Enough about you, what about me?

Jack/Narrator: When people think you're dying, they really, really listen to you, instead of just...

Marla Singer: - instead of just waiting for their turn to speak?

Conversation, something that should be an opportunity for people to really connect with one another, seems to be, more often than not, yet another cause for frustration. Fight Club got it right—when you’re talking to most people, all they really care about is getting a word in. The problem is compounded if you happen to be on the quiet and/or polite side: people just assume you’ve got nothing to say. And if they don’t care in the first place even when you do have something to say, well, you end up listening to a lot of self-centred crap.

I had a “friend” who redefined self-centred. I don’t know if she assumed I had nothing to say, but it was pretty obvious she didn’t care one way or the other. This was a typical conversation:

Me: Hello?

Her: Oh, hi. Are you busy?

Me: (Yes, always). I have a few minutes to talk.

Her: I’m working and I’m bored, so I thought I’d give you a call.

Me: Um, thanks.

Her: So, what are you up to?

Me: Well, I saw this great movie…

Her: [long silence]

Me: Hello?

Her: Oh, sorry—I was just… [The next 20 minutes are spent listening to her describe in depth the work that was too boring to keep her interested, prompting her to call you in the first place.]

You: Sounds like fun.

Her: Not really. Oh, the other line’s beeping—hold on. [Switches lines before you get a chance to respond.]

You: [Stare at the wall for what feels like forever, listening to the blank line, wishing you had a sharp object handy with which to stab yourself.]

Her: Oh, sorry—it’s a long-distance call. Can I call you back in 10 minutes?

You: Actually, I have a lot to do. Sorry.

Her: [sounding miffed] Oh. Okay. I’ll call you tomorrow, then.

You: Um…great.

Yeah, that was when my habit of screening calls started. Much like a guy, I expect my phone conversations to have a point. If you’re going to call, at least have the decency not to use me as background noise.

The friendship didn’t officially end until a year or so after this conversation, but this was really the beginning of the end. After going through a particularly difficult interlude of depression, I got some really happy, exciting (to me, anyway) news. The same day, I got a call from Miss “The Universe Revolves Around Me, Bitches.”

Her: Hi. What’s up?

Me: [Practically singing with enthusiasm] Actually, I just got some really great news, something I was hoping for but never thought would happen.

Her: That’s nice. So, I’m having problems with my boyfriend.

Me: [Feeling my enthusiasm deflate by the minute as she describes all the issues she’s having with her recently acquired boyfriend. Almost an hour later, I get to say something.]

Her: What do you think I should do?

Me: [Offer advice that’s logical, but not what she wants to hear.]

Her: But everyone else is telling me blah blah blah

Me: [Explain the reasons why I gave the advice I did.]

Her: [Realizing I’m not going to tell her what she wants to hear] So that’s exciting what happened to you today!

Me: I’ve got to go make dinner.

The relationship finally fell apart over something fairly minute, but after far too many years of putting up with her lack of caring for anything or anyone that didn’t directly relate to her and what she wanted, it was overdue. Partly because of her, I still have trouble letting my guard down, still don’t feel comfortable letting people too far in. Because when you let them in, they nest like parasites and take, and take, and take. At the time, I was worried about ending the friendship because we’d known each other a long time. But you know what? I don’t miss her. Not at all.

And the idiot of the day award goes to...

Reading through random blogs provides a wealth of entertainment. On one, which shall go unnamed, supposedly written by a journalist, I found the following statement: Accept for the fact that there are no sidewalks.

Okay, the sentence fragment I can forgive, but "accept for the fact..."? Just proves that you don't need writing skills to be a journalist (and also that editors are really under-appreciated).

By the way, I don't really find this sort of thing entertaining; in fact, it contributes greatly to the "depressed" in Depressed Misanthrope.

Just Passing Through

I've been scrolling through blogs, just trying to get a feel for what's out there. Wow. There sure is a lot of mediocre crap in the world. Some of these blogs really shouldn't be available for public consumption. Fascinating as your baby/wedding shower undoubtedly is, I'm not certain a detailed play-by-play is something the world at large wants, needs, or cares about. Even more questionable are the blogs chock full of photos, personal details, and full names of the blogger's children. How much lead do you have to ingest before you start thinking it's a nifty idea to tell everyone with an internet connection that little Sally Smith in Gander, Newfoundland has swim practice every Thursday? Don't forget the colour pic of Sally in her bathing suit!

My personal favourite, though, are the blogs that blast you with cheesy music as soon as you open the page. What the fuck gave you the notion I want to be screeched at by Debbie "Call me Deborah" Gibson ever, let alone when I randomly click on someone's blog. Wouldn't you just love to be at a party hosted by these people? I can just picture them standing off to the side, grooving to the song stylings of Joan Osborne*, while their guests clutch at their bleeding ears. Yeah, um, thanks for foisting your musical "taste" on hapless strangers, but I'd like my blogs to be warble-free. Since that's not going to happen, I'm off to permanently mute the sound on my laptop.

*Feel free to replace with the name of any other awful, often perplexingly popular, singer/group from the multitudes infecting the world.

Riddle Me This

So, let's say you have a friend, let's call him Dr. C, who has become smitten with a tofu-bland creature who we'll call Maris. Maris fancies herself an artist and Dr. C thinks she's a great talent, mostly because he's thinking with something other than his brain. Dr. C thinks she's such a great talent, in fact, that he arranges a showing of her work--at his non-artsy place of business, no less. You're invited, so you go to the art show to be polite, and also to see Dr. C, because the only way you get to see him anymore is under Maris's watchful eye. To be supportive (hey, you're not opposed to art), you plan on shelling out a couple of hundred dollars on a painting. When you get there, however, you feel like you've suddenly lost the ability to read numbers. The price tags have a lot more zeros on them than you expected: Maris is asking thousands per mangled canvas. That's right--her work is a mediocre waste of paint (it's clear this was a hobby before Maris decided to take it to another level). Even if you had that kind of money, there's no way you'd pay that much for something you wouldn't hang in your basement. Dr. C, meanwhile, is running around playing host and beaming with pride as he asks people what they think. This is doubly sad because Dr. C actually does have artistic talent, which he wastes in order to be the person Maris wants him to be. Speaking of the artiste, Maris spends the night asking everyone if they found the place okay and fretting that the poor turnout is due to people getting lost in the elevator. You desperately try to think of something good to say about the work because you know they're going to ask. Then you see another painting over by the copy machine, only to realize it's actually a child's drawing (one of the employee's). You only manage to tell because it's not framed. You leave wondering what happened to Dr. C's eyesight and hoping you never get invited to another of these shows again.

A couple of weeks later, you get together for dinner with Dr. C--only to have Maris join you as well. You spend the evening listening to her try to figure out why nobody bought any of her paintings (except for her rich mommy, of course, who still only bought one). She comes to the conclusion that charging less might be a good idea. Hallelujah, you think, she's realizing that she's not quite at the level she thought she was. Maybe she can work at it, get better, be more realistic about what she's capable of and what she can charge. Then she says, yes--she'll make her paintings smaller and then charge less for them. She doesn't get it. She doesn't think her work is overpriced--she thinks people are cheap. And Dr. C nods his head like the brainless automaton he's become, telling his precious that it's just a matter of time and more shows and exposure. Next show they'll give people better directions so they won't get lost on the way over.

The only question left is whose head do you bang against the wall: his, hers, or your own?

No doubt

You know what the world needs? More cutesy comic strips about life with kids. Hell, why not extend the fun to books, movies, tv shows, broadway musicals... Awesome!

My life is a WTF moment

People don't make sense to me. The older I get, the less sense they make. Given the option between something sensible and something idiotic, most people seem to take the idiotic option. I've lost track of the number of people I know who get into the most ridiculous relationships--you know the kind: you can see it falling apart from a mile away; they're in it for all the wrong reasons and they spend as much time (or more) complaining about each other as getting along, but they still think getting married/having kids/entangling themselves in huge financial obligations is just the bestest idea ever! And then once they've trapped themselves, they spend inordinate amounts of time crying on your ever-patient shoulder, whining about the other person and all the problems they're having. Well, not all of them whine. Some do their best to completely subsume their individuality in order to "make it work." You don't hear from them (they know you remember they used to have a mind of their own and a personality, and they don't like seeing the disgust in your eyes) until the whole mess has imploded, leaving them a broken shell only vaguely resembling the person they used to be. Then they start whining. And then you just want to beat them with a nail-studded club.