Kicking Against a Prick

What struck me was that there was no real appeal to truth. It felt good, was the closest she came to defending her position. Our conversation opened with her observation that I missed social cues which resulted in rude behavior. Whereas she told me this triumphantly, in the way a doctor might when, finally diagnosing some troublesome set of symptoms, he would exclaim the name of his patient’s true illness, I stifled a laugh.

The charge is quite true, and the underlying cause is that I don’t care about social cues. I enjoy provoking people; it is fun to ruffle someone’s feathers; in my family, it’s just what we do to everyone. But the other side of the coin is a blindness to body language, a deafness to tone; it’s not just that I don’t care when I do notice social cues, half the time they fly over my head like little birds.

Smiling, I agreed. She then informed me that I needed weed. This would cure my latent rudeness. Disagreeing with this diagnosis, I explained that weed makes people stupid, and we spent a good while discussing the pros and cons of drug use.

From this point, and I don’t know how we progressed onto this subject, she started talking about what I’ll call dog rooms. At her university, during finals, students may visit a room full of strangers’ dogs—sometimes characterized as puppies—to relax. Unfortunately, she said this to a rather rude bloke who either didn’t pick up on her social cues or just didn’t care enough to try, and I simply stated my mind upon the subject.

I think this practice is childish. I may be wrong, and I don’t really care about the issue. I knew of dog rooms, and some part of me found it infantilizing. To counter my point, she replied that I was childish. She seemed upset, said she didn’t want to talk about it, and then the inquisition proceeded. We talked about it—she questioned me—for the next minute, and then I was placed into Coventry.

By now Coventry is a second home to me, and with a pair of earbuds and some podcasts, I may more than amply furnish my room. However, I was left with a few quandaries: Why did she take it personally when I called dog rooms childish? Why, to counter my position, did she proceed to behave childishly? If my attempts at honest discussion end discussion, is it better to live life a spineless coward, only ever engaging in the shallows of discourse?

This dialog seems emblematic of my life: I have grown to expect being cast out as a jerk, have grown used to solitude within groups I once called friends. I fear I’ve grown into something of a porcupine, my indiscriminate pricks at once my defense and the cause of my trouble. I must find others like me.

(Not the first time she and I disagreed. Read more about it here, The Impersonal God, and Pentecost 2018. More on the subject of losing friends due to my personality, Mad World.)