I'm a little off-center, yes, but I try to be consistent in that. Nay, I have to be; I have to be perfect. Because as soon as I show the slightest shift, the slightest sign of weakness, people go all Falwell on me. Apparently I'm not allowed to get angry or unhappy or show any other emotion than my usual festive self without it meaning I'm a satan worshiper. Now that doesn't happen often because I meant what I've said about not feeling, and I do just have that laid-back personality, but you know I'm not entirely the tin man I've constructed; no one is.
The other day I looked someone right in the eye and said that faith in God was the primary reason why elderly Black women in the South have one of the lowest suicide rates of any demographic group in the world, not five minutes after explaining to the same person why I'm an atheist. That's why I have to be perfect. If for whatever reason I start acting a little aloof or depressed, all of a sudden it's because I don't believe in God. If I get angry (and y'all haven't seen me get angry), or even a little upset, all of a sudden it's because I don't know Jesus. I'm sorry, but Jesus isn't, wasn't, and never will be the answer to my problems; you can see here why he's the cause of a lot of them. I'm now incapable of expressing anything outside of crazy, lest it be misconstrued for some manifestation of my lack of faith. Ever since I let it out that I was an atheist, everybody's just waiting for me to make a mistake. Everybody just wants so badly to be right about God that they find things in my behavior to blame on my atheism. Then they try to convert me, and I don't get down like that. Remember, if you start trying to convert me, I will win, and I don't want to do that to you.
On a similar note, don't let my atheism be an excuse for my being a jerk. Don't ever let me off that hook. I have to be perfect, otherwise people will just write off everything wrong I do as a result of being an atheist, and I won't be able to fix it if you do that. It's not a debilitating mental illness that prevents me from acting correctly like you might think. Please, and I might be talking to myself now, please just let me live.
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