I suppose I should start this here blog by explaining the title. First off, this is not intended to bitch about my lack of friends. This definitely isn’t of the self-help variety either. In fact, if you want to feel better about yourself after reading this, you should probably stop now and move on to Tony Robbins or something. I am the antithesis of that character. In reading this, you will most likely think I am an asshole or some kind of misanthrope with an agenda. There is no purpose to this other than to have a laugh at the expense of others and myself. Chances are I will be the only one amused. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Again, my issues do not lie with the quantity of friends in my life, having always been able to make friendly acquaintances with which I can share a joint or have a beer. The issue lies in my overall connection with folks in this area as it seems everyone fits neatly into their little box, compartmentalized among the other seemingly different boxes. After a while however, all one sees is a wall of cardboard.
There is the hipster box which can be interchangeably mixed with the young hippie one. While everyone has an inner hipster spirit, one must discern between silly impulses to wear something chic and sheer stupidity. Hipsters ignore the former and prance around town in their ultra cool glasses (for which most do not actually have a prescription), cool colored hair, hats, hard soled boots and skinny jeans. Tattoos are more ubiquitous than Mexicans on the Mission and you will find many of these folks
I have no use for these people.
While seemingly “cool” and “down”, MANY of these folks have no idea what counter culture is, just as alternative music sprung onto pop culture like a virus. Eventually everything was alternative. To what, I am still befuddled. How can one be alternative to anything if they look and act like everyone else in their environment? How the FUCK does Nickelback have a career?!
There are countless twelve year old boxes out there with hefty allowances supporting corporations imitating sub cultures in order to make a buck, the whole time diluting what generations before us worked so hard to achieve. The generation from the civil rights movement produced a spoiled, apathetic, lazy and myopic population of degenerate kids with no concept of sacrifice or principal. Now we look at a white kid with “dreads” wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt and call him a hippie, using words like “epic”. The shit makes me nauseous. As a side note- so does B.O. masked by Patchouli. Smelling like ass is not environmentalism. Its hard not to call bullshit on some of these posers sometimes.
In relegating people's character to boxes, I recognize the irony, hypocrisy, extremism; whatever you want to call it, in what I am saying. There is an entire other line of posers here who are so extreme, they can't even be classified in a political/social box. To these people, living any other way than they choose is unforgivable. These are the ones who publicly scold strangers for not bringing their own coffee mug into the shop in the morning rather than waste another cup. They come to your house, take a shit and then don't flush the toilet in the name of saving water.
I briefly dated one of these recently. I tried to look past all the crap because she really is a sweet, brilliant person with a lot to offer some guy or gal out there. First, someone has to scratch through all the fancy paint and I have no desire to be that person. I am not a Death Cab for Cutie fan at all, but I do appreciate the lyrics to the song "Tiny Vessels": Yeah she was beautiful, but she didn't mean a thing to me.
Without allowing one's self to see human beings as they are, and not a box, he limits himself to truly getting to know others in a significant, lasting manner. At the same time, I can count my best friends on one hand and I like it that way. One of them is even a fucking Republican, but that is a discussion for another day.
I fit into Berkeley spectacularly.
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