I’m not really asking. I don’t think. I probably don’t want to know, do I? Not really. Or it might be like tearing off a band aid. But I’ve never believed in that either. They’re lying when they say it’s better to get it over with.

You have no idea what I really think of you, because I’m an excellent liar. Always have been. Not that my guard doesn’t sometimes slip, but I am good at being unknowable to all but my very closest friends and family and even then, many of them know far less than I think. Maybe, to steal from Sokrates, the ones who know me best know that they could very well not know me at all.

But that could easily be everybody. I think I’m special, of course. I think that I have reasons for thinking so. But I am almost entirely sure that people I don’t think are special at all are convinced beyond all doubt that they are special and have valid reasons for their conviction. Justified true belief. Or warranted true belief (hat tip to Alvin Plantinga). Take your pick.

There are people who I think like me. There are people who I think like who I don’t like in turn. There are people who I think like me who I don’t like in turn and who I think don’t know that I don’t like them.

But what do people really think of me? Surely, even in the most perceptive person, that’s the greatest blind spot. We think we are generally good and likable people, so naturally we believe that people like us as the good people we are. But these people who I don’t like and who I don’t believe know that I don’t like them – I believe that many of them like me. But what if I’m not special and perceptive or only ordinarily so and my specialness, such as it is, is limited to my vast delusions of likability and opaqueness?