A Friend Knocks

I don't have many friends. I have never needed any and the few I had turned out to be tools any way. I can't complain; I never sought popularity, but always wore just enough masks to be socially acceptable. I'd sit and observe below the radar, keeping out of the spot light so I could work behind the scenes, always dumbing myself down socially and intellectually so I wouldn't be a threat. I really did feel like I was a spy on an alien world sometimes, conforming to others.

Sure I was liked by those who got to know me, but I was also bullied like hell throughout my early life. This year it all changed though. I had enrolled into tertiary education for the first time. A new setting, new people - I wasn't going to pass it up. So I decided on a new me. Everything I did was probably the exact opposite; outgoing, talkative and witty. The problem is it worked.

I know it sounds strange, but I was suddenly popular, outgoing and well liked. The times someone did pick a fight with me it either bounced off or sorted itself out. I liked this new me. But for reason, I wasn't quite the same when at home. Sure I was happier, but remnants of old me kept popping through for a cup of tea. Each different side of me was conflicting but at the same time couldn't live without one another.

Am I this new happy guy or the old reclusive. Which is the mask and which is reality? Am I going mad? Sure there has been a history of mental disorders in my extended family, but I don't honestly believe that. Every day one side is either stronger or weaker and I'm finding it hard to divide the two. What I need is someone I can be open with who isn't a blog page. As fortune would have it, that someone happened to be knocking on my door at 9am this morning.

Sure 9am isn't early for most, but if you've gone to sleep at 4am that same morning you don't have to be a math teacher to work out the sum equals cranky. I barely had time to notice my pounding headache before I was embroiled in a conversation with, shall we say, "Jaffa"; he's Indian, larger than life in more ways than one, optimistic, vain, about 20 years my senior, utterly honest and incredibly loyal. Say no more. He's been following me around like a bad smell ever since we met at school, turning up at all hours to show me his artwork and telling about his dreams and life. On any given day, he'd annoy the shit out of me, but for some reason he's the only one outside my family I can be truly honest with. You couldn't get two more opposite people, but we get along like a bulimic and a toilet bowl. 

Maybe it's what I need, maybe it's not; I'm willing to ride it along to see what comes out. I could use a bit of honestly right now in my life and I definitely think that Jaffa can give it to me. Hopefully someone else can see what's really there behind my masks even if I can't.

Welcome To My Mask

Who am I? Right now, you are about as informed as I am. For now lets call me "Spawn Man" and you are my reader. I don't know what brings you here, but for me right now, it's an outlet to vent my thoughts and problems. Feel free to comment on the ongoing travesty which is my life. I don't pretend to be an emo - I am an emo, an old school emo who doesn't need black hair and goth music to be miserable. You wouldn't even know I'm a depressive; I'm outgoing, charming and happy. And that's where the page's title comes in.

All my life I've lived behind masks - they protect me, shelter me, allow me to fit in and most of all hide my demons. The problem is, who am I? I've put up all these masks and they all get used equally that I don't even know who I am any more. The more masks I pull off the more I find. Do I really want to know who I really am?

Maybe you have your masks, maybe you don't. If you came here to find salvation and joy, I suggest you find another blog. If there's any of that going around, I'll want to be the first to get it. Yes, it's not as if I want to be this way day in day out like those little Gothic freaks you see clustered in a pot smoking haze at high school. If I could snap my fingers and be happy I would. But then that wouldn't be very entertaining to read now would it?

You can expect from this blog a story of a normal person with issues going through his normal life. But we all know how life is anything but normal, so expect anything to be here. However, the one thing you won't see here is masks. I'm sick of masks and I'm sure you don't want to hear from a copyedited ray of sunshine or doom and gloomer. Straight from the heart and nothing else. And right now I feel like death itself. Read on...