will work for money

Person: “Oh, you’re unemployed?”

Me: “Yeah, only for a few weeks now though.”

Person: (in their head) “Wow, I’m better than you. Yessss.”

Me: “Fuck right off, I’m on vacation.”
And then “I should probably get a new job.”
Followed by “You can still fuck off though.”

That was also all said in my head.

What’s with our need to define ourselves through such unrepresentative means?

I don’t really like to talk about myself.
I don’t really like to sell myself.
I like to come into the conversation at the halfway point, where everybody else already knows who I am and I never have to impress anyone or let them down and they just accept me as is and then we move on and discuss cool ideas and write stories together.

Yeah, universal acceptance and appreciation would be sweet.
A little awe would be nice too, but only sometimes.