What do you mean?
Unless I’m very relaxed, I don’t take things at face value. I’m rarely very relaxed. So when I see the instruction ‘list 25 random things about you’ my first thought isn’t ‘I own an expensive TV set I hardly use’ or ‘I have read the Bible cover to cover, even Chronicles’ or ‘my late mother once shook George Graham’s hand’, but:
Random? What do you mean, random? How am I supposed to randomly choose something? This is an act of self-definition, isn’t it, so by ‘randomly’ choosing something I am saying something about myself and in knowing that while making my choices I will nullify the point of the exercise.
This is why I get a different home on the Political Compass every time I try it. Why I don’t know if I’m INFJ or ISTP (I’m pretty sure I’m I—, to be fair). Why I’m surely an outlier whenever YouGov polls me.
I change my Facebook profile most times I see it. For example, ‘Interested in Women’? I get that they’re asking about sexual orientation for people who use Facebook for dating, but I loathe the construction, and I worry ‘interested in’ conveys ‘actively pursuing’. Half the time I loathe it enough to delete it, then next time I add it back in. But is it more self-defining to answer or not to answer? Aaargh.
Self-definition frightens me. And I ‘think too much’, in the parlance of our times. (And possibly I read Rumpelstiltskin and The hobbit too young, but I think learning about true names was a useful survival skill: one less face presented is one less target.)
Be that as it may, I trawled Facebook and GReader for friends’ answers, and some of them apply to me too, so I’m borrowing them (if it’s good enough for Time…). You could call it ‘random 2.0′, but 2.0 is so last year.
- I hate confrontation and will go to great lengths to avoid it.
- I hate making mistakes. The fact that I made a mistake usually bothers me far more than the consequences of said mistake.
- I know very few people who waste more time on the internet than I do.
- I will only think I’m truly successful when I hear myself on Desert Island Discs.
- I hate being bad at things, so much so that if I cannot be good at something, I will refuse to try.
- I value good spelling and grammar.
- I cry at sad films. And TV series. And books. All the time.
- I am seeking a way to leave the UK.
- I like math and I don’t see why anybody finds it hard.
- I like moving house, particularly the part about getting rid of old, outdated, no-longer-useful personal effects.
- My steadfastness and loyalty have caused me to stick with things (habits, people, jobs, places) I should have given up.
