I Don't Think I Like Most People Very Much

    I understand how isolationist and brooding that sounds, but trust me, I'm not about to go on a 14-paragraph-incel-rant about how "people don't understand me, mom", I quite honestly couldn't give less of a shit if they did or didn't.

No, I don't think it's quite so internal. I think as time as gone by, people have gotten noticeably more insufferable in general. Not everyone, there's definitely a sizable chunk of people I enjoy socializing with and talking to. But I think, overall, everyone's kind of a dick? And it's only gotten worse? As someone who used to love the sound of my own voice as a child I've grown far and away from such self-importance, though I feel like people around me have grown into it.

I might just be reading into it too deeply, and I understand how even expressing this sentiment can make me sound like a holier-than-thou prick, so I have to choose my words a little carefully, or be overly verbose to hopefully ensure my point lands. I'm an idiot with a keyboard, not an accomplished writer.

I consider myself to be a people pleaser, I like to see people I'm around enjoying their time, and I love to be a contributing factor in that enjoyment. Though, I can still sleep well at night knowing that I can't please everyone, and not everyone gels well with me. That's fine. No love lost. I think it's more so about the initial encounter, and the decreasing probability that someone else will offer me a baseline level of courteous respect instead of immediately trying to reduce me into a box that makes them comfortable in psychologically, or literally, ostracizing me.

Although I speak about this from my own perspective, I have voiced this observation to other people who have agreed, so while this might sound like a very icky "woe is me" piece, it's very much me speaking on behalf of a handful of my peers who also seem to share this sentiment.

So what's the deal? I couldn't begin to imagine what programs people to behave in such a self interested manner as they get older, and even people with good moral compasses fall into this pattern of behavior; where everything they perceive is to be met with disrespectful combativeness. I guess I can understand how it happens on a case by case basis but it certainly seems to be an increasingly prevalent phenomenon.

For example, just yesterday I was talking to a couple people about how I think paid-twitter has made people think their opinions are worth more than they actually are, and one person in the group responded with, almost verbatim, "And in [discussing] it and expanding such vitriol not only do you prolong it on yourself, but on others too. You are giving bad faith actors even more reach than [social media does]". Which? I mean, what the fuck? I guess so? Sure? But is my expression of disapproval at someone else's offensive rhetoric also something to criticize? If so, why? Does it make you feel more intellectual to merely sound like you're making a poignant point? That you've satisfied your ego by fabricating some sort of critical analysis on how the discussion of negative rhetoric only proliferates said rhetoric? What does that say even say about the state of conversation? "Thou shall not discuss that which you do not want to spread"? What kind of shit is that? 

It becomes difficult to talk to people then, especially newer people with whom you have not yet earned any leniency with. Everything is taken in bad faith and at face value. I don't know about you, but that does discourage me from reaching out, it doesn't make it impossible, but I have become tremendously more reserved about the frequency in which I make such attempts. 

I do sort of feel alienated by this advent, very frequently. Though what irks me the most is that, no one else seems to care. 

No, not "no one else seems to care" about me, I mean no one else seems to care about other people being colossal dicks. While I (probably unwisely) take this combativeness to heart and allow it to skew my willingness to engage with new or existing relationships, a lot of other people seem to just not care when it happens to them. I cannot express enough how frequently I, as a fully grown adult, have had to console a friend of mine who was blatantly disrespected by another friend of theirs, only for those two to be best buddies a day later as though there's nothing bubbling under the surface. I can't tolerate this sort of thing, how anyone else can is beyond me.

I would rather be quick to disassociate myself from people who I feel are trying to, or inadvertently, disrespect me than continue to entertain that level of, what I can only imagine to be, psychological immaturity, and it's rampant nowadays. 

That all might sound like I have no friends, quite the contrary, it means that the friends I do have are, while fewer and further between, worth their weight in gold. I think more people should share that mentality. 

If this all sounds quite juvenile: yes, it absolutely does. I want to believe I've just drawn a bad hand, that somehow this data pool has concentrated around me in my adult life, but I can't say that with confidence. Even strangers I have no association with, whether online or in real life, seem to start off combative, rude, or vindictive more frequently than I would expect or can appreciate. It all grows quite tiresome, and yes, alienating. 

Safe spaces don't feel quite "safe" or like "spaces", as interactions are routinely boiled down to middle school courtyards, where the illusion of "safety" is nothing more than a hanging tattered banner that no one's acknowledged since the 80s that reads "Welcome, You're Respected!" before you try and shake someone's hand only for them tell you that hand shakes are "acktuyally a perpetuation of colonialist tradition". This is a grandiose exaggeration, but I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about. The fly in the ointment of modern social interaction, someone's always gotta be a dick about something, political affiliations not withholding.

I believe wholeheartedly that people can and should be allowed to stand by deep seeded personal convictions, it's what makes people "people", and not part and parcel to hive-mindedness. That said, could you at least buy me dinner before you call me a "woke-libtard" for saying that the new Assassin's Creed is actually pretty good?

I had a 20 year old just the other day try and explain to me the intricacies of the job market. I'm almost 25, I've had less-than-favorable entanglements with the job market since I was 18. I do not need someone who hasn't graduated college yet who, mind you, had had their parents subsidize their entire life, including networking, explain how the job market works. This type of over-extension, that I didn't ask for, is what I call "Blatant Disrespect".

Young man, in what world did you think yourself so important and well-realized that you could impart any manner of wisdom onto me? Especially a strain so wrought with naiveté.

I think a lot of this has to do with what I've observed as I've gotten older, and I don't know if this is an issue with Gen-Z or if this is a phenomenon that has plagued any and all generations; people are weirdly okay with being disrespected. While I don't think the solution is being confrontational, there has to be a way to address this. Consequentially, I believe that dynamic has given the perpetrators, for lack of a better word, the idea that they're allowed to say quite literally whatever they want with little to no pushback or tangible consequence. It's made people vile.

Key Takeaways Here:

1) I don't care if people respect me, I just wish people didn't act like they did when they clearly do not.

2) This brand of unmindful aloofness people possess that allows them to disrespect others is neither cute nor are they getting away with it the way they think they are, it's psychological abuse, and it is soiling social interaction on a macro-scale.

Ultimately, proceed how you will. There's really not much I can do or say to convince anyone of anything. But the point remains, I don't think I like most people very much, and by the way most people act; I don't think they want to be liked very much, I think they just expect platitudes and smiles because people are increasingly unwilling to call them out for being dicks.