Letters to the Editor
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Leave Me Alone, I LIKE Cheap Personality Profiling [2008]
{Part of a March 2008 response to a Craigslist ad. The advertiser never answered, maybe because she felt it beneath her dignity to retrieve my letter, so there’s a chance that the copy I left in James Wilcox’s “Polite Sex” in the downtown Seattle library is still there for anybody interested in how not to respond to a personal ad.}
[Blah blah blah.] I’ll begin with the last of your requirements first, since what latter-day American Narcissus doesn’t love giving the world a piece of his mind?
[Lateral cross section of respondent’s brain omitted due to impossibility of embedding pictures in Salon.com letters. Whatever shallow humor exists in the following list lies in the position and relative size of the various brain structures.]
BRAIN STRUCTURE KEY
1) Terror and loathing of pain, assholes, bullies, neo-Dixiecrats (aka Seattle Democrats), and Nazi Republicans
2) Erectile function
3) Tyrannical leash-jerking retaliation against freedom-fighting (aka disobedient) dogs
4) Self-dislike
5) Cunts, tits, ass, nipples, Venusian blubber, labial origami, vaginal rabbit holes, crotch thatch, rutting bull, “Oh, Jesus, yes!”, the whole vanilla nine yards
6) Never-ending ever-losing battle against capitalist slavery
7) Museum of tiresome incompetently curated unrequited lust for [some European bitch]
8) Resentment towards beautiful women, guilt towards ugly women, fear of children, fear of commitment (aka fear of prison), fear and resentment of sexual competition, Austenite status anxiety, fear of STDs, fear of passing on (most likely ex-girlfriend’s) HPV, emotional stinginess, reject of Prince Charming Secondary School
9) Ex-girlfriend
10) Token guilt and sorrow that ex-girlfriend’s 3-star (out-of-4) love affair with me (unless she was lying) was only 1-1/2 stars for me. (The relationship, on the other hand, was 2-1/2 to 3 stars for both, though a degree of self-serving delusion may be at work here.)
11) Cheap puzzles
12) Arithmetic
13) Intellectual jealousy
14) Intellectual discipline
15) Dilettantish upper middlebrow junk culture consumption (mostly against my self-respect): Salon.com, Harper’s, The Seattle P.I., TheStranger.com, TheNation.com, Counterpunch.org, Slate.com (despite its happy-face Muhammad Crow bias), The Atlantic (on the rare occasions I can any longer stomach its global neo-Confederacism), RealChangeNews.org, etc.
16) Boring fitful unimaginative obligatory workouts on Western Civilization’s literary exercise canon
17) Disintegrating self-esteem management
18) Walking (usually away)
19) Periodic halfhearted attempts to man up on the 19th century technology front, usually resulting in one pissed-off customer
20) Token good deeds
21) Sports worship
RETARDED OR MISSING BRAIN STRUCTURES
1) Music appreciation
2) Art appreciation
3) Joke telling
4) Yarn spinning
5) Charisma
6) Sociability
7) Friendship formation and maintenance
8) Adeptness at the violent arts
9) Brute survival
[Blah blah blah.]
Copyright (c) 2008 Brett Landgraf. This post is NOT the automatic property of the pirates at Salon Media Group, Inc.
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Part of being a friend is knowing enough to put an interest into perspective...
This article struck me as being both bizarre and sad. Part of being a friend is knowing their attitudes & feelings about many parts of life, as well as other things that let us judge the person as a multi-faceted human being, not based on a single interest (provided it's at least marginally acceptable by society). For example, I have a good friend who, like all of my friends, knows among other things that I enjoy a few young adult 'fantasy' novel authors and a few other things more associated with the underage set. Last weekend, he amused me with his animated description of an extremely immature 19-year-old girl that was reading a kids' fantasy book. I don't need to worry that he looks down on me as "childish" because of a few interests, though -- he knows my personality, history, and who I am too well for that.
In the case of showing who you are to a potential friend, I think that being misjudged suggests that you aren't offering enough of a way to tell what you're really like, whether that means you need to show more of your personality or do some autobiographical storytelling through words or photos. The lists are supposed to be in addition to other information, not a replacement for it. As an example, one of my English profs at Cal was bright, funny, a talented teacher, and also a fan of soap operas that often made comparisons between the current lit reading and a recent episode. The students could have applied negative stereotypes to him, as the author clearly fears; instead, everybody questioned their assumptions about the shows, wanted to learn what he got out of them, and thought he was "cool" for being so daringly honest.
I feel sorry for the author, as it sounds like she lacks real friends or is too anxious to fully trust & appreciate the ones she has, and that she is stuck carefully acting a part at all times around others. I hope she isn't so busy trying to evaluate others based on their preferences that she fails to notice when somebody with a 'taboo' interest is truly worthwhile.
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Gracias, Papi
This is one of those times when I thank the gods for my father, who imbued me with an absolute disdain for advertising and brand names of any kind. I can't count the number of times I heard him growl at the TV the minute the ads came on. Consequently, my tastes are dictated solely by what I like, not by what anybody else thinks or might think about me as a result.
So when I go shopping, I hardly even look at the brands. If I buy a shirt, it's because I like the fit or the color. If I read a book, it's because I'm interested in what it has to say, and I don't hide it while I'm reading. If I buy a CD, it's because I've sampled the music and liked it, regardless of the genre. I really don't give a shit if anyone else approves. (I didn't stop blasting Middle Eastern music in my car after Sept. 11, 2001, for example.) If I like a certain food, I'm not going to pretend I don't eat it just because other people might draw some stupid judgment about "low-fat" or "carb-based" or whatever conforms or doesn't conform to the idiotic fad-of-the-week.
And Facebook? Oh my god, you've got to be kidding. How anyone could be so thick as to go online and display their personal details like that for every nitwit and blackguard to see and exploit (and then get all shocked when people are things go badly) is beyond me.
Looking around, I feel damn lucky on this subject. So many people seem to base their identities on what others might think. But I seem to remember that, growing up, I was encouraged NOT to care what other people think. That was something called "being an individual", if I recall. Maybe that's gone out of style. Too bad.