Dear Neil,
I like knowing people better than meeting people. I think mainly due to my malformed coping mechanism. Everyone has a coping mechanism of some sort. Evolution exists exactly to promote such things. Cope or die, but if you die no one will follow in your footsteps. Some people cope by turning psycho every once in a while and smashing a cup in their hands. Some people cope by finding a semen receptacle. Some people cope by crying in their room for an hour. Some people cope by turning melancholy and cutting their wrists. Some people smoke cigarettes, others drink, and most people just try to conform. Me, I try to attract attention to myself, then I throw it away. I go out of my way to make people notice me. Then I ignore everyone, shut them out, run away. Yesterday, I sat in the grass cutting up a free frisbee. I successfully cut the center out, put the frisbee on the grass, and used it as a template for cutting grass. When people asked what I was doing, I brushed them off. Then I got up and threw the frisbee away. My trouble is I can't get enough attention being normal, and I don't want the attention I get being weird. So obviously, my coping mechanism isn't working right. It must be malformed.

Reaction formation is when one's actions are directly opposed to one's subconscious desires. Tonight, there was a big dance. Whenever a song comes on that people like, I tried to get off the dance floor. As I see it, there are two ways to look at dances. Either they're a big courtship ritual for homo sapiens or they're a way to get all your energy out while having fun. I try to believe the latter, but my deep subconscious obviously has its own view of the universe.

So, I like to do the opposite of what's popular. A hit song is playing? Count me out. People don't like for others to use vocabulary over the basic middle school level? Well, I feel I must express myself through my own unique vernacular. The situation is simple. I want to be popular. When I was five or something, I failed somehow; maybe I jumped rope wrong or played Legos instead of hide and seek. I coped by not wanting to be popular. Only, not really.

Today, I woke up and put on a pair of camouflaged pants, a black t-shirt with two thin white strips, and a gray blazer. All day long, I was confident in my appearance. People commented. Today, there was a picnic in which we were able to meet the president of our university. Everyone else put on a Polo shirt or a tie, but I didn't bother to change clothes. I wanted people to react. Walking there, I wrote on my hand: Malformed Coping Mechanism. It seems at this rate, either I'll get a reaction or I'll reach a point where I can no longer think of provocative things. Art had this trouble in the Twentieth Century. At first, mere Cubist Nudes Descending Staircases could spark a public outcry. Now you need to embed dung in your painting to get a tepid reaction from the crowd.

So later, I was dancing in my particular idiom, getting really sweaty, subconsciously attempting to attract a mate and drinking Mountain Dew during popular songs. I'm not worried that there isn't anyone who will be able to get past me making an impression, 'cause a few have, but it just isn't pleasant to be around myself during these times. I need to find a way to define myself, other than the odd man out, the kid drinking yogurt out of a straw, the kid reading a book on the playground.

I dunno Neil Armstrong, there is only one person on all of the earth who dislikes you, (persons obviously not including those godless commies) Buzz Aldrin. How do you deal with that? Do you pretend you never liked him either? Do you just avoid him (not hard to do living on the moon, versus him stuck on earth once again)? Have you genuinely confronted and accepted your place in life, once you had tried all avenues to remedy the situation? What is the best coping mechanism?