Sheila Heti graduated from the University of Toronto in 2001. Since then, she has published two books of fiction, The Middle Stories and Ticknor. While an undergraduate, she conducted a series of interviews titled Portraits of the Insane. She’d approach someone on campus who seemed interesting (or awful) and ask if they wanted to answer some questions for a project she was doing. She asked the same questions of everyone and taped these interviews, which often lasted an hour. The following is an excerpt from an interview with “Bob,” a lumbering, red-headed boy.
The complete interview can be read on her website, including an article she wrote for the New York Times Magazine about how and why she conceived of the project.
Have you ever stolen anything?
No, actually I haven’t. I’ve taken a few things around the house like my parent’s pop and stuff like this—the diet cola that my brother and I aren’t supposed to drink, but that’s pretty much it.
Do you see yourself as inherently different from people or essentially the same?
In a lot of things I see myself as different ’cause I look at things differently. I’m not sure if this is partly because I’m left-handed, but I’ve noticed that I seem to see the world differently. Even people I’ve known for years, friends from grade school, I see things differently from them, probably because I am in a minority group–being a lefty or red-headed or whatever.
What is the basic fallacy you have about the way other people operate?
Well it’s probably the fact that I see people who are totally calm and relaxed and can handle anything, and they’re probably not, because a lot of times I can look like I’m calm and relaxed and in control of everything, and I have no idea what’s going on, and they may be going through the exact same things as me. They may not know what’s going on but they don’t want to act like it.
Who do you most resent?
The people I most resent are the typical sports jocks who just walk though everything in life, have great athletic ability, and do things so easily, like shoot a hockey puck and get it into the net every single time, or shoot a basket and make it every time, things that I can’t really do. I’m not that adept at sports and I resent people who are good at sports mainly because a lot of them also have the cocky attitude to go with it.
Who do you most resent for normalising your personality?
I’d say as far as normalising my personality, I’d have to probably resent myself for doing it ’cause I want to fit in with the group and I don’t want to be a total outcast and I want to be able to communicate with people, so if there’s anybody to resent or blame for it it’s me. Why should someone like you? Well they should like me because for the most part because I’m a nice guy. Nice guys tend to finish last and what also fits in with being a nice guy is being last in a lot in things. I’ve always been at the bottom of the heap and that’s where nice guys tend to end up.
In what way are you most a fraud?
Probably just the little lies that I tell to make my life seem more interesting.
When did you first discover lying? That probably was when I started getting a paper route, because I noticed when I told people these little stories about my life, they were very interested and I might get a slightly bigger tip, and I thought, “Okay this is a pretty good deal.” It was a shorter matter of time before I used up all my actual stories so I started making things up. And when I made things up, it seemed to work just as well if not better, because the stories had a better ring to them. I took these stories from TV, so they would have the nice little wrap-up you have in sitcoms stories, rather than real life which can be rather open-ended.
How can you even be sure of who you are?
Well, who are you is a present-tense thing, it’s exactly who are at that particular moment, it’s not who you were, it’s not who you will be, so the easiest way to be sure of who you are is to look at yourself from the moment and that way you’ll know exactly who you are.
