If you don't judge me, I won't judge you.

I am a person honest to almost a fault, yet it also means that I am not very good at putting on a facade. Somehow, my body always betrays my suavely cool words. I blush, stutter and avoid eye contact when I am not supposed to. I do lie very successfully in a specific situation - via sarcasm. Otherwise, I am quite crappy at pretending to be someone I'm not. I can't pretend to be cool and calm when I am actually all flustered inside, I can't pretend to be cheerful when I am down in the dumps. For someone as rational and cold-hearted as I am, I pretty much wear my emotions on my sleeve.

It seems to be a universal fact that people like knowing what other people think of them. While I understand this fact, I am not so sure how to exercise it. I am always ready to comment on you people because I am a deadly judgmental person and I'm always stereotyping, yet I don't want to appear obsessively stalker-like by behaving as if I spent the last month observing your every move and formulating a modus operandi to manipulate. Well, I normally would have been observing but not everyone needs to know that, do they?

Let me try to clarify what I'm talking about. For example, let's take this seemingly innocuous statement.

"You seem like you're in a bad mood today."

There are so many ways you can interpret the remark.

1. The speaker has been observing me.
2. The speaker cares enough to observe me.
3. The speaker cares enough to mention his/her observations.
4. The speaker wants me to know that he/she has been observing me and formulating conclusions.
5. The speaker wishes to have his/her observations confirmed or nullified, for other inexplicable reasons of his/her own.

Of course, not everyone's statements are directed by such concrete, clearly thought-out intentions. A lot of talk is merely social lubricant - which is why I think people mostly talk too much and think too little.

Why do I feel such inertia to ask for people's numbers/add people on networking lists? Or like when I have someone on my MSN, but I don't dare to talk to them for fear of starting off the conversation badly and have it dwindle to nothingness; or like when I just exchanged phone numbers with someone but don't think I have a good enough excuse to start a conversation, not even a SMS one; or when I enjoy's someone company in a socially-mandated context like work/school but don't think they'll want to go out with me on a one-to-one basis.

I do know why - I just wish other people knew without me having to tell them about it first.