Are People Avoiding You?

It is difficult to accept the fact that there are many people who don’t want to talk to you or be reminded that you exist. Have you considered why this is the case? Of course you have, and you know the answer. You hate them. You pretend to like them but you don’t and they, on some level, sense it. This is the major challenge facing those of us who are misanthopes. We hate most everybody because the boredom they initiate is excrutiating. Caught under so many layers of protocol and social brainwashing, they are as predictable as puppets without strings. You want so much not to hate them, to detect a tiny morsel of individuality in their blatheringly conditioned angst, knowing they MEAN well, they mean NO HARM, and yet, they are insufferably bland. Cookie cut-outs of either liberals or conservatives, up town or down town, artist or artiste, banker or indian chief. Why are so many people un-enigmatic? Why can’t they dare to surprise themselves, shock themselves with obtuse behaviors that make absolutely no sense? Yes, I hate them, and they hate me, although they don’t know why. Hate is a strong word. Maybe I am only frustrated by their inability to hold my attention. Of course, I am, at the moment, living in Vermont. Middlebury, land of white people with abundant degrees or at least a buffalo farm. Sadly, I fit in. Just the right amount of observable quirkiness to suggest that I don’t give a shit. I won’t give them the satisfaction of appreciating their measured acceptance of my stained clothes, bad hair, dirty feet, scabby skin, (when they bore me, I begin to pick at myself in an effort to stimulate my will to live) — They are awfully nice, aren’t they? Is that the problem? They’re nice and you know, deep down, they aren’t? They want to attack you, throttle you. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just wrestle each other to the ground and get it over with?