day 27: i think i'm a mean person
"It's like when you talk, there's a double meaning behind it," is something someone said to me once.
I always feel like I'm lying, even when I'm telling the truth.
But also, I'm a habitual liar.
The underlying thoughts behind my lies are mean-spirited and suspicious. I paint over these thoughts with peppy words. My lies are more like hopes and wishes of my ideal self. A weird kind of gaslighting people into thinking I'm a better person than I actually am.
But also, I'm a terrible liar. My body betrays my intentions. It's the hesitant smile, the off-colour tone of my voice.
"The audience just knows."
So would it be better to just be mean, instead of making people distrust everything I say?
Is it possible to become unmean? To genuinely think good of others most of the time? I wonder if this meanness comes out of fear. Why do I assume the worst of people, projecting my meanness onto them?
I don't know if I've ever come across a genuinely good person, who is not acting out of fear, who is good because that's just how they are, who is not actually thinking something else in the back of their minds.
But maybe that's the meanness talking.