I Hate Small Talk, and Other Rants.

So, with nearly twenty-one years of being a person, I've noticed a trend: In most circumstances among strangers/aquaintences, people are either really smiley and fake-y nice, or they're yelling in your face that you drove 2 MPH too slow, and you're ruining their family picnic. I'll literally talk to a person for two seconds, say "hi, how are you?" then ask to pet their dog, and suddenly I'm the most evil human being in the world.

What do you mean, you want to pet my dog? Are you some kind of kidnapper? How dare you invade my personal space!

I swear, my life is turning into a series of good cop/bad cop.

And sure, people have good days and bad days, but you know what I do when I feel less-than-delightful? I friggin' tell people I don't feel so hot, nothing personal, I just need some space.

Communication. Imagine that.

For the longest time, I just thought that everyone in the world is bipolar, and humans are a really shitty species that take pleasure in saying the meanest things to one another. But that would mean we're just one giant reality TV show, and I simply cannot accept that notion.

But now, I have a theory that it's so encouraged, taken for granted even, to be so outrageously friendly to literally everyone, we smile until our teeth hurt, then before we even know it, we're baring our teeth and growling at the next innocent passerby.

I'm a fairly bubbly person, but if I'm at a party, going "I'm Kira. Yes, I go to college. I'm studying English. Yes, I do realize that doesn't guarantee any jobs. Kira. No, not Cara. Kira. K-I-R-A" a hundred times over, I'm going to get very exhausted very quickly. It's akin to the feeling of sitting on a couch for a year then running a 30 mile marathon.

I know what you're thinking. "But we're not ALL selfish pricks who only want to talk about ourselves! Some of us really care about others."

And this is all true. I quite enjoy talking to my friends, family, and my cat Layla.

But what I can't get on board with, is that at an event where you're schmoozing meeting 20-some new people, you can't possibly care about what each individual is studying, how many siblings they have, and if they like to go jet-skiing or not. I'm sorry, I don't care. You don't care. Why are we pretending we care? Why are we wasting precious book-reading time to learn that this is John, he has three kids, and he likes apples?

But what's so aggravating, is that the older we get, the more we get punished for choosing not to stuff a hundred new names into our brains. Flashback to fourth grade, parent-teacher conferences. My classmates are in the gym, throwing balls at each other until their respective parents retrieve them. I'm in the hallway, writing a play. Teachers are passing by, going "oh what a creative spirit!" (Granted, this could be particular to Quaker school, but a girl can dream).

Now, if I'm sitting in a corner, dripping in social anxiety-induced sweat, I'll get bombarded with "what's wrong? Why so antisocial? Come meet my cousin's hairdresser's distant relative!"

Being that friendly for an extended period of time is like eating cupcakes. One is nice--it's sweet, it's satisfying. But if you keep stuffing your face with cupcakes, you're going to feel progressively sick until you puke, i.e, scream at the person closest to you.

So why can't we just eat our one cupcake? Why must we be excessively nice until it hurts? In the end, it makes everyone miserable, exhausted, and resentful.

On that happy note,
Namaste

How to Be a Time Nazi

I come from a family of fashionably early people. As a child, I'd have to tell my father to pick me up from friends' birthday parties late, just so that he wouldn't arrive half an hour early. You know how there's that one awkward parent, sitting there watching his kids make bad decisions from being crazy sugar highs and stuff their faces with cake?

Yeah, that was my family. Hi Mom, hi Dad!

But like all charming, quirky parental characteristics, my family's tendency to be those people to arrive at an airport four hours early has since rubbed off on me and I've developed some tips on how to be a time nazi, specifically of the employment and friend-gathering sort.

Now, being an employment time nazi is tricky business, as you want to get there early, but not so early that your boss sees you and goes "my, my, Alphonso, we could really use another set of hands around here. Want to clock in early?"

To which you look very confused and say "I'm Alphonso's twin, Ricardo," or pretend you come from the planet Zork and don't speak English.

If you want the short road to success, just become REALLY REALLY freaked out that people are going to hate you and never speak to you again because you were five minutes late to their party. That usually works.

However. For the more mundane activities, make sure that you freeze in front of your computer, refreshing Facebook two hours prior to arrival time. That way you won't distract yourself with anything remotely interesting; instead, you'll learn that everyone your age is getting married and you're just LOL-ing in front of cartoons with your beanie babies all day. 1.5 hours prior to arrival time, psych yourself out with worst-case-traffic/death/needing to jam to that song on the radio/cops stop you scenarios possible and decide you'll walk instead.

No matter what, leave an hour earlier than necessary. When else can you sink yourself into a nice existential crisis while waiting for it to be acceptable arrival time?

Drink an obscene amount of coffee, so that you spend normal sleep time getting ready for the next day.

Don't forget to cover up the dark circles under your eyes. The trick is to fool people into thinking you're normal, and that your life doesn't revolve around time.

Remember to round up, so when the clock at work says 4:45 and you're scheduled until five, what's the difference, really?

Rounding up works particularly well for workouts--when you flopped around in front of the TV for 35 minutes, you can really say you worked out for three hours.

But the most important step is to get outrageously angry at anyone who arrives later than 15 minutes early. Because, logic.

Namaste.

Awkward Human Beings

Somehow, in the past five years, it's become trendy to title yourself as "awkward." I've noticed people volunteer information that "oh yeah, I totally laugh at something I just remembered in public places," or "sometimes, I miss a spot when I'm straightening my hair, and it's mortifying."

I'm onto you, guys. I've seen those "awkward laughs." You chuckle for two seconds, then pull it off as a sneeze.

Because it's hard to distinguish between fashionably awkward, and just plain "I was picked last in gym class," I'm here to tell you about the truly awkward.

It looks a little something like this: (for all of Facebook to enjoy)

For some inexplicable reason, my brain has decided to find yodeling positively hilarious. One of my co-workers, coincidentally enough, has a yodeling  CD. Now, as someone who can pretty well fake normalcy during work, every time that singer warbles through the speakers, I am almost always helping a customer. In two seconds flat, my face goes from pleasant cheese server, to a contortion that looks like a combination between a wombat and a grouper fish. My laugh goes about two octaves higher, successfully sounding like a rabbit squeal, and everyone, both employees and customers, look at me like "why is she allowed in public places?" And yes, this goes on far beyond acceptable laughter-time.

Normal people laughs are so passé

An excellent question. The jury's still deciding on that one.

As someone who studies words 90% of her time, you'd think that I would have mastered the art of conversation a long time ago. However, once you've realized that you can't be twelve years old forever and your parents probably shouldn't talk for you, you realize that conversing involves people staring at you, expecting you to string a coherent line of words together, preferably sans-stutter, all while they drill their eyes into your soul.

Consequently, there are no lifelines. There's no get out of jail free card. One time, while talking to a neighbor I hadn't seen in ten years, I almost said "I'd like to take the phone a friend option," then realized I'm horribly awkward on the phone.

During small talk is conveniently the time that my mind decides to blank out on the simplest of words. And since Google brains haven't been invented yet, I have to smile my way through calling spoons "round eat-y thingys" and needing to take a minute to remember my own age.

If I do by some miracle remember basic vocabulary, I still go on first dates, try to impress boys, and call movies "educational experiences in the inner workings of a strip club."

 And if I'm nervous, the phrases just get more and more insulting. Apparently it's a bad idea to walk into a tattoo parlor, declare that it's stupid to get tattoos of significant others' names, only to realize that your tattoo artist has Amandas and Catherines all over his body.

So that was a thing that happened.

Namaste.