We don't know ourselves. It's possible that that's a blessing, a godsend. Or maybe, maybe it's our biggest curse. I read a few years ago that that old saying about how nobody knows you better than yourself is bullshit. They say that we can't predict our own movements and reactions because we're too involved. We play out our own personalities to ourselves, we perform to ourselves. We eventually fool ourselves into thinking that we're kind or that we're passionate or that we really are better suited to more creative endeavours than scientific reasoning and logic. I excelled in school as a kid, over a year younger than the next kid. I never had to try. I took state exams at seven years old and only one other student in the whole country matched my score. As I got older, I was told I'd be better suited to an easier exam paper in our final maths exams. I didn't understand. I'd never faltered at anything academically. I thought I knew myself. Turns out that they were right. So now I tell everybody that I'm shit at maths and that I haven't a logical bone in my body. It's an ingrained notion that was planted in me almost ten years ago by an almost stranger. It's not entirely the truth. I still do numbers better than the average Irish student, but because I'm better at other things, I feel like I'm useless at putting two and two together. I've always had an interest in learning more about myself. I'm curious to see what I'll do next. I can talk about myself in theory, but really, I'd much rather stay quiet and hear what others have to say. I was born on July 24th in 1989. A hot, sticky, hazy day. They almost didn't get my mother through the hospital doors before I arrived. I barely missed out on a different star sign - just one day beforehand and I would have had an entirely different personality, or so the theory goes. Apparently mine is the birthday of charismatic uncertainty. Of being unable to be happy on my own. They say that people born on this day are of the most exciting variety. I'm supposed to be original in some way, shape or form. They say that I exude charisma. That I'm impulsive. That I can't stand routine. They say I take risks. I'm unusual. Weird. I'm selfish. Obsessive. Fickle. Innovative. Accident prone. Reckless. Prone to eating binges when I'm bored. Active. I don't know where the truth in all of this lies. I know myself that I have always disliked ongoing routines. I do change my mind quite a lot. People call me weird. I don't flinch. I'm coming to the theory that I'm depressed simply because of how selfish I am. There's a whole world out there - why should it matter that I'm not entirely as happy as is possible. Is anybody? Should I give up dieting if being born on that hazy day twenty-three and a half years ago has fated me to being a binge eater? Am I really all that clumsy, or have I accepted it as a part of myself and somehow made it happen? Men approach me late at night, when I'm smoking a cigarette (this is the last one ever, I swear) and they try their best to get under my skin. Why the short hair? How come you're out here all alone? As if it were impossible to take a bathroom trip without fourteen girls following in single file behind me. They tell me within minutes of talking to me that I'm unusual. I ask questions that people think I shouldn't. I don't beat around the bush. I don't let them have their way. I am unabashed and cynical. But I laugh. I wish I knew what I look like to the outsider. I stand hunched over, my head tilted slightly to the right, my bottom lip slightly overtaking the top, chewing on dead skin. The thing is, I really want to know who I am so that I can begin to fix things. I want to know why I destroy things once they become familiar. I want to know why I only enjoy talking to strangers, why I avoid my friends unless I'm drunk. I want to know why there's so much anxiety, if I really do have all that much to be worried about. I want to know what my friends say behind my back. I want them to be honest. Everybody does it. It doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. I'm struggling with my identity because I feel so bloody different - but what I don't really get is why I'm so different. Best friend tells me I'm weird. I shrug and say I'm not. He laughs and says "You fuckin' are". Maybe I deserve an explanation.