boring people

I think of myself as an unprejudiced person. I really like people and have been lucky enough to know enough exceptions to every “rule” that it’s easy for me to see people for who they are rather than the group they might represent. Then, it was pointed out to me by my friends that I am in fact prejudiced against boring people. And I realized they’re right. I really dislike (I’m avoiding the word hate because that’s pretty strong and I don’t particularly want them to die, just never cross paths with me) people who seem to lack even one interesting characteristic, experience, or fact about themselves. It’s ironic because I should find these people most interesting in that I thoroughly don’t understand how it’s possible to go through an entire life without exhibiting even a hint of personality. But even that doesn’t hold my interest enough to want to have an extended conversation (or even standard greeting) with them.

Now I can do small talk. I’m actually really good at it. But it’s kind of like foreplay in that you do it so you can get to the really good stuff (conversations and sex in case you’re lost in the metaphor). Actually that’s a poor metaphor because I consider foreplay to be really good stuff too. Hmmm… not sure of a good comparison. Let’s just say I enjoy deep, thought-provoking conversations that I leave feeling like I’ve grown in some way as a person (or at least have guffawed to the point I can feel a six-pack being formed) and I only put up with the small talk to get to that.

Needless to say boring people don’t contribute whatsoever to mental stimulation or a solid six-pack. Luckily I don’t encounter many boring people I have to spend a significant amount of time with. But when I do I’m at a complete loss. I’m able to penetrate many walls other people can’t during the getting to know you process but so far I’ve found boring people to have a layer of Kevlar. And I don’t own any kryptonite. I prefer avoidance at all costs because such situations are that uncomfortable for me.

The most uncomfortable situations with boring people are when these boring people are my friends’ significant others or good friends because they’re people I have to be around over and over if I want to continue to have our mutual non-boring friends in my life. But what’s really puzzling is that my friends (all of whom I consider to be some of the most interesting peeps on Earth) are attracted to boring people at all. Everyone explains it away as, well, they must be good in bed but I can’t imagine someone that boring gets freaky naked. How is that easier than getting interesting while clothed? And if there isn't any sex at all involved, then I don't see any potential appeal.

A fantastic example of this is an experience a friend of mine related to me having to do with a girlfriend of a friend no one in their group was too impressed with. A group of people (all of whom I know to be extremely easy to interact with) were standing in a circle talking and suddenly one of the guys realized someone was standing behind him in the corner. It turned out to be the girlfriend, who had stood there for who knows how long not saying a word or trying to get into the mix. To this day everyone is still baffled as to how she could have stood there for so long and why they’re still dating because her boyfriend has a lot of personality. Apparently enough for the both of them.

At any rate this post really has no point (which might momentarily make me boring, or else unable to finish what I start, which is debatably true at times) other than to publicly declare my prejudice against boring people and hopefully ward off future boring bores.

gas station peeps

Sometimes I forget there’s a gas station I shouldn’t frequent. The only appeal is the cheap gas. But it isn’t even worth the hassle sometimes. I’ve been hit on by every man you would never ever want to have hit on you in your entire life simply by stopping at this gas station. This includes one middle aged man who couldn’t speak English other than to ask me for my phone number. When I told him, "No hablo espanol," very well he said, “So?” Now, really what were we going to talk about if I had given him my phone number? And in what language?

I also had a car full of 16 year old boys ask me to buy their gas for them and in return they'd give me sexual favors and not in language anyone should use in an attempt to solicit sexual favors unless you're seriously dating and really need to spice things up. My reply? "So let me get this straight? You want me to pay for your gas and then engage in activity that must be illegal since there's no way any of you are 18?" One smart ass actually saw this as a plausible situation and defiantly said, "Yeah," while his less brave or perhaps more intelligent buddies laughed uneasily. Deciding it might be safer to now get into my car and prepare to drive away but still not ready to let these guys think they were the shit, I did so and then said, "One, I'm old enough to have given birth to you boys (okay, if I'd gotten pregnant at the age of nine). Two, YOU couldn't buy ME enough gas for that. Three, I hope your parents didn't raise you to treat women this way. And four, good luck picking up any kind of quality girl of any age acting like that." I don't think they were expecting a half hour lecture as not a single one had a response and probably half of their mouths were hanging open. In addition to these less than tempting pickups I've also seen cop cars a dozen times in the near vicinity (prompting only daylight stops now). And lately a random man insists on washing my car windows. Not even insists. He just up and does it before I can even figure out where he materialized from.

Such was my mistake today. I drove to a meeting and feeling like a rebel, called a friend of mine from back in the Midwest to catch up… while driving. I know. Really becoming a rebel. I realized part way there that gas might be a smart idea so I didn’t have to push my car in heels and stopped at ye olde “gas station I shouldn’t frequent”. Still talking on the phone (taking my rebellion a whole other step further by risking my cell phone somehow blowing up the entire gas station from the gas being pumped into my car), I was suddenly ambushed by Car Wash Man.

It’s situations such as these where I really don’t know what to do. I mean, there isn’t a protocol manual for completely random social situations, is there (If not, I’ve decided just now I’ll write one and if so, I’m still going to write one.)? I sat in my car, forgetting that I had a conversation going with a friend I don’t talk to as often as I’d like nor rarely see, and watched this man clean my windshield (as he-or someone like him-has done before) while having an inner dialogue with myself. I don’t like being forced into paying anyone anything. If it’s my choice to purchase a service or good then I’m more than happy to fork over the dough. But this guy didn’t even give me a choice. On the other hand he also didn’t ask for anything. Still, if I didn’t give him money what would he do? Why else is he washing random people’s cars at this dingy gas station? He could just be a good Samaritan but he definitely looked like he could use the money so I doubted that. Then, I doubted my thought process cuz who am I to judge who looks like a good Samaritan or not. Again, I contemplated just not giving him any money just to prove a point. But what point was that? That I didn’t know. So I gave him the only two dollar bills I had (good thing I’d just gotten my new debit card).

He proceeded to then ask me if I’d ever seen an angel. I didn’t know if this was a trick question, if he was supposed to be the angel, or what he was getting at so I said, “No,” even though I really wasn't sure. He said, “Well, you should look in the mirror because you are certainly an angel.” Now this might sound like a very sweet thing to say and ultimately it is better than, “You’re a big fat jerk,” but it came out sounding much more like a pickup line and I resisted the urge to giggle. But more power to him. He’s just trying to make a buck like the rest of us.

someone please call 911

As mentioned previously my neighborhood is full of colorful characters. My home is located in what has been referred to as the former borderline still present ghetto. I prefer to refer to it as a funky, underappreciated mecca for the quirky and creative. Just to clarify things, I am not a hipster (although, as a sidenote this is a fascinating culture and would love to be paid to complete an ethnographic study centered around them).

On a daily basis people have running monologues with themselves, scream cuss words at who I can only presume to be God as no one’s standing there, and one time a man rapped about hating white women while walking directly toward me and staring at me. I smiled at him. Pretty sure we’re friends. Sometimes homeless people sleep on the benches on our porch. And get angry if we ask them to leave.

The latest character living somewhere on the block is 911 Man. I had the pleasure of being awoken at 5:30 this morning not by a hot man wanting to ravish my body before the sun rose, not by the beautiful sound of a Spanish guitar, not even by the not so beautiful sound of my cell phone alarm but rather the hard core yelling of, “Someone call 911! Someone please call 911! I need someone to call 911!” To any normal person this would invoke some sense of fear or at least jumpstart some endorphins. Instead I lay in bed, without moving anywhere near my phone, and contemplated whether or not this man seriously needed 911’s assistance. He didn’t sound like he was dying. Rather he sounded more mentally disturbed and had decided to disturb the peace for everyone else. Still, I didn’t want the blood of someone else on my hands so I continued to debate whether or not it was worth it to get out of my nice warm bed into the not so nice, cold air (okay, so I’m still being wussy and dramatic about the weather). Even if I did call 911 I wasn’t sure exactly where to tell them to go to since our block has this interesting acoustic effect due to the buildings being built on the outside of the block with a bunch of courtyards in the middle. If someone’s talking inside these courtyards (or in this case yelling for 911) it’s difficult to tell which building’s courtyard it’s coming from. After I had this debate with myself (by which point someone seriously injured would have surely died) I heard someone talking to him. I figured that person would call 911 if it was necessary and fell back asleep. When I woke back up I remembered what happened and didn’t recall hearing any sirens so I figured I had been correct in my assessment of the situation.

My only piece of advice to 911 Man is that if he feels at all compelled to hold a repeat performance tonight I hope he at least incorporates some Wycleff elements.

southern californians in raincoats

My roommate texted me the following the other day: “Dude. All the crazies must come out when it rains… what the heck?” To which I responded, “How so?” She texted back, “ive seen like 3 people who im pretty sure they dont know who they are…” I texted back, “Sounds pretty normal to me (we live in an area well known for its colorful residents).” To which she responded, “Haha, same as usual but i feel like they came out in strong numbers today.”

Now after the present deluge of monsoon rain (I’m purposely trying to sound as dramatic as a native southern Californian right now) I’d have to agree with my roommate. And it isn’t only the crazies that come out nor who I want to focus on here (since their behavior really doesn’t vary according to the rain; they’re usually strange no matter what) but rather it’s the average Joes and really cool kids who start to act particularly odd.

One of the more amusing things I’ve noticed revolves around fashion. Even prior to the monsoon one of my favorite people watching experiences takes place every year during the historial winter months (December, January, February), during which southern Californians don the fashions of New York City. That in and of itself wouldn’t be odd if I’d replaced southern California with say, Chicago or some other cold city. But when it’s 72 degrees and sunny wearing a parka, uggs, and a knitted hat make about as much sense as wearing a bathing suit on the streets of New York in 50 degree weather, even if it is July. I’m not saying don’t wear those fashions, hipsters of the greater Los Angeles area. Just wear them when they actually make some sense, like during one of those few days when it actually does dip into the 40s. I know those days are far and few between but they do exist. ‘Course that doesn’t give us much of an opportunity to wear our cute wool peacoats but then if you really need the additional weeks head to Mammoth or Tahoe or Denver or Siberia.

This leads me to the opposite phenomenon that occurs during rainstorms, in which our fashionistas (okay, and everyone else) are inadequately prepared for even a mere sprinkle (this includes myself as I’ve lived out here for a good five years and forget that I ever survived a day of rain in my life). No one owns umbrellas, raincoats, rainboots, rainpants, rainhats, or any other number of rain repelling clothing that makes getting around during an onslaught of wetness that much easier. So at the first drop everyone heads to the stores and those of us unlucky enough to get there after an hour have nothing left to choose from. “I think this coat’s waterproof,” says the 17-year-old salesboy at Target. “No it’s not! It’s 100% denim!” Thank goodness for uggs and that knitted hat from Grandma.


Now this is an LA Raincoat Man!

Aside from the fashion, southern Californians also let their conversation and lives completely revolve around the weather when it rains. The conversation part makes slight sense since there are something like 360 days of sunny blue skies and 70 degree temperatures. When it dips into the 60s or moisture falls from the sky (or even threatens to fall) that is news. However, the panic it induces is unforgiveable and something from a post-Apocolyptic film. People forget how to drive, how to walk, how to work, how to watch a movie, how to microwave popcorn… They revert back to infancy. Some real life comments I’ve heard are: “Are you really going to work in this hurricane weather?” It wasn’t even raining at that moment. “Should we really go to that concert? It’s supposed to rain.” Again, wasn’t raining at that moment and wasn’t supposed to until the next morning, by which time I was certainly planning on being home. And even if I wasn't a little rain wasn't going to keep me from enjoying myself indoors. Luckily there are those of us who aren’t native southern Californians to remind them of their idiocy and that updating your facebook status to let us know it’s still raining (something we can all ascertain looking out of our bedroom window when we wake up) is entirely unnecessary.

foot fetishes aren't just in the movies

As part of my job I often make presentations on college campuses. I love this because I enjoy college students (not only for the dating opportunities) and ultimately want to be a full-time professor. However, I’m often mistaken for a college student even at the community colleges I go to, where the median age has to be 19, which can sometimes be a problem. The only benefit being that getting hit on by dudes who can’t even legally enter a bar does wonders for the self-esteem so I can't complain too much.

So what I'll do instead is relay this story of one of the more bizarre encounters I’ve ever had. I was sitting on a bench at an anonymous community college campus between presentations (as I had more than one scheduled for the day) reading what was probably Harry Potter (as that was during my "I never thought I’d have an obsessed stage" obsessed stage). Now that I write that on paper (or rather a computer screen) I realize why I might get mistaken for a directly post-high school student. At any rate I was enjoying a free moment during the work day when a tiny, nerdy looking guy approached me and asked if he could sit on the bench with me. I found it a little odd that he wanted to sit directly on the bench I was sitting on when there were completely open benches all around but since I was eager (and a bit nerdy myself) to get back to my book I said, “Go ahead.”

He took this as a signal of my obvious interest, about to turn into full blown love at any time, and proceeded to chat with me. I was okay with that (well, just the chatting part) since I love talking to people and you never know what you’ll learn. Until suddenly he pointed to my shoes and told me I had high arches. Well, I know for a fact that I don't have high arches so I told him so. He insisted that I did. To which I replied, “Actually I know I don’t. I had my feet examined at a running store and I have normal feet.” Not sure why I felt the need to justify this. He again insisted that I did and told me to point my toe and when I did he moved his hand toward my foot. Thinking he was going to point out how I had a high arch (and mind you I had on heels so I don't know how he would be able to tell what my arch looked like anyway) he instead started to carress the bare part of my foot. Yanking my foot away I asked him what he was doing? That's when he said he had a thing for high arches and went off, "Well, I like all arches, high, regular..." and he kept talking and talking about his arch fetish. And it took me a minute to get my mind together because I couldn't believe this was happening to me; I'd though foot fetishes were something for the movies and I felt like I was watching myself in this movie. Finally he said something along the lines of wanting to photograph my foot. I said, "No thanks." He continued to say that he didn't have a camera with him anyway but would like to photograph my foot in the future. Snapping out of my daze I pretty much yelled, “No!” and really hoped the couple sitting across from us couldn’t hear this. He continued to go on and on about his foot fetish (which up until that moment I really thought only existed in the movies) with me sitting there unable to think anything but, “Is this real life?” Finally I tell him that he needed to leave NOW! To which he responded, “Okay, but can I get your phone number in case you change your mind in the future?” Needless to say this man is now my future husband…

blue eyes

Recently I met this guy at a club and we had a scintillating dance party. Mostly because he didn’t try to hump me in the butt when he made his approach. Also, he spent a significant amount of time twirling me around. There was the exchange of some entertaining banter (aka witty flirting) and he was cuter than most so I gave him my phone number when he asked for it. However, when he called me I couldn’t for the life of me remember his name so I put his number in my phone under the nickname “Blue Eyes”. But not to worry, I had a brilliant plan to figure out his name without directly asking. I’d call him during work hours and get his voicemail complete with his name on it. All would have gone according to plan had he not answered my phone call. Still, not a problem. The next time he called I purposely didn’t answer so he’d have to leave it in a voicemail. Indeed he left a voicemail but referred to himself as my dance partner. After about a week of corresponding without the use of his name (and oh, he knew mine) I finally got his voicemail. Finally I was going to find out the mystery name but then dammit, I couldn’t understand what he called himself on his voicemail! It took what felt like 18 years before he eventually left his name on my voicemail. Luckily I didn't have to introduce him to anyone in that time period. I was safe! Until I didn’t reassign the pseudonym his real name and forgot it again. Thinking I was doomed to repeat the previous week and a half and debating whether this is even someone I should hang out with if I can’t remember his name, it came back to me again later in the day. By that point, though, I had become quite attached to the pseudonym so I just added his name to it until I felt safe enough that I wouldn't forget it. Now I just need to figure out his last name…

non-profit peeps

I’ve spent a good deal of my professional career working with non-profits and recently have become quite perplexed, if not a little frustrated, by the sheer amount of “crazies” in this field. Now, I realize that “crazies” is quite judgmental and since I like to think of myself as better than them I should probably use a more appropriate term such as “people who are in this field for the wrong reason”. But that’s way too long to summarize what a simple word such as “crazies” could do all by itself.

Okay, that was a bit of a joke because I don’t really think they’re crazy (at least not all of them). They’re just not in the right field for them, which if we all self-reflect most of us aren’t (I’m realizing this more and more every day.). However, it appears that in the social service world (whether it involved non-profits, schools, health care, etc.) there are two types of people: those who are in it out of mostly altruistic intentions and those who are definitely not.

Those with mostly altruistic intentions of course aren’t perfect people (and we could get into an entire philosophical discussion as to whether altruism can even exist but that won’t benefit this post so we won’t go there) but they are well adjusted folks who enjoy working with and helping others. They are mostly optimistic and idealistic with a fervent belief that they can have an impact on the world and make it a better place for all to live in. These are not the folks I find most interesting (well, except for myself).

The other type that are here for reasons other than the kindness of their hearts fascinate me to no end. This type can be additionally broken down into two smaller catergories. There’s the person who is challenged in the mental health department and thinks that by helping others they will either discover the cure to their own problems or it will make them feel good enough about life that they’ll simply disappear. I have yet to see this happen. You can spot this group easily based upon the insanely long hours they work, how little sleep they get, and a mostly neverending bad attitude that no one wants to be around. They appear to be on a path toward martyrdom despite the fact that in reality they’re accomplishing very little around them (As a sidenote, I don't believe martyrdom to be a worthy goal.). Still, since we live in the society we do, most people think they’re accomplishing a great deal simply based upon the amount of time they spend working. However, there are loads of studies (google it cuz I'm too lazy to list citations) showing the amount of time the typical worker wastes on any given workday. These people sadden me because most of them have kind hearts and could do a lot of good if they would just make themselves a priority first.

The second group consists of those who are in it for mostly selfish reasons. Being that there is rarely much money to be made in most social service jobs they are instead looking to gain other forms of recognition in the community, some kind of pat on the back for helping those less fortunate than themselves. You can spot this group by the typically privileged background most come from (which in and of itself is not a problem; many wealthy, influential people are creating a lot of good in the world out of the kindness of their hearts) and are thus, seeking a way to increase their social capital. These people are often pompous (whether outright or hidden) and tend to marginalize those they’re working to benefit. You’ll often hear them speaking such words as, “Oh those poor black people,” or bragging to their friends how they’re helping kids get out of the ghetto. They have difficulty listening to others’ ideas and opinions and when there’s a community meeting rather than interacting with those they’re “trying to help” they politic with each other.

Starting to think I need to get out of this field.