If you could only see inside my mind, you'd be disappointed

A few years ago a friend* and I were in the car and a song came on the radio. It was the mid-'90s pseudo-alternative rock hit "If You Could Only See." We both remembered it. However, she was convinced the artist who recorded it was Duncan Sheik, and I was certain that it was not. I could not remember the name of the band at that moment, but I knew it wasn't Duncan Sheik for a simple reason: I had a copy of the album on which said track appeared.

(I am not saying I bought the album—which I recalled was called Lemon Parade. I am saying that I acquired a copy of it, because I knew someone who had bought it. Generally speaking, if I plop down some of my own money for something I can recall who it is. However, sometimes the brain is unwilling to give up its information, for reasons that are never clear.)

Undaunted by my assurances that the artist was not, in fact, Duncan Sheik, and probably emboldened by my failure to recall who it actually was, she challenged me to a bet. I declined over and over because this was not something over which I should be winning anything, but eventually I agreed just to get her to stop harping on it.

Of course I won the bet. That was never in question. When we got home and I could find the disc copy in question and prove that it was Tonic, not Duncan Sheik, she graciously conceded. (Or at least for the purposes of this story we will say she did.) Suffice it to say she has not challenged me on musical knowledge since that day.

My point, however, is not to tout my prowess in the realm of music. It is actually the opposite.

It's not that I know everything. It's not that I know even a majority of things. It's simply that I know what I know; with what I have some experience I have knowledge, but that is so far from general expertise that I actively refute even a glib association with the term. The most that can be said is that, for whatever reason, bits of such trivia do tend to stick with me (although not necessarily in a manner that allows me instant recollection), and perhaps that is more than the so-called average person would do. And by virtue of knowing a few bits of trivia that other people do not, that seems to indicate to them that I must possess a vast cache of information that they do not, despite the fact that I have only demonstrated knowing the specific bits.

Why does this matter? Almost invariably, when someone who has seen me exhibit knowing something (that I didn't even mean to be impressive but just something my brain didn't have the good sense to let go), they will start using me as some kind of source for reference material. And depending on the specifics of what they wish to know, it is only a matter of time until their grandiose expectations of me are hideously disappointed; it doesn't take too much effort to find something I don't know.

Not that I ever claimed to know it.

Nonetheless, it is similarly inevitable that as soon as the people who deluded themselves with ideas about my prowess hit that point where I don't know something their expectations would have me know, they feel an unconscious compulsion to direct at me the full brunt of their disappointment. I have come to believe it's nothing they can control; they have this negative reaction which they attribute to being my fault, and whether it is or is not is of little importance at that moment. ("What do you mean you don't know?!" Then an exasperated and indignant shake of the head.)

While I try to dismiss it as the simple projection, it's difficult to not feel at least a twinge of having let them down.

It's hard enough for me to be right about anything as it is, and frankly, with as many times as that scenario has occurred, there are times when I think it's better to feign ignorance (or intentionally be wrong) up front; it is not admirable, but clearly being admired is fraught with its own dangers.

I am the first to admit when I'm not sure. I equivocate in answers to questions at work all the time; I employ phrases like "it should do this" and avoid "it will do this" at all costs, so I don't have to put up with "you said it would do this" crap when things don't go as they should (which happens daily). I am an awful poker player; the only time I win is early on, before the others have figured out that I am rarely bluffing.

I don't want to let the idiots drag me down, but these people aren't idiots; if they were, I wouldn't care. These people kind of believe in me, and that's flattering, but I know it's only temporary. And the real thing is this: Their first impression persists in their mind, despite the incident that revealed the exaggeration in their expectation; the next time I don't know something is met with the same vitriolic reaction as the previous time. They don't pull back their expectations to a reasonable level; they simply overlook the evidence that should have caused the re-evaluation of the expectations, so I get to experience it all over again.

So, to sum up, when I tell you that it's not Duncan Sheik, just accept that it's not Duncan Sheik. It may or may not be Tonic, but it's definitely not Duncan Sheik. And accept that the entirety of which I'm certain is exclusively that, in that particular case, it's not Duncan Sheik.

~

You only get one chance to make a first impression, but sometimes a good one can be just as bad as a bad one. It just takes longer to realize it.

~

No, I couldn't name a Duncan Sheik song if someone held a gun to my head. I never had his album.

I admit his sound, to the extent I have any familiarity with it, was not unlike that of Tonic. I understand how they could be confused.

~

Oh, and when it comes to music: I assure you there's thousands of people who know more about what's going on now than I could even pretend to know. I can't compete with the college student who's in his heyday. That I can find new music I like, whether I'm keeping up with a scene or not, is cause for tiny celebration in my book.


* Possibly a euphemism.