Walking backwards

I often feel like I'm walking the wrong way on one of those moving walkways they have in airports. No matter how fast I go or big my steps are, I'm still moving backwards. I'm learning to see this not as a "bad" thing. Hey, at least I'm still moving and fighting, right? Moving, good. Fighting, not so much though. I've always (my whole life) sensed an invisible force pushing against me. It drives me to push back, but the force of it is sometimes too great and I fall. I know I'm speaking in annoyingly intangible context, so I'll try to put this in "real" terms.

Societal: I've never fit in. Made fun of when I was younger, mostly because I didn't know much (if anything) about how the world works and what it expects of me as a person. Its not a "I want to be unique, just like everyone else" thing. I actually try to fit in. I'm not incapable of being a "social" person; I go out to lots of different places and get on just fine, making conversation with friends and strangers, can remember names okay, I'm not shy, etc. But I can't/won't do that for long. I can't stand superficiality and I rarely get past that point of small talk unless I knew the person before and actually remember something about that person. I don't care if there's a moment of silence when you realize you don't really have anything else to say, I can busy myself with other things/people or talk about the reason we're in the same place blah blah. It's the "what's the point of learning this person's name and taking up valuable memory space in my brain when I'm probably never going to see them again" that I could care less for. Is that shallow?

My work relationships are not great. Partly because of me. I've reacted before thinking and damaged my own credibility. I've often been a subject of untrue/cruel/damaging rumors, and I've been told that is partly because I am not very open (quiet/a concentrating worker) and therefore vulnerable to gossip. I've also been told that it's because I'm relatively quiet that I can appear stuck up and a "bitch," even though I've never spoken poorly or otherwise rude to the people who have said these things about me. SO, not my problem?