flat. I don't pay nearly as much attention to stuff like tone, facial expression, eye contact, etc. What people don't realize is that this takes a lot of energy.

I started thinking about this when I noticed that people who've never seen me in this mindset view me differently than those who have only seen me like that.

I guess everyone has to do the same thing, to a degree. But I feel that I disappoint people when they expect something else of me.