On Public Isolation

Okay, so something you should know about me right off is that I’m a serious bitch. I’m not really good at anything in the world except drinking, playing chess, and bitching (well, and I’m also the world’s greatest repository of zombie knowledge). And, as my Gramma always says, “Ya gotta go with what ya know.”

And tonight I’m feelin’ a little bitchy, so stand back.

America has become a seriously informal place. In general, I think this is probably a good thing. It fosters a certain egalitarianism, an openness, that’s healthy in society. But there are drawbacks, too. One of these is something that probably doesn’t bother most people, but it drives me absolutely mad: I don’t like people I don’t know coming up and starting conversations with me. This can be a real problem in a bar, since alcohol tends to make amateurs either euphoric or lugubrious, and either way they wanna talk and don't care much who they talk to. I try to combat this by always sitting at one end of the bar, so at least I can be fairly sure that only one friendly stranger can sit next to me and bother me. It’s much easier to ignore one person than two on either side of you. I don’t want to be mean about it, but as a general rule, if you want to talk to me, get someone to introduce you; otherwise, back off. All I want is to be alone in the crowd, and I'm usually pretty good at that. In fact, my last girlfriend said that I radiated "fuck off" vibes. But some people are immune to the effect, apparently.

One such person is the crazy woman who was aggravating me at Hank's the other night. She was with her friends (so why bother me in the first place?) and was quite drunk. She kept coming up and putting an arm around my shoulder, asking me what I was reading (incidentally, I was reading The Great Shark Hunt by Hunter S. Thompson, of whom this woman had never heard; this shocked me and I said so, which is as close as I came to joining the conversation at all), and being generally obnoxious.

She finally left, but before she went she put an arm around me and said, very confidentially, “My mother just died two months ago.”

“I’m sorry,” I replied.

“She died of lung cancer,” she continued.

“Okay. I’m…still sorry, I guess.” ‘Cause, really, what do you say?

She pointed at my lit cigarette. “Those things,” she said, “are bullshit.” I elected not to respond, which is what I often do in these situations; just nod, give a condescending half-smile, and go back to reading. She waited a second or two, then said, “Tell you what: if you quit smoking, I’ll read that book.”

I’m not a rude person, but she had really aggravated me by this point, and the last statement was too stupid to pass on. “Why do I give a fuck,” I said, “whether or not you read this book?” Which brought the conversation to an abrupt and welcome end.
[This reminds me, by the way, of the guy who complained to me that second-hand smoke from my cigarette was killing him. "Not fast enough," I told him.]
I’m not a people person at all. There are very few people I actually enjoy talking to. This is why, although my friends are terribly important to me (as mentioned in the last post), I don’t have very many of them. Part of the reason Bill and I are as close as we are is that we can sit next to each other happily for hours without either of us saying anything. Actually, even some of the people I do know I don’t really want to have long conversations with, and when someone I don’t know tries to have one with me, it makes me extremely uncomfortable. And even if I was friendlier, that conversation wouldn’t have appealed to me. Why on Earth would you tell a complete stranger that your mother just died? What inspires people to share emotional tragedy with strangers, especially in this case, when the woman had friends right there with her? And why do people feel compelled to tell me that smoking is bad for me? Do they really think I don't know? Do they really think I've been living in a cave for the last 34 years?

There’s a corollary to this as well. It isn’t as though I was sitting at the bar doing nothing. I was reading a book, for Christ’s sake. I think that, to some extent, America is becoming a sub-literate society. People no longer view reading as a leisure activity, it seems. I guess most people just read to pass the time when they’re bored. Reading for pleasure has become such a foreign concept to them that when they see someone else reading, they think they’re being helpful by talking to them and filling a few minutes.

For me, though, reading is serious business. I would rather read than talk to most people, and I’m always surprised that they can’t understand this. It should be fairly obvious that if I’m focused enough to read in a bar, in the midst of all the talking and arguing and the jukebox blaring in the background, then it’s probably pretty important to me, and you should maybe leave me alone. If you say something to me and I nod and grunt without ever lifting my eyes from the page, take the hint, alright? If they bother me long enough, I’ll say something bitchy to them, like the guy a couple of weeks ago: “Has it never occurred to you that the reason Camus has been published and you haven’t is that he has more interesting things to say than you have?”

Don’t bother me while I’m reading unless I have specifically given you permission (which leaves out everyone except my bartenders and maybe three other people; Phil, please note that you are not on this list) or you want to talk about the Knicks. I admit, I’ve always got time for that.

And while I’m thinking about it…don’t bother me while I’m watching basketball, either. For some reason, many people seem to think that talking about the game is more fun than watching it. I disagree, and I’ll be happy to argue the point AFTER THE GAME. Think Steve Nash is the Most Valuable Player? Possibly, but I think Allen Iverson deserves some votes too, and I’ll explain why AFTER THE GAME. Think Kobe’s a jackass, T-Mac’s a whiner, Ron Artest is a lunatic? I’ll impugn their character all you like AFTER THE GAME. Think the Knicks can’t win with Stephon Marbury at the point? I’ll kick your ass for that…

AFTER
THE
GAME!!!

Dammit. Now shut up.