People I hate: updated for 2011!

I'm what one would call a "misanthrope." Or an "asshole." I tend to think they're interchangable. In short? I can't stand 95% of humanity.

Usually I reserve my hatred for women with huge strollers who insist on standing in the doorway of the T at rush hour and Rush Limbaugh. But my cup runneth over with vitriol, and I'm singling some of you dickbags out.

People who quote themselves.

Have you ever known anyone who did this? Have you ever noticed that everyone who does this is always the stupidest fucking person you know? Your friend with the Ph.D. in English who spent three years writing a thesis on Paradise Lost doesn't quote himself. It's always the dipshit who graduated high school with 2.1 GPA and promptly got a job installing car stereos who thinks he's so chock-full-o'-wisdom that he has to share his enlightenment with the world. Do the world a favor and keep your banal observations to yourself.

People who love the Dave Matthew Band.

I might get a lot of shit for this, but I can't think of any band that is more fucking played-out than the Dave Matthews Band. It's boring yuppie bullshit, consistently enjoyed by asshats in Fortune 500 companies that spend their days figuratively pushing money around with rakes and then as soon as the five o'clock world's whistle blows, they don their khaki cargo shorts and Abercrombie polos and bang their heads to Dave Matthews like he's some fucking killer guitar player. It's like Muzak except you don't have to speculate about the singer's sexuality. Grow a pair and listen to metal, you morons. (Not that I like metal, really. I listen to Robyn.)

Hot lesbians.

What the fuck is your problem? Why do you insist on ignoring me? Why do you absolutely refuse to be swayed by my stunning looks and endless charm? Why do all of you like science so much? Why do you make me look like a plebian? Why must you keep my OkCupid inbox and my soul empty? Why do none of you find me attractive, yet any idiot with a dick and bad haircut whom I'd never screw in a million years won't hesitate to tell me they think I'm hot?

Friends who won't tell you the truth.

THIS ONE. I'm sure it's happened to all of us. You have that one friend who says "Aw yeah we're totally going to hang out on Saturday, it's going to be awesome!" Then they meet up with someone who doesn't like you or who almost got in a fistfight with your husband on New Year's Eve (whoops, whatever, I was so drunk I barely remember it) and then suddenly all that shit is down the drain and you're lucky if they even reply to your text message asking what town they're going to be in. I don't fucking care if you don't want to hang out with me, or can't, or something's occurred to offend your delicate fucking sensibilities. Just be honest about it. My heart isn't going to break.

People who fake disabilities to get money / perks / pity.

There's this guy who fake-hobbles on the train every morning. A fat guy who demands to be given the optimal seating because he's so super disabled and can't walk and has to use crutches. But, if you actually watch him and not just buy into the whole "he must be disabled and I can't question a disabled person's motives," he's using them like fucking ski poles. I long held a suspicion that the guy was faking it. Then I saw him at A.C. Moore, waddling around sans crutches like he was the most able-bodied bastard in the world, buying fabric pant and rick-rack so he can decorate his Lee jeans. Fuck that guy. Also, fuck the guy on the train who purports to be blind yet crushes the Jumble and Sudoku every morning. Blind my ass.

I tried to Google "pictures of women with tools," but most of what I got was pictures of dildos. I'm not even kidding. Try it.

In light of the popularity of Women Laughing Alone with Salad, I thought I'd bust up some other stock photography I find hardly representative of actual life. I hate how in advertising, everyone is perfectly scrubbed and every event - even washing your fucking laundry - is TOTALLY AWESOME AND WORTHY OF SMILES. I get the point, every brand wants to imply that their products make you happy, either directly or indirectly, but let's be honest here: people in advertisements are assholes, and so are you if buy into what they're selling.

(No, I didn't buy these images. What do you think I am, a sucker? iStockPhotos can kiss my ass.)

I ALWAYS see pictures like this. They are meant to convey that drinking wine is a lady-friend-fun thing to do. They neglect the reality of wine drinking: you had a shitty day at work and you're terrified of getting fired, so the only way you can relax is by plowing through a bottle of Pinot Grigio and wishing that you won the lottery, or died, or won the lottery and died the next day because it isn't it ironic, don't you think? Please kill me now.

It really irritates me that every time you see an image of a casino, everyone is beautiful and well dressed. Every casino I've ever been to is chock full of fat middle-aged broads chain-smoking and wearing shirts with puff-paint cats on them. Ever been to Vegas? It's not full of attractive yuppies in silk. It's full of assholes in Ohio State sweatshirts who are going to see Celine Dion and play nickel slots.

 

 

YAY WE ARE WATCHING TV TOGETHER DURING THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY AND EATING POPCORN AND HAVING SO MUCH FUN.

No. Just... no. I watch Hoarders by myself at 3 AM while wearing granny panties and no shirt. Watching television is not some bullshit family bonding experience. I watch television because I don't have a life or a thought in my brain.

 

Can we just kill this stupid trope that for women, eating a piece of chocolate is like coming? The title of this picture is "Chocolate craving." I don't crave chocolate like I crave getting my rocks off, okay? I eat about twenty Reese's peanut butter cups when I'm on my period, but it doesn't make up for the fact that I'm bleeding. If I had to pick orgasms or chocolate, I'm going to pick orgasms. IT'S JUST CHOCOLATE.

In ads, old women fucking LOVE the pool. They love it. It's like as soon as you retire, they give you the keys to the local YMCA and you spend the rest of your days doing water aerobics with all your multi-racial best friends. The truth? I don't know a single old person who goes in a pool. I'm pretty sure it's because they're not morons and know that lots of water plus someone who can't move very well equals DROWNING.

Nobody fucking meditates. Nobody has a sense of "inner calm." That's why people invented whiskey and shoegaze music.

Woohoo! Dance party! Except there are only four people there! Standing on a fake bear rug! And none of them are holding alcoholic beverages! And for whatever reason, the host is a terrible decorator! This party fucking sucks.

EVERYTHING ISN'T ABOUT YOU!

I'm pretty sure I have Premenstrual Dysmorphic Diet-Pepsi-obsessed Dayquil-swilling Distemper Disorder. Why? Well, I'm pounding even more of the aspartame treat than ever, my throat is fucking sore, my boobs have hurt for a week and I really can't stand anyone nowadays. Especially internet commenters.

Yeah, I know. "Who cares?"

I CARE. I work a boring desk job in which I have nothing to do half the day. So I read. A lot. I read Jezebel. All day long.

So the other day, this big Jez shitstorm hit, when one of the editors published an article on sexual consent that all the humorless feminists obviously wouldn't agree with, and the commenters lost their goddamn minds. You'd think they'd never encountered life outside of an encapsulated sounding board, where men can be total assholes and people don't always share your opinions. The idea that they'd even have to face a point of view not in line with their own - and ARGUE its merits - made these women more inflamed than a hemorrhoid.

The editor apologized, noting that she put the post up right before the holiday and wasn't as attentive to the reaction as she should have been. The commenters weren't going to hear it. Someone actually said, "You couldn't do your job because it was a HOLIDAY?" How dare she travel to go spend time with her family on a national holiday when people on the internet are MAD?! The editor then posted a counterpoint article. It wasn't good enough.

So anyway, the content of the original piece was fairly vague and stupid - some American guy goes to Paris, wonders why American chicks aren't as hot and easy as French ladies, and says that maybe we USians sanitize our sex a bit too much. I didn't much care for the article, and I thought it was poorly written. I thought the guy sounded like a douchebag with a fixation on European women. He could have had a point and started a real discussion, but fell short.

But more than anything, the entitlement of these internet lurkers made me want to vomit.

The world does not fucking revolve around you. Somebody wrote something you don't like? Tough fucking shit. The Gawker Media Corporation is not beholden to you and your opinions. The editors of a web magazine do not owe you anything. If anything, they're beholden to the people who buy advertising on their site and pay their bills. People were seriously saying "I am not satisfied with this. I am owed an apology."

Really. REALLY?! You're that mad about the fucking internet? Do you know how many people in the world don't use the internet? ALMOST FIVE BILLION. Do you treat everyone you encounter in your real life like that? Oh, wait, I forgot. You don't have a real life. You spend six hours a day asking people you'll never meet what you should do about that internship that you really wanted but didn't get. 

Maybe that's the scourge of the modern age - absolute and utter narcissism. There are actually people out there believing a company that's the second largest online newspaper in the world should bow down, admit defeat, and let the 200 people who comment regularly control the content that tens of thousands of people read every hour. It goes beyond this to every element of our lives - people who make kissy faces in their Facebook profile pictures which they change twice a day, friends who get pissed off because you don't respond to their text messages immediately, women who are average weight and height and attractiveness and think they're models. I'm just so tired of the fact that everyone in my generation thinks they're some big fucking star.

I'm truly sorry, really I am, but you're going to work a boring job for 45 years. You're going to pop out a couple of mediocre children, you're going to marry someone who's going to get fat and bald, and your idea of a good time will end up being white zinfandel and a U2 cover band. You're not going to go great places and do great things. You're not going to drive a Porsche, you're not going to attend fancy galas, and when you die, there will be but a small crowd of people there to see you into the ground. Just give it up.

Obviously everything isn't about you. It's about me.

I can't stop reading Mormon lady blogs.

I can't help myself. I feel like I'm on a different planet than these people. They're all shiny, attractive, wrinkle-free and wholesome. They've never smoked a cigarette in their lives and they don't watch cable television because it's too crass. They got married at 19 and knocked up at 20 because they're all dying to address their sexualities but aren't allowed to do so outside the contract of matrimony. They think coffee is the work of the devil and they all end up with men that are pre-med but somehow have the money to buy new houses and cars. These people live in an alternate universe where no one is black, gay, fat, poor, or cynical. They put on a happy face and pretend that life is beautiful while they suffocate under the burden of being perfect. They chastize the drunks and addicts but make sure to take their Prozac and Xanax every day, claiming the hand of a doctor somehow divine. They redress doubt not through exploration or rejection, but reaffirmation.

Now, don't consider me an expert. I've only met three actual church-going Mormons in my life. The first two were missionaries brought into my Comparative Religions class in high school. The only things I remember about them were their strange, stilted way of speaking about their church, and the long dowdy skirts they wore. The only other Mormon? A closeted beefcake of a man who slept with Joel. My interest in the culture of LDS and Utah grew, naturally, through the depiction of a polygamous fundamental LDS family on a critically-acclaimed cable television show. Yes, I'm talking about Big Love.

 

I don't know what I find more fascinating - their complete naivete or their thinly-veiled pretentiousness. They're so excited about "helping" people, but their version of helping is bothering people at home and telling them their religion is unsatisfactory and that they need to join the "one true church." They post RENT lyrics and videos of Kristin Chenowith on Broadway, yet pay their tithes to an organized religion that works to ban gay marriage and the ERA.

I guess what intrigues me most is that elements of my life that are SO mundane and banal - getting an iced coffee, dropping an F bomb, wearing a short skirt, buying condoms, having a beer after work, criticizing authority, giving homeless people change - all these things that create the backdrop of my life are not even present in their sheltered little world. Experiences that I find fundamentally American in nature are never experienced by these people. It continues to astound me how multi-layered our society is.

Furthermore, I can't hide my disdain for LDS. I can't pretend I'm not disgusted by the fact one of the faith's founders claimed to have a "calling" just so he could sleep with as many teenaged girls as he wanted without receiving disdain from his followers. I won't trust a religion that refuses to allow the "non-worthy" into their temples, even for their children's weddings. A true church would not turn anyone away. THAT'S "charity"... not baptizing someone posthumously against their wishes. Religion has nothing to do with building $3 billion malls... and it never should.

But that doesn't mean I'm going to stop reading about their alcohol-free Cinco de Mayo festivities and their Vegas honeymoons sans gambling. There are, apparently, numerous Americas - and I'm happy to live in one of them that's real.

if we don't make it, we'll fake it. well, all you broads will.

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I don't fucking get romance novels.

 I'm not heartless, I swear. Brokeback Mountain made me cry.

I know it's not going to shock anyone, but I really don't care for that whole "I have a uterus and thus I am only interested in storytelling about heterosexual love affairs with non-descript characters and one brutally over-dramatized sex scene" thing. I understand that there is a segment of the female population that secretly reads trashy Harlequin romance novels about ripping corsets and riding "members," and that's fine, because they keep that shit on the down low. Nobody would dare to read "Mistress: Pregnant by the Spanish Billionaire" anywhere remotely public.

But, unfortunately, it is socially acceptable to read the printed diarrhea that is any Nicholas Sparks novel. And I want to punch this douchebag in the face simply for introducing his particular brand of fantastical and formulaic love story into the cultural lexicon.

Yet another movie based on one of Sparks' books just came out, with Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth (don't worry, I have no idea who the fuck he is either) playing the romantic leads. Now, I'm not going to see this piece of shit movie - he's responsible for six of these god-awful things so far, and the only one I saw was A Walk to Remember because I was fifteen and a romance-junkie friend dragged me against my will - but I bet I can narrow the plot down in one sentence: Rebellious individual meets overly generous and kind person, they each learn the error of their own ways, make out, and then one of them dies.

.... And this guy makes MILLIONS of dollars? Why, you ask?

I'll tell you why - because American women are given no great fantasy. We all want to escape our lives, right? Transcend the banality of rising at the same time every morning, working in the same cubicle, bogged down by the decision of whether to have chicken or fish for dinner. Society has established numerous legal avenues for men to just get away from their lives - sports, whiskey, Xbox 360, Tolkien, sportscars, the list goes on, ad infinitum.

What do women get? Romance novels.

It's just assumed that LOVE is all we care about. It's just assumed that from the second we're born with a vagina we're just waiting longingly for our princes to come. All our dreams revolve around the white dress, the diamond ring, the moment of completeness when we find The One and can settle down and start popping out children and never worry about anything again except for The One maybe dying in a mudslide (Nights in Rodanthe) or dropping dead at 17 with leukemia (A Walk to Remember) or enjoying a wonderful life with us and then forgetting the entire thing in old age due to dementia (The Notebook).

So basically, Nicholas Sparks is dictating our greatest desires and deepest fears. I'm so glad there's yet another man who knows exactly what women want. I'm also so glad that the vast majority of women have absolutely no taste in literature, because they're all making me look so much more posh by default.