This is interesting to me. No, what I find interesting, truly, are people that have no idea who they are, or what their limitations are. A complete detachment from reality. At times I wish I could live in such bliss. But I can't.
My wife and I had such a moment two days ago. Seriously. After 8 years of marriage. I'd just finished singing a fine riff of "Brandy, you're a fine girl, what a good wife you would be, but my life, my love and my lady, is the sea...."
I turned and looked at her and saw an honest expression of pain. She hid it quickly. I joked, "Yeah, I guess I got a few notes wrong there, huh?"
She smiled in that "it happens to every guy" kind of way. Except that she'd never given me that look before.
"You don't think I sing very well, do you?" I asked. We'd joked before about my bad singing, but it was always just joking. I knew she knew I could sing. Really. Until now.
"You really don't think I can sing."
Finally she replied, "You get most of the notes, just not really in the right order."
Then I thought about how many times I've whistled in my life, and how I can count two or three people who have ever said I was a good whistler. And they were very polite people.
And how when I dropped out of band in 6th grade the teacher looked kind of happy.
In the past few days I've come to realize that I am a horrible, horrible singer, and have a horrible, horrible ear for music. I mean in the bottom 5% of all human beings, counting the retards. And for 35 years I really had no idea. Honest.
At least I could take solace in the knowledge that a) I'd never once tried karaoke, so the shame is less that it could have been and b) my wife absolutely sucks at cooking, and although I joke about it, she thinks it's all in jest and on the inside she's a master chef. And I'm not going to tell her different.
I think I was happier when I was more detached from reality.
