It made me very sad, that question. Sad and defeated. Because I knew she knew why I was thinking about that woman-I was thinking about my own tendencies toward aloneness and I thought I could end up like that woman, with a bird perhaps, or a dog-probably a dog, I know birds are supposed to make good pets but I think there's something creepy about them-but alone with a life that didn't touch or overlap with anyone else's, a sort of hermetically sealed life.
Peter CameronI always looked forward to being an adult, because I thought the adult world was, wellโadult. That adults werenโt cliquey or nasty, that the whole notion of being cool, or in, or popular would case to be the arbiter of all things social, but I was beginning to realize that the adult world was as nonsensically brutal and socially perilous as the kingdom of childhood.
Peter CameronI wish the whole day were like breakfast, when people are still connected to their dreams, focused inward, and not yet ready to engage with the world around them. I realized this is how I am all day; for me, unlike other people, there doesn't come a moment after a cup of coffee or a shower or whatever when I suddenly feel alive and awake and connected to the world. If it were always breakfast, I would be fine.
Peter CameronThey're both about the correct or proper way to do something. There is a correct and proper way to use words and there is a correct and proper way to behave with other people. And I behaved improperly with John and feel bad, so I compensate by obsessing with language, which is easier to control than behavior.
Peter CameronIโm not a sociopath or a freak (although I donโt suppose people who are sociopaths or freaks self-identify as such); I just donโt enjoy being with people. People, at least in my experience, rarely say anything interesting to each other. They always talk about their lives and they donโt have very interesting lives. So I get impatient. For some reason I think you should only say something if itโs interesting or absolutely has to be said.
Peter CameronMost people think things are not real unless they are spoken, that it's the uttering of something, not the thinking of it, that legitimizes it. I suppose this is why people always want other people to say "I love you." I think just the oppositeโthat thoughts are realest when thought, that expressing them distorts or dilutes them.
Peter Cameron