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articles
/ rants: "my condescending behavior"
NOTES ON NOTES
[BACKGROUND] i don't know precisely when this attitude was born, but i would love to purge thyself of it. this is something i go through - now that i think of it, not too often, thankfully, but i periodically find myself in certain situations where i get this irrepressible feeling of antipathy, and i dispute the actual rationale of why people say specific things. this is by no means an attack on anyone, and i will never tell you what you should say ("speak your mind, even if your voice shakes"), but it's comforting to just have it written down (2007).
[PURPOSE] just finding someone who can understand but not necessarily agree.
"MY CONDESCENDING BEHAVIOR"
i don't know when it happened, but i have an exasperating illness where i judge arrogance by what others say. you might be confused, since i wholly promote one should say what is on his mind - and i wholeheartedly do. however, just because i practice this judgment, it doesn't mean people are actually arrogant; it's just something i can't control. i sometimes carefully think about what i say. hah, that's a joke; i can be one of the most cuttingly honest and open people out there. this is too difficult to explain cut and dry, so i'll just attempt examples. yay for examples!
my friend once took me to a cast party for a broadway show, the pirate queen, which was so super bad it closed down very, very quickly. now i'm very much stupid, stupid, stupid, and stupid when it comes to broadway, so i really didn't know who i was meeting. i could only assess by their performance in the show and how hot they were (hadley fraser is hot. and british, but i wasn't judging by nationality because i wasn't feeling so racist that day. good for me).
i don't know if anyone is familiar with wicked - i'm sure not - but i am told stephanie j. block played elphaba and is apparently famous or something. i don't know who she is, but she looked old to me (...and irish). at any rate, a friend of ours, jordan, another guest at said party, had to leave early. misfortune for him because shortly after his departure, we were privelleged (i suppose) to meet stephanie j. block (my friends always mention that j, which i have no clue what it stands for, so you may ponder with me. jello? jam? jolly ranchers? methinks i'm hungry). everyone else seemed completely enthralled, but i was just... who are you again? you look rather wrinkly, but i'm glad you care about the environment (i learned she cares about the environment). after we eventually left the party, my friend was ecstatic at the prospect of informing jordan that we had met stephanie j. block. and i must have been bitchy that night (only that night), but i pryingly asked her, "why?" and she said "because it's so exciting!" and i could only ask her why again because to me, she only wanted to meet stephanie j. block so she could brag about it to others. she never openly verified this, but i still believe it's true.
there was nothing that significantly exciting about stephanie (... j. block), other than she loves theatre (i never knew) and trees, so why tell others? no one thinks about tree lovers that much. i discuss people a lot, but only people whom i've had great silly piss drunk fun with, or people of some great caliber - people with stories - why talk about someone who you know virtually nothing about? had her name not been stephanie j. block, perhaps you would not have shouted your shortlived acquaintance to the streets the following day. as far as i'm concerned, it's just another name to add to our personal lists of proud trophies embedded with bragging rights.
the other day, my friend told me she was in the city and saw deborah messing. i'm sorry, but as the rest of your friends swarm around you and ask you what she was like (to which you couldn't accurately respond with critical information other than she was wearing a shirt. boy, am i glad you met her! before your destined "friendship," i had no idea she wore clothes), i really don't care. new york city happens to be a hotbed for icons and personalities, being, you know, a fashion and financial capital, but congratulations.
i feel the same way when the first words people tell me are they have "webdesigned for [insert number here] years!" upon our meeting, the first thing you're going to tell me under your "site" section is you have "webdesigned" for six years? haven't you learned numbers denote shit? anyway, good for you. now what? would you like me to bow down to all of your righteous and saintly words and obvious talents and scorn those who challenge them?
now, i can easily see how they might just be divulging this information for kicks, but i just can't help it. why do they think i care? i feel like the only things we really need to tell others are that which we genuinely believe they have interest in, and sweetheart, i'm sorry i don't go to your website looking for how much experience you have - regarding the interweb, anyway. if we're referring to the bedroom scene, let's do lunch and talk, baby.
oh, and you're allowed to brag about something that is actually braggable. like you made it to the london symphony.
and i legitimately want to hear about that anyway. ah, the london symphony.
in the end of all this, i believe i have emerged as the supreme stuck-up for feeling this way, but i can't help it. can anyone relate or at least remotely understand? i wrote this, i suppose, to seek help or something, because i don't wish to think this way.
stalker(s)