I've come to realize I'm starting to go back to being the intolerant man I have periodically been. I joke about being an asshole. But I really CAN be one. And I'm starting to feel myself moving close to that. On a side note, does this mean girls will now find me attractive? Haha.
Seriously, though, I've seen a lot of it recently. For instance, last night…
We were at my friend and his wife's new house and the usual suspects were there. I turned into a semi loner. I couldn't handle Jonathan or his kids. For completely different reasons. One of his boys is a spoiled brat. I can't stand that kid. He lies constantly. And Jonathan… Where do I begin?
You know, everyone in that group thinks he's knows a lot of things. We're all experts of whatever we saw on tv or read on the internet. We argue long and loudly all the time about something or another. But Jonathan… He has this slightly skewed sense of reality. And every time he has some "epiphany", I don't know if I should concentrate on not laughing in his face or try not to throw up. And when he comes up with his brilliant ideas or conclusions, he seems to think it's universal. And you HAVE to agree with him. If you don't, you're just in denial.
I spent last night avoiding him and the other friends because they all speak VERY loudly. They don't know how to talk with any sense of "normal" volume. And I just wasn't in the mood for it. The downside was that Steve's sisters were there and I came off as if I were trying to flirt with them. Not really. They're nice girls. And they're closer to my age. I've always gotten along better with girls, so I guess it was natural.
But not only Jonathan and his kids demonstrated my inability to demonstrate patience and tolerance. Heather's friend/co-worker was there. This guy seemed to dislike me for some reason (okay, he doesn't NEED a reason, I know). He was one of those, "well, actually…" kind of guys. You know, the one that thinks they know all about technical shit and thinks he's correcting you? Yeah, sounds like me. But I honestly think I don't come across as quite so condescending.
Fucker tried to "correct" me on a couple things. For instance, he tried to say that the iPhone already supported Exchange. Ummm, no. Not to the general public. That doesn't come out until the firmware update. Which is July 11th.
Or, the one time when he asked Josh about their dSLR. I mentioned I had one too. He thought I had a Canon. When I mentioned that I had a Nikon, he condescendingly said, "I'm sorry." He may very well been joking. But then he followed it up with something along the lines of, "They suck." So I mentioned, "Funny, since they've beat Canon in most objective reviews every time…" Josh, who normally loves to argue with me, actually joined in and said he knew his mom, who is a pretty serious amateur photographer, said that the Nikon imaging is better. While that doesn't constitute a deciding vote, it definitely shut this guy up on that matter.
And the rest of the night, he kept making these kind of comments. That, and he was judgmental. And not only that, he seemed like he lacked some real-world social knowledge. It's like he'd never been around people who got drunk. Rick got hammered. And while Rick can be obnoxious or a dick when he's drunk, he wasn't too far out of line. But this guy turned to us and warily asked if he'd be okay to drive. It's so hard to describe.
I'm being a total dick, but he seemed like your typical nerdy/dorky IT administrator (which he is, by the way). I swear, he had the look and personality of your negatively thought of Dungeons and Dragons player that spends his free time trawling the internet looking for the coolest way to pimp out his Linux server.
While I am a geek myself, and love all things gadget-like, I humbly feel like I don't exude "dork". I love my Star Trek and can tell you all about dilithium crystals that power the various Enterprises, along with the phase buffer to the transporter array, to the various ship-classes of each of the Enterprises, I don't look like it. For a while, I was into Star Wars and I can tell you the backstory to all of the Expanded Universe characters. I watched Farscape and completely LOVED Firefly (ironically, I got it into it after it got cancelled). I can tell you, with confidence, all the events that happened in Stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis.
And yet, with all of this, I temper it with the fact that not everything in life is an analogy to some episode or movie from SciFi. I know that not everyone wants to know about how easy it is to re-image your hard drive and pull over a saved profile so that you can get back your system and all its preferences.
I have to admit, I was happy he left. In his defense, they said he was on a whole bunch of medications. But, generally, people in that profession, that social life and that personality, I doubt his rudeness was due to medication.
Let's be clear. We're all assholes (my friends). But we're not too bad with people we haven't met before. The derision and name calling doesn't start until we know you're not going to cry like a baby.
And tonight, I saw this guy who irritated the hell out of me. Wearing a tight, sleeveless muscle shirt, he was telling the starbucks workers how they should work out. They CLEARLY could care less. And then he pulls out all his shit (laptop, webcam, retard headphones w/ mic boom, etc…). He looked over to a girl sitting next to him and tried to impress her with his "knowledge" of electronics. He was telling her that he works wirelessly through the "airwaves". Apparently his laptop has a built-in cellular service that works with Starbucks sites and he does all sorts of technical stuff.
Let's be clear, here. Yes, cellular connection for laptops DO exist. But I know his didn't have it. I could tell because he had the same series of laptop as mine (which doesn't offer a cellular connection option). He was referring to his WiFi card. Dumbass.
He looked at me and asked if I had the same thing. I wanted to call him out on his bullshit, but I just simply said I didn't have it. He then looked at the girl and smirked at her and said, "He probably couldn't afford it." I scoffed at him and then ignored him. Apparently, he didn't like that, so he called out to me again and asked what my problem was. I don't normally make judgments on how people look, but I'd mentally suspected he didn't make that much money. So I responded that it had nothing to do with money. I then mentioned that this series didn't have cellular. He got uppity on me and said, "Okay asshole, why do I have it." I just laughed at him and said, "Sorry, but you don't." So he got flustered and said, "Well how do I connect on the internet?" and smiled, looking at the girl.
And, like a fucking classic movie scene, she jumped in and said, "Probably because you're using WiFi. If it was cellular, you could do it anywhere, not just Starbucks." So then he became an asshole to her, and said, "Well, then why do I subscribe to T-Mobile?" So I explained to him the concept that WiFi isn't always free and up until recently, T-Mobile had a deal with Starbucks for WiFi access. To which, he challenged me, "How do you know about the service?" As to which, in my infinite satisfaction, replied, "Because I used to work for T-Mobile. Anything else you want me to educate you on?"
He shut up and left after that. And the girl and I laughed pretty damn hard.
My point in that story is that if a person is just confused and is semi-nice, I wouldn't have been such a dick about it. But I really hated that guy.
I'm starting to hate people. And it's easier and easier for me.
My musical taste is starting shift again. I've got the yearning for depressing music. I'm pretty fucking sure I'll listen to nothing but AFI soon. They helped me out A LOT when I was upset, depressed and generally hateful towards everything and everyone. I find myself bitter for being alone.
I'm trying not to turn into that person I don't like. But, it's going to be hard, I fear.
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