[433] Not My Cup Of Tea

I think I was made to accidentally defend "being a horrible person."

It's worth noting that I don't consider myself a horrible person, but for those unfamiliar it's easy to take things I say and draw all sorts of conclusions. That's fine. In my mind, you either get the joke or you don't. And that's the main and large distinction I don't think I spoke eloquently enough about.

Let's take a light situation. While watching Ex Machina, a friend of mine couldn't recall what the Asian character's name was. I responded, "I dunno, Tokyo? I just call 'em all Tokyo." I find comments like this generally hilarious. I'm as easily amused by "base" humor of someone like Daniel Tosh as I am the sharp wit of granny on Downton Abbey. Unbeknownst to me, comments like that make my friend uncomfortable.

According to him, and I don't think he's lying, he's expressed that it's made him uncomfortable before. I, well aware of my capacity to forget and ignore subtext, looked as if I was being deliberately disregarding of his feelings. Instead of stressing and emphasizing the joking or unrelenting satire I try to exhibit in my personality, I tried to unpack what making comments like that mean to me in how people do or don't respond. The difference in whether or not I remember how you feel, and remember to alter my behavior, is one of direct explicit conversation. An uncomfortable chuckle with a "hey, that's not funny man" or even light soliloquy about how "those kinds of jokes aren't my thing" will not do the trick.

I understand words can be powerful. In my explanation, I don't want you to think I don't believe people get hurt or uncomfortable. It is also overwhelmingly not my goal for people to end up that way. That said, in general, I don't really give a shit until I'm presented with a reason to. That is, say I make a joke about battered-women. You recoil from a recent experience and explain why that doesn't jive with your sensibilities. I do not feel obligated to keep making the joke "because you really should just lighten up and get it." My goal isn't to hurt people, it's to find ways to laugh at the perpetual shit show as I conceive of the world.

It was explained to me that I don't have to "go out of my way" to say things that are "more than likely going to hurt someone." I have two problems with this. First, I don't go out of my way. Saying racist or sexist things is easy, that's why ignorant people default to those sentiments. Second, I'm not persuaded that what I say, or how I say it, is necessarily likely, let alone often, hurting people. I get that people uncomfortably laugh when they don't like confrontation or are gauging the room. I don't get how I would remain having friends, of all stripes, if they genuinely thought I was racist, sexist, or homophobic.

At worst, a situation I create is a misunderstanding and at the extreme end perhaps tears. At the same time, I've made people cry just by asking them questions about their lives. I have a healthy skepticism for the value and implications of what certain feelings and reactions are speaking to. Are you crying because I'm another horrible example of a person in the world you have to contend with? Unlikely.

Now this is borderline "But, I'm a really good person, so I can get away with that kind of thing!" No. Nor am I somehow more justified in saying "nigger" because my girlfriend is black, my best friend from childhood too, and I rolled with the black kids in school. What I will persistently lay claim to is humor. There is a wild and dramatic difference between awkwardly claiming street cred to justify haphazardly spewing shit, and cracking a joke that plays on a "sensitive" theme. It's why you can laugh at the best comedians' jokes about rape or race, and bite through your tongue at an amateur who thinks he's going to shoot straight for "edgy."

I've not only, very roughly, provoked conversations, but also without shame dragged people into an awareness about something they're likely often going to only uncomfortably laugh at, at least initially, or otherwise generally ignore. This doesn't bother me. Nor does it bother me to be perceived incorrectly or for someone to not find my type of humor funny. I get it, people are feelers and dramatically more sensitive than me.

What I don't like is the idea that I'm giving license. Jokes are designed to undermine power. It's anyone's guess what ideas you may consider powerful. You can laugh at slavery when Louie C.K. does it. The fact that slavery still exists and you only care as much as you do about any tragedy you didn't create and probably can't fix, does not in turn endorse Foxconn. When I say "I call them all Tokyo" it's supposed to be because it's so laughably depressing that there are people who genuinely feel and talk that way.

If I get cut off 13 out of 15 times by girls on cell phones and get into a habit of saying "god dammit, I bet you it's another bitch on a cellphone" each time it happens...well at that point it's not even a joke yet. Living in a college town will do nothing to persuade you against stereotypes of women with cell phones or Asians driving. I'm sure there's a statistical argument that goes here...but still, the time it's a guy on a phone driving a minivan and I still call him a bitch on a cellphone, now a layered joke realm can emerge. It's your fault if you want to sexualize "bitch" and think I'm demonizing women. If I was a woman concerned about our image, I'd get off my fucking phone while cutting people off so often they can normalize a "bitch on a cellphone" sentiment. (See, that made me laugh.)

Here I feel anger about my "complicit endorsement of (pick-your)ism" terribly misplaced and unfairly stated. What's weird to me is people taking up the "righteous" position against the joker, or, extremely easy target who's gone out of his way to risk how he's perceived. Moreover when it's amongst friends. Further, how am I to be bothered to account for people who might be listening in on my conversation in public?

People making jokes, especially persistently, are coping, not endorsing. And people attacking them are lying to themselves, not protecting. It's 1 in 100 times someone feels compelled to speak against how I phrase or joke about something. And even when they do, rarely did I catch them with the wrong joke as they just returned from therapy attempting to deal with that very issue. When they do, the burden shifts to me to "continue being an asshole" or say "my bad, I'll censor myself around you."

Of course you can be indignant for someone else. But at the same time, I consider it your responsibility to discern the difference between a joke and an attack or genuine belief. It's not my job nor desire to hold your hand through all the reasons you can feel okay about laughing at me. And I am not readily shamed or guilt ridden by statements like "you know you're hurting people!" I don't. I never know when I'm hurting people, especially when most of them are mostly laughing most of the time. Much as I never knew people were about to cry because I explained my perspective on life or asked them a question about their ex from a few years ago.

I think people need to get better at mitigating their feelings. I, for better or worse, can be a reflection point from which to examine yours. Maybe you didn't ask, okay, anymore than I ask for all the real fallout from the real problems of what I choose to joke about. So, let's hold each other and fend off the demons with our vigorously wagged fingers? Nah, I'll keep joking and promise not to chase you down and start shaking the laughs out of you.

Ideally, I want to live in a world where we take away a lot of the power of words. I don't want people to explode at me in a way they won't explode toward something that matters. My jokes aren't shooting black kids, kicking gay people out of my parties, or expecting my girlfriend to cook for me, or else. That's what horrible people are doing. Horrible people who it's hard to cope with on top of all the other depressing and disgusting things you're made to be aware of as a thinking individual.

I can apologize for a misunderstanding or that you feel hurt, but I never will for the joke. I'm open to discussing where your feelings are coming from and how they may be dealt with, but I won't pretend my heart swells with yours. I save it for things I regard as mattering more.

[432] Appetizers Over Friends

I think I prefer appetizers over friends.

This could be a way of stating my general “loner” sentiments. It could be the wave of “not even 4 months later I'mliving the fallout” of one of my last blogs about my disposition reverting people back to cattle. I think it's partly me being unable to find proper blame for the stress of conceiving of having them or what I'm supposed to mean to them. Appetizers are simple. You eat them. I go to the bar and grab a cheese quesadilla, maybe bring a book if I don't have articles lined up on my phone, and go to work.

I think a large part of my problem is constantly feeling like I'm not “doing enough.” One of the loudest criticisms I have about people is their habit of moving very independent of their willingness to look at the larger picture. They move for superficial reasons. They think...they don't think. It's enough for them to have a “passion” or carefree hippie attitude or accept clichés and certain kinds of stress as normal. I don't want to be in a group of obscure passionate people who pretends to have some secret figured out as I travel the country holding protest signs. I don't want to adopt a Freudian level of ego as I barrel down the road to a doctorate, particularly in psychology.

I blame myself. But that alone doesn't seem to mean anything. I feel like the fat guy who knows it's his decision to eat unhealthily and not move. Yes, every day he makes a choice. The days where he chooses to walk, his knees are killing him. They days where he chooses to eat healthy, the crowd at the other end of the room is calling him names. I can't know what the well-wishing or positive endorsements from other people mean to a fat guy, but if they were talking to me, it'd be reduced to a very superficial appreciation. A thumbs up or a good day aren't an accepting or motivating general environment.

It feels like a problem of what we're supposed to ask of our perspective. I claim that I feel certain obligations. It's once in a blue moon I get to express myself in service to those obligations. If I plan to meet you for lunch, you can practically take it for granted I'm showing up. You invite me to your one man show, I can see on facebook that I, and whomever I brought, were often the only 2 who “found the time.”

But say I take the obligations further. It was almost a throwaway comment in high school for me to say that I was the “therapist” for most of my friends. Whether they were talking to other people or not wasn't really my concern, I just had enough routinely unload their struggles that the comparison felt fair at the time. While I certainly couldn't “fix them,” I tried my best to persuade you suicide wasn't the answer or verbal and physical abuse wasn't love. I didn't drink in high school and so of course would take you home from a party.

It might be more easily conceived where feelings of mattering-to-someone would manifest in that environment. You're thrust into a situation of immature fledglings daily. Move on to college, it's close, but people get their own spaces and disappear into their specific departments or hit that “find a mate at all costs” mindset. They also, for whatever reason, find it in them to get insanely resentful of what you're offering. So, you're obligations get a little looser, perhaps in the realm of ensuring someone gets drunk, can crash on the couch, or you'll definitely split the morning after pill costs.

I think I feel something of an erosion. It's not uniform across everyone I know. I think it's where people claim the bullshit of “growing up.” I don't even know if it has to do particularly with friendships or just the general cultural air. I persistently feel like I can't rely on anything.

If you've felt the same, and you're one of my friends, the best I can do is offer what I constantly try to speak to. You've got a place to stay, I'll get you drunk, I'll refrain from giving you shit about something you're doing that is probably stupid, and I'll at least offer to include you in what I'm trying to do. But you should know, trying is getting exhausting. Whether it's asking for an hour or 2 every month or so or even ten minutes in a facebook conversation, I'm often shuffled back into my little void.

It's weird because I consider myself one of the most selfish people I know. I do things in my way, on my time, for my reasons, and it usually doesn't care about steamrolling weaker or less thought out ideas. It's only ever tripped up when you try to include people. It doesn't even seem right to use a word like “blame.” Just scroll through the list of excuses you've been thinking about as to why someone is busy.

I've argued in the past that I'm happy of only being contacted or engaged with when someone needed something from me. At least then things are clear. But it was only until I injected myself into the “normal” realm where people claim to be close or friends regardless that I found stress and confusion. If you told me you don't give a shit about my movie nights or bowling or especially acting “irresponsibly childish” by hitting the bar, I'd be in a much happier place. If you thought me sharing ideas about the books I read or organizations and people I follow is a waste of time or disinteresting, I wouldn't cling even a little to likes or conversations under what I post or think.

I don't want to mindlessly scream at the sports team anymore than I mindlessly attempt to talk with you or share ideas and learn motivations or problems.

I can use my perspective to keep feeling comfortable and like a modern day king. I can use it to arbitrarily learn about things I'll rarely if ever get to talk about. I can use it to shit on everything, which, just really isn't that fun, even if it is the habit. I feel like I just need to use it to better choke down how little I'm needed.

Until you're out on your ass, feeling in a party mood, or remotely concerned with whether or not I can offer solid advice, I'm just kind of a person with too much time on his hands. I don't mean to sound like I'm deliberately ignoring people who do show up or have expressed a fondness for my writing, or that I didn't just get a message about watching a movie while writing this. The message isn't supposed to swing too dramatically in one direction. It's that my personal conception of my utility or place has massively outpaced my ability to provide examples.

I think there's a risk in dropping expectations. I think it was Boy Meets World where Mr. Feeny says true friendship is offering it without any expectations. This is reminiscent of what people have expressed to me about love. While it might do a lot for mitigating frustration, or help bolster the pretend super powers of love, it feels like a woefully unsubstantial thing to say. Many dogs will stay loyal to an abusive owner. To me it's more about adopting fair or informed expectations. I obviously don't blame friends in different states or if they're in grad school for not hanging out.

It's also that I don't have much to focus on besides my relationship to friends to gauge where I'm at. I don't have or need a job, leaving aside one I'd consider worthwhile. I don't even have a plant or animal, let alone a child to keep alive. Whatever shows I watch or books I read I'm sure Kristen is tired of hearing about. I've attempted to suss out organizations, within my capabilities, that do “big work” like The Venus Project, or would love to help out in promoting the Sanders campaign; they're not the best at getting back to you. I perhaps unduly burden people to occupy my time, even if that time is a few hours each month.

It's weird feeling stuck not because of who you are, but because it's a multiplayer game.

[431] Read That Back

I wish we could dispel the idea that people like a challenge. Stated in this way, it's far from complete. It remains a kind of myth about the nature of the human spirit that we rely on to believe “we'll get where we need to be” at an undisclosed time in the future. It carries with it the idea that we're problem solvers of the highest order, leaving out that most of us are in the stands solving the problem of how to juggle a beer, hotdog, and peanuts while the real players who work to bring it all together are on the field and in the box seats.

I'm in the reflective phase of a conversation/argument online that spanned a few days. One of my often stated goals is to get people to talk, challenge my ideas, or ask a question if I said something particularly disingenuously. I got what I wanted. While peppering a general lamentation about “Inequality For All” a motivated commenter of several pasts posts asked me to explain a joke and then expressed how oppressive all laws are and why they were an anarchist. While I don't care to re-explain the details, the situation helped illustrate what happens when you challenge back.

I've been toying with the idea of existence being a giant knot. The name for “string theory” being wonderfully on the nose. I think it speaks to the reason I persistently say “I'm at home talking” more than any particular location I may inhabit. Every unresolved question is a little knot. If we carry these knots, they lock up in the back of my neck and shoulders. You can feel choked by this knot, anchored, or perhaps you think you leave the tangled pile “over there.” I, as far as I can be bothered to, am always picking at it.

It's why as “pointless” as it consistently seems to be referred to, I like to argue online. There's a difference, to me, in feeding trolls and going line by line laying out a clearer and more manageable mess of strings. But what I find psychologically satisfying is more often than not perceived as a mean or threatening attack. In one sense, I'm going to be endlessly at odds with ideas you can't show to be true or at least semi-likely. In another, if you start to feel uncomfortable or persuaded by how something is explained, and I'm not trying to sign you up for Amway, there's probably a deeper truth than the mess of accusations and speculations you're throwing up to hold steady my inquiry.

Perhaps I simply fail in how I ask. I want to be meticulously torn apart line by line and asked questions that are reinforced with historical or scientific examples. I can spend my time explaining jokes that didn't translate, but where is that really taking us?

But can you blame them? This seems to be a kind of beating heart to a lot of my online interactions. People get angry at me for posting blogs in /r/self on reddit. People get genuinely frustrated that I would use an annoying ironic circle jerk to post my ironic annoying circle jerks. People seem to be holding and fighting for their flag, but I rarely understand what it amounts to for them in anything but irrational feeling terms. In that sense, yes, I feel obligated to blame them. I expect something out of you only because I expect something out of myself.

Be redundant, be spacey, but be honest. And honestly, most of the time, you're probably very lazy or very dumb about what you're talking about. I just tend to keep the topic focused on me and my perception first. I've found that habit providing a method and skills for breaking down what you say. Picking apart my teenage mind's ideas of “love” and “god” was considerably harder than my questions about whether or not you'll define your terms. I hate myself when I read my first jabs at unpacking my thoughts. They abused to no end “stream of consciousness.” I slowed down and tried to get better.

And I know this is where you lose 'em. I know the boring details and sincere appeals aren't the kind of cosmic displays of weirdness and passion that people laud with praise and lovingly tumble about the forest with. Though I like the idea of having an audience, I like more that I figured out I write because I need to. I clarify because it's my literal neck on the line. It's a fight to prioritize how and why I think so everything that follows is less likely to embarrass or shame me. I wish more of us would take the time. The conversation is often lost well before you started.