Thoughtful Thursday: Planet
February 13, 2014
There’s a meeting that I go to once a month with people who work at all different places. There’s one guy at the meetings who looks like he should be in The Octagon rather than a conference table. Very tall, very muscular, shaved head, menacing goatee. Stoic expression all the time.
One day we went around and said our hometowns. He joked, “Earth.” Another member of the meeting said, “I would have guessed the planet Krypton.”
The big guy said, “Actually, it’s more like Vulcan.”
He goes through life looking like an enforcer, when inside he’s really a brainiac.
My husband’s home planet is even harder to identify, because he’s full of complexity. Even when I first met him, I kept encountering more layers in the onion… and he’s gotten more and more interesting in the almost 20 years since. He’s smart and charming and athletic and warm and snarky. So, you’ll never guess the planet right because no one alien race suffices. Anyone first meeting him will get an accurate sense of him, yet they also have no idea how much more there is. Even our own children have no idea about certain facets of his personality. He’s quite chill with them, but every now and then they’ll get a glimpse of the manic whimsy often displays with me and his friends, and they look at him like he actually is an alien.
With me, I think what you see is pretty much what you get. I haven’t read/seen enough sci-fi to have found a planet of beings like me. Let’s call it Planet BabySmiling. For anyone who was familiar with this theoretical planet, they’d be able to peg me as a BabySmilingite instantly. I’m glad there is no such planet though… I don’t think I could handle more than one of me.
Do people get the wrong impression from the image you portray? Or is what you see what you get?
Baby Smiling In Back Seat 
February 14, 2014 at 5:39 am
This one is tough to answer because I really have no idea what sort of image I portray, and hence I have no idea if it is accurate or not.
February 14, 2014 at 12:07 pm
phew. i thought you were going to ask me to identify what type of sci-fi i most related with or something! 🙂
i’m definitely a what you see is what you get type of person! 🙂 i’m not good at hiding my feelings. i’m a bad liar. i’m straightforward. i do like to have fun, i’m loyal, i like things to be ‘fair’, i’m organized. i think that all of this comes across pretty readily. i’m punctual. 🙂
(missed you!!)
February 14, 2014 at 5:07 pm
I don’t hide anything. What you see is all me all the time. I only hide a part of me if it would be inappropriate for me to do something. For example, I swear on Twitter and in the company of certain people, but I don’t swear at home…
February 15, 2014 at 5:31 am
Wow, I can honestly say that this TT question does get into your top-notch club of tough ones to answer.
I do feel that people often get a wrong impression from what they see of me. I have been told that I look casual, even though actually I am steaming inside. And there have been times when my emotional labour which I would rather hide, is neon-printed on my face.
I am not considered very suave, till I open my mouth. I am not very particular about dressing, and my perception of my body often leads me to make choices that are not as trendy and ‘in’ as the rest of the women-folk would use. So not unless I open my mouth does a person get full lowdown of me.
As such, the answer you want is what I think of what others must be thinking of me as I am versus what I actually am. Lady, tune it down. 🙂
And welcome back!
February 16, 2014 at 2:52 pm
I agree with you on your assessments of both yourself and your husband.
Like you, I am from Planet WYSIWYG.
February 18, 2014 at 5:01 pm
What you see is what you get with me, though I’ve been told I can be very cool and aloof at first.