Nevertheless, since I have found that talking (not necessarily about myself, but about something I am interested in) is not only the best way for other people to find out about me, but one of the best ways for me to find out about myself, I'll try to talk about myself here. That is to say, since I've read too much Montaigne (though "too much Montaigne" is a contradiction in terms), I imitate his style, my thoughts wander, and I end up saying as much about the rest of the world as I do about myself.
I refuse to start my account, like Tristram Shandy, with my conception, because not only would it take me years to get to the "good stuff", i.e. what I am like now, but I don't really think many people would care to know how my parents met, and what my mother called me when I was two years old. My style is not entrancing enough for people to put up with the sheer volume of words.
People judge other people based upon appearance, or at least people judge me that way. While I thought of myself as a mousy bookworm, people didn't come up to me and talk with me and flirt with me the way they started to when I realized I was more than that. What I believed I was became what others believed me to be. That's a neat trick if you can manage it.
On the other hand, I've heard often enough that "people see what they want to see". That is a paradox, isn't it? How can one's public persona (whether or not it is different from the one's self- image) be simultaneously self-defining and subject to someone else's ideas of what one is?
We are constantly defining ourselves for other people, and they are constantly trying to define us as best suits their needs. I like that. It reaffirms my belief that there are at least two sides to everything.
I think what I'm getting at here is that I detest assumptions made without enough experience to back them up, and I reserve my harshest condemnation for those who will not reconsider their facts. I don't think that assumptions or generalizations are a reasonable way of dealing with people. However, I haven't yet thought of a way to describe who I am that will be free of the possibility of misunderstanding. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. I have a notion, which has been reinforced by a dear friend of mine, that what one writes about oneself is in some ways a mask. People will rarely look behind it to see what is there, unreflected by the light of publicity, and in failing to do so, they miss what may be the most important thing about a person.
If you look at the things I'm interested in, you will probably get more good ideas of what I'm like. That will have to do for now, because I've worn myself out backing myself into this corner.