I’m the kind of person who, if you know me, you either pretend not to see, or cross the street to avoid. I didn’t arrive at this awareness through self-knowledge, but only recently, through observation. Inwardly I feel nothing like the ponderous bore I sense myself to be in your presence. Perhaps this perceptual gap accounts for the spirit of unspecified ridicule I’ve always felt hovering about our interactions. Now that I understand it, my memories finally begin to make sense.