Currently Watching Swing Kids By Robert Sean Leonard, Christian Bale see related

I've been thinking a lot lately about personalities, and how they can seem to change depending on who/what you're reacting to.  Specifically I've been thinking about how different my life and who I seem to be are from the way I was even five years ago.  I'd always been the classic bookworm who could hardly be pried away from her books to do anything.  Then I went out and started having adventures, and now I have barely any time to read.  While I have an amazingly cool and exciting life, I miss the time I had to read and think about things, and to write about them.  Life happens so fast sometimes.  I don't know if I'll ever be able to process quickly enough to catch up.

On a related note, I was also thinking about how easy it is for me to be silly and flirty and goofy around guys in whom I have little to no romantic interest.  It doesn't mean anything, so I can be as silly as I like.  On the other hand, where I am possibly interested too often I turn awkward and shy.  I think this can be a common problem for some girls.  One guy friend told me that he had learned that when a girl started avoiding him for no good reason nine times out of ten it was because she had developed romantic feelings for him.  I think part of it has to do with what JP the Great would call emotional modesty (or emotional shame, although what he means by the word "shame" is totally different from what we associate with it), or the self-protective instinct that causes us to hide our deepest and most precious feelings.  More often, however, it just feels like shooting myself in the foot!