Monday, March 1, 2010

My Poker Face

It’s not socially acceptable for a guy to hurt. For a guy to really come out and show that he’s not going through the best patch in his life. Likewise, it’s not a good idea to gloat or to boast about how great things are going in their life. Some people’s lives suck and they’d prefer that you wouldn’t rub that in. Over the past few months, I’ve developed a really good Poker face. It is no secret to most that I have been in and out of moods here lately that are completely opposites, leading some to believe I’m developing a bipolar disorder. The ironic thing is that very few people can actually tell about these moods unless they know me well enough to be able to sniff out my poker face.

My Poker Face keeps me balanced. It allows me not to get too excited when things are great, and not get too upset when things are bad. I think everyone should have one. I really think that the Poker Face has come into perfection over the last month. I’m really the type of person who will insist things are not bothering him, when they are really causing me great pain. Nothing ever really ends on good terms, but if you ask me about any girl I used to be dating and am not anymore I’ll say, “It just wasn’t working out” or “F*ck her” or “She’s dead” and I could go on forever. On the inside the answer is much more complex, it’s enough to push me into several moods in one day.

Another thing that the Poker Face allows me to do is hide how self-destructive my life can become when I’m not feeling well. Oh man… you haven’t the slightest how deep the rabbit hole goes on this one. I can’t even begin to tell you what I will do when I get in self-destruct mode. Let’s just say, one of my most memorable quotes is, “Take it from someone who has tried to get off this planet several times; you don’t go until it’s your time to go.” For clarification, I’ve never tried to take my own life, I’ve just done some things that if it wasn’t but for the grace of God, I would have died.

My Poker Face helps me to remain level-headed when things are going really well. I have times when I feel like today is the day I should play Mega Millions, but because I know how low, low can be, I take it easy and just ride it out. I do have bright spots, but I don’t want people to take advantage of those bright spots and think that it gives them a reason to excuse the fact that they might have contributed to your dark spots. People love to be like, “Well, everything worked out in the end” and move on without ever accepting fault for f*cking someone’s life up.

For the most relevant Poker Face story it came not too long ago, when I found out that a couple of my past situations were now talking to someone else. This only really bothers me because I can’t say that I am talking to anyone. But man… when I say I mustered up a Poker Face for about a good two days to deal with that sh*t, I sure did and it got me through.

So there you have it, that’s the Poker Face. I’m sure we all have our Poker Faces, hell you need one. I think the biggest flaw of the Poker Face is that we never really deal with the problems causing the Poker Face we kind of just use the Poker Face to mask it. Anything you carry along for too long automatically becomes baggage.

I wrote this like over a year ago and never posted it. I've been procrastinating on posting it for some time. Today is as good a day as any. I hope you enjoyed it.

3 comments:

HD said...

I have never commented on your site before, but this post seems to hit closer to home than most. I have develop my poker face to a certain extent but learning that this baggage I carry is starting to get too heavy to hold.

But as men we are taught not to show our vulnerable side. I am still learning to develop my poker face but it comes at the expense of not finding the root of my problems within me.

max said...

Technically I'm a girl (LOL) but I can totally identify with this. I am the queen of poker face - I almost never let anyone see how much something is bothering me. Actually one of my friends was remarking on this the other day. I was out of work for close to a year and in that time she never saw me get down about it; I always cracked jokes and waxed philosophical about the right job coming at the right time, even when I was worrying about getting evicted and where my next meal was coming from.
There's only been one time in my life that I wasn't able to hide my feelings from the world and that was after the death of someone extremely special to me. I couldn't muster a poker face for about two weeks and that upset me almost as much as the actual fact of his death did.
I agree with you that a poker face is a necessary thing; but I think it would be nice to be able to come out from behind in every once in a while. I totally can't though.

Unknown said...

Okay so this is my all time favorite post by you. I can relate to it a lot...The only problem is, I keep getting the feedback that I have to control how I react to certain things. I wish I could be better at having a poker face, I'm sure it would help me in a lot of situations where I let my emotions show too much...which is literally most of time. It's not always a good thing...