Ich habe Sie

Mason: If people think that you don't like them, they want it even more, it's pathetic really, isn't it? ... Okay so that was today's lesson from Der Waffle Haus, withhold the love and you gain the power.
--Dead Like Me, "The Shallow End"

Mason might be a fuck-up, but he’s right. I’m generally a nice person. I’m polite and helpful and try to keep my evil glare under wraps. I avoid confrontation; hell, sometimes the angrier I am, the nicer I’ll be (particularly with my boss, who’s a worse fuck-up than Mason but who I can’t afford not to be nice to). And in my niceness, people are nice back, but I rarely have them chasing after my attention.

Not until I stop being nice.

The couple I mentioned who are friends with my friends, the ones who are smug and pretentious and live in squalor—the ones I want nothing to do with—seem to really like me. Okay, I’m not particularly rude to them. I’ll talk to them if there’s a common point of interest. But I have been known to snap at stupid statements he’s made. I’m not enthusiastic about anything they do or say. I roll my eyes at his idiot jokes or their hippie idealism. And yet they keep inviting me to things. Groups they form, events they host, gatherings at their filthy apartment. I keep saying no and they just invite me all the more.

It’s not the first time, either. I met a good friend of mine back in university when she sat next to me in class, and I think she would agree that I didn’t project the friendliest aura when she chose to sit next to me rather than the empty seat farther away (and I’m amazed she wanted to get to know me after that). Another friend admitted that I initially scared him (that damn evil glare again). A third someone seemed happier to be around me the meaner I was (the meanness in that case stemmed from some serious frustration with him; he, on the other hand, has his own issues).

So, withhold the love and gain the power? Pass the dictatorship, hold the benevolence.

Shiny

I don’t get happy people. I don’t understand them in the slightest. It’s not that I haven’t had my share of happiness—bliss, even, but for me it’s an occasional emotion, not a constant. And yet some people wear it like a favourite pair of jeans. No matter what happens to them—loss, sickness, the latest Good Charlotte album—they’re always so bloody cheery. Nothing can get them down—they have a song in their heart and some Pollyanna-esque personal motto to get them through the darkest days. While Susie Sunshine beams from her full-body cast, I’m out of it from hearing bad news of the middling variety. It’s not even that I’m necessarily upset or depressed about it (yeah, even a depressed misanthrope takes a break once in a while) but being okay is not the same as being happy. I might not be crying in my beer, but I’m also not grinning like an idiot at everyone who passes my way. Hey, world—isn’t everything awesome! Isn’t life great? Gosh golly gee!!!

I can’t decide if these people are completely stupid or if they’ve discovered the key to life.

Bugging Out

On the subway today I saw an insect crawling on the floor. It would pause on sticky spots like there was something interesting there. Every so often someone, not realizing it was there, would knock it over with their shoe, and it would flail wildly on its back trying to regain its equilibrium. At one point it got stepped on and I was sure it was dead, but it started flailing weakly, and then with more energy until it righted itself and started moving around again. I can relate to that bug.

Enemies of the State

I know a couple (met her first, but he and I get along too) who are cool, outgoing people. As such, they always have a crowd over at their place—a crowd I’m unwillingly a part of. I forbear in order to enjoy their company, but I’m not sure how my friends ended up with so many gross, obnoxious losers as buddies.

Maybe it’s because they met most of their other friends through an organization that's basically a club for hippies who like to play dress-up and pretend they live in the era when not bathing was socially acceptable. Since they all come from the same place, I guess they’d all be similar shades of annoying.

Luckily, I don’t encounter too many of them that often. Some live out of town, some only show up occasionally. There’s the sturdy goth girl who has to state every opinion at top volume. She works with animals, so every other sentence is somehow related to dog and horse penises. There’s the chick who drones on at length about how bourgeois everything is; meanwhile she’s going for her post-grad in medieval bookbinding (medieval bookbinders were at the forefront of the proletarian revolution, don’t you know). There’s her boyfriend who left his pregnant wife for her and likes to rest his disgusting bare feet (what the hell is going on with his toes?) on every surface. There’s the nerd who doesn’t say much until he’s interested in the topic and then his belief is the only right one.

Unfortunately, there is one couple I find myself repeatedly interacting with, a pair who are everything I hate. They’re on welfare more than they’re off it (not because they need to be—they just don’t like working all that much). They live in squalor and decided it was a good idea to bring a child into it. They’re dirty, rude, pretentious, and smug. They clearly find themselves terribly droll and witty. He also thinks he’s a gentleman, and she a lady. I think they’re twits who add nothing to the world and should be wiped off the face of the planet.

So what do you do when your friends’ friends are morons?

Prophetic

I’ve been away for the last week. Not much to say: spoiled tourists, annoying locals. Next time I think I’ll skip the family vacation. But sucky vacations aside, the real disappointment didn’t hit until I got back and caught up on the news. Among other things that happened while I was away, Random House has decided to scrap a book that was on the verge of publication because it might be offensive to some extremists. Right.

The book is a romance novel featuring the prophet Mohammed’s first wife. Apparently no one saw a problem with it until it was sent to some professor for a cover blurb and the professor took offence. From there Random House decided Muslim extremists might also get offended and could cause trouble.

Subject matter aside (exactly how romantic can a book be about a pre-pubescent girl who's sent off to be the first wife among many?), what the fuck is going on here? So now we bow to the psychos? We subjugate our beliefs to their unreasonable whims just to avoid any possibility of pissing them off? In a world where people kill each other over mundane differences of opinion, how can it be remotely sane to try to never offend anyone? As far as I’m concerned this is the worst kind of censorship; Random House might as well just close their doors now and find a less-contentious business to be in (Beekeeping? Nope, that’ll upset the animal rights faction. Modelling agency? Well, feminists won’t care for that. Office supplies? Oops—irritated environmentalists. Never mind…)

Maybe Random House is a little gun shy (no pun intended) after the whole Salman Rushdie fatwah debacle. Makes me wonder now why they kept that book in print and continue to publish his work (guess he brings in more coin than a single romance novel ever will). Of course, the fact that he’s alive and writing is reason enough not to give in to those who would bully you. Maybe that’s just me.

The writer, by the way, thought everything was going smoothly until she was told the book was axed. There go two years of research, not to mention however long it took her to write the thing. But you know—wouldn’t want to risk upsetting anyone. Too bad they hadn’t yet reached the printing stage—they could have held a good old-fashioned book burning in the RH courtyard.

Lament for the broken

No surprise, but I don't tend to get close to people. Misanthropy + introversion= shiny happy fun time! When I do manage to form a bond, though, it's a lasting one. I don't throw the word love around carelessly, using and discarding it on a whim. There's a person in and out of my life (more out than in at the moment) who, much as I don't want to admit it and wish it wasn't the case, has left me shattered. He probably doesn't realize what he's doing, but that would be because he doesn't want to realize it. He's a coward, unfortunately. He'd rather fit in than really be happy. I'd rather be happy. Guess no one wins.

Defender of the Faith

The people who care about me also worry about me. They can't understand why I feel the way I do. They ask why I don't just laugh things off. It's funny when people act like idiots, they say. But, other than the odd departure, I just can't laugh at people's stupidity. I don't find it amusing when adults who supposedly have gone through elementary school (and beyond) don't know basic math, science, grammar. It doesn't entertain me when people settle for a life of utter mediocrity (not if they have even a hint of a choice in the matter). It sure as hell isn't enjoyable when people not only don't try to improve things, but actively endeavour to make them worse.

Angel: Nothing in the world is as it ought to be. It's harsh and it's cruel. But that's why there's us. Champions. Doesn't matter where we come from, what we've done or suffered, or even if we make a difference. We live as though the world were as it should be, to show it what it can be. (Angel, "Deep Down")

Not saying I'm a Champion (at best, maybe the small-c champion-slash-cheerleader of people using their brains), but I just can't accept the world the way it is. And I sure as hell don't find it funny.

Sidewalk Art

(Photo by me)

Whence my misanthropy

No doubt many of you have heard about the seriously horrifying beheading on a Canadian Greyhound bus. The victim, a 22 year old man, was sleeping when his attacker suddenly got up--unprovoked--and started repeatedly stabbing him. As passengers fled, the attacker finished the job by cutting off the poor kid's head.

What's even more disturbing to me than the twisted horror of this crime is that people are even capable of such a thing. Human beings are unsurpassed in their capacity for lies, murder, torture, rape, abuse--if it's traumatizing and immoral, human beings will do it with a smile, no logic or reason necessary.

My misanthropy isn't rooted in hatred. It comes from deep disappointment.