admittedly I didn’t want to be out at all but it was a friend’s 60th so you go anyway
what I don’t understand is this tendency, among certain people, to just answer questions, as though a superstar – yes this guy had an aura, looked like Jim Jarmusch but with long white hair and smelled strangely divine – you would have sworn it was Lutens Borneo 1840: perfume perfection but he professed not to know what it was, you know, being a man – but never ask any questions back
this repugnant narcissism tends to be more rife among north americans – it just does – you supply the reasons – but this particular dude was from rugby in the west midlands – quite close to where I am from
anyway – who gives a shit
the point is
ASK SOME QUESTIONS BACK, FUCKING SELF ABSORBED MOTHERFUCKER
Neil you are so funny – you remind me of my brother, a wonderful gift for cutting someone down in an insouciant and entertaining way…
Just calling out some bullshit that drives me crazy on a regular basis
Is this another toxicity from the swipe culture of the internet?
No – just real life interactions
Excuse the aggression and ‘profanity’ – and I was just too tired from a bad week at work – and there were other very nice people who who the opposite (it was me being unforthcoming actually) but this lovely smelling dude sits down in leonine fashion and holds court – and the lack of interest in me personally just made me furious. My parents always taught me never to ignore anybody and that has always stuck with me
Was he straight? Then it was probably homophobia. If you had been a young, pretty woman, I‘m sure he would‘ve inquired. If he was a gay guy, you‘d have had to be young Jude Law to be noticed. Perhaps he was just a self-centered idiot.
Another thing: I‘m 61 and the older I get, the less one is noticed. It‘s like gradually becoming invisible. Not very nice.
Ah yes, maybe it is being une vieille – but he was older as well – and definitely there could have been a homophobic element though that would seem unlikely given the general company
We are getting less noticed (is that the reason for all my burning bush shenanigans – yes, obviously ): is scent another way, or perhaps you can content yourself with your brilliant mind – which, after all, crossed the world to me the other day in Yokohama
Did he also talk about himself when not being asked questions? I can imagine the scene and the one-sidedness coming across as rude or boring. I think I err on the other side of answering briefly and then (too-) quickly asking a question back, because I’m not always comfortable talking about myself. Not sure if it was the behavior or the feeling that you found more “rife among North Americans” because the first thing I thought was, Americans seem to be nosier than others, asking personal questions when they barely know you! There must be a happy medium where both sides banter and chit-chat, “engage” as we like to say, without getting too personal right off the bat.
The insistence that one has no idea what fragrance is emanating from one’s person is ridiculous (and ridiculously common…) I always feel insulted by it, because, whether it’s welcome or unwelcome, I had no choice but to smell that person’s fragrance. If someone gave me something unrecognizable to eat and then claimed to have no idea what it was, I’d feel fairly alarmed; the intimacy of that situation is illustrative because we really do consume the smells around us — something that horrifies me and delights me in equal measure. It also just seems absurdly vain… the equivalent of taking a fully-staged ‘woke up this way’ selfie and them refusing to admit to any artifice. One gets too old to tolerate transparent passive-aggression…Or another way to say it is that at a certain age all passive-aggression becomes transparent, and, given the well-developed sense of the absurd that starts appearing like white whiskers at 38, not worth the effort.
How brilliant to read – amen
I suppose we are all just trying to survive and use whatever means we have ..
Person 1: Why don’t I have any friends?
Me: You ignore people and can’t carry a conversation
Person 1: (*doesn’t hold conversation and walks away from me*)
x
YES
Yeap, pure narcissism…I’ve run into people like this before. In their minds, there couldn’t possibly be anyone in the entire room more interesting or important than they are. They suck the air out of the room and I ignore them completely.
It’s a strange phenomenon