Tuesday, September 9, 2008

On Childish People

Yesterday I was on campus and during my hour long break I stopped off over at East Commons to meet Scott for lunch. While waiting for Scott and as I was checking messages on my telephone (which I must admit, is a rare occurance) I turned to my left to see a particular hippie/hipster fellow that Scott and I almost became roommates with. As I mentioned at the start of this blogging site, we cut the "gentleman" loose from our living arrangement (I should say Scott did with my backing consent, and I delivered the final blow of reaffirming that rejection) and left him to look for a place all on his own (he eventually found a place, a studio apartment in the area he'd so desperately rallied for). Again, as you may believe me/us to be horrible monsters for saying "hey there, we don't want to live with you because you're taking us to a horrible place of eternal damnation via mediation gardens and bad music" consider the circumstances. $1800 rent with no utilities paid in a bad neighborhood with the likelihood (guarantee) of hipster folk visiting, praising Howl, and believing the beat movement to be the pinnacle of human existence. No good.

So, with that small, yet important, diversion in mind let's return to the story/topic/anecdote at hand. I was waiting for Scott, checking my messages, and noticed said hipster/former soon-to-be roommate to my left wearing his knock-off Ray Bans, his "medallion" and his button-up shirt hardly buttoned-up, exposing his near-hairless chest and hippie-bling, toting unkempt hair and a scraggly hobo-beard (the more I describe him the more I wonder how we almost became roommates with this chap). As I looked over and noticed this guy, who isn't a horrible person, nor is he evil and not harboring any ill-will towards the lad, I naturally began raising my free hand to wave. But as I turned to do so, I caught the ever-so noticeable (even behind those ray bans) "oh, no, what on Earth shall I do" reaction emanating from his person. And as he pondered this for that split-second, he readied his defenses and brazenly cocked his head, turning it upward and leftward as though a rare bird had suddenly come into view. Yes, he was ignoring me, the "cold-shoulder" if you will, choosing not to acknowledge my existence and relying on the third grade for "that kid who took my pokemon pogs with a vicious tidily-wink" diversionary tactics. All the while I followed him with my eyes to reassure myself that I was not simply imagining this clear display of childishness. I was correct in my assumptions. Yes, as soon as I was out of his periphery this rare bird seemed to have dropped off the face (or he realized it was merely a pigeon) of the Earth and his head returned to normal human positioning in the straightforward variety. It was then that I proceeded to laugh.

Moments later, Scott arrived and I told him of the events that transpired. After a hearty laugh he relayed to me that a similar experience had happened to him. Scott is lucky, though, as he actually has a class with said fellow and thus has the opportunity for near-daily laughter. His reaction was the same as mine. Passing, then laughter.

I'm not saying that I'm a perfect adult (if you're reading my blog then you should know that I'm not), but if there's one thing that I can thank my time at college for it is most certainly my ability to interact with people who I know and to let matters go (save for with my brother as it's a different story all together, but all that's ok now...for now). You can't change the events that happened, you can look at things with 20/20 hindsight and say that you should have/could have/would have done things differently. No, but what you can do is roll with the punches. Or as the saying goes "like water off a duck's back" (as ducks can't get wet...although I'd like to see what would happen if you hit one with a high pressure water hose...not the hose itself, but the water shooting from it, is there some sort of anti-water force field?). And I would certainly hope that my friends (of both the blog-reading and non-blog-reading variety) would have the decency to still speak to me when they feel as though I've wronged them or said something stupid or done something stupid or acted stupidly or feel as though I'm being "weird" or something of the sort and to not do as this hipster/hippie who clearly no longer wants friendship has done by ignoring me and treating me as a problem that will go away if left unaddressed for a good period of time. I would also hope that if any of you caught me acting as a child then you would tell me to "man-up" and/or (in Sam's words) "quit being a little bitch."

On a side note, Mondays will have very few to no postings as I'm in class from 9 in the A-M to 7 in the P-M. And now, if you'll excuse me, I must get back to reading for class.

1 comment:

Sam said...

Haha, I miss all of these stories! Now that I look back on it, I feel bad for being such an asshole dude. "quit being a little bitch" worked well I guess, but as long as you know that I'm not just hard on you.