There was another guy at the bar last night. I was watching him from the balcony. Looking up at his friends and at me, he began dancing to disco music, spinning around with his arms extended like Lynda Carter in "Wonder Woman." At the highlight of the song, he took the beer bottle he was holding, put the bottom of it into his mouth, deep-throated it and kept spinning.
His friends were laughing, and I was laughing. When he saw me laughing, he was sorta mildly amused, it seemed, that his behavior attracted attention.
When I left the bar, I walked past him and, smiling, said, "Wow, what you did was as amusing as it was unattractive."
I was trying to be funny.
But he didn't like that.
If it'd been one of my friends, then a friend would've found it funny.
There's, apparently, a social dynamic that I don't quite get.
It would've been better not to say anything.
Vic told me that my behavior is tied to how intimidated I am.
"You were bullied when you were a kid," she said. "And now you're a bully in your own way. You pick on people to see if they're smart enough or nice enough. You try to find people who'll play your game back at you."
There's something I've always found forgiveable and even amusing about a clever insult.
Vic told me over the phone today that Oscar Wilde, Truman Capote, Dorothy Parker and Groucho Marx were great at it, but they probably didn't have that many close friends.
Larry, also on the phone today as I legitimately examined my capacity for true rudeness, told me that he found me both rude and blunt. But he said he wouldn't change it at all.
"It's just your way," he said.
Why does that seem more like a curse, though?
More often than not, I'm thought rude ... "until you get to know me."
Can I file for a social exemption in those cases? Can I make the first impression not count?
Is this a problem to solve?
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