If a Picture is Worth 1000 Words...

Today, I was on the subway when some middle aged douchebag shoved his way onto the train. He bumps some girl who’s standing by the door and then snaps at her, saying “You shouldn’t be standing in the doorway.” She glares at him as he walks by and he starts off on how kids these days are rude.

It bothered me because freaking EVERYONE stands on the sides of the door on the subway so you can get off quickly. Plus, that door is big enough for four (Asian) people to walkthrough at a time. I’d venture the theory that any asshole who is stupid enough to hug the sides of the doorway when there is plenty of room (no people getting off) is at fault here.

Unfortunately, that’s Seoul. Me first, everyone else can rot in a fire and die. It’s distressing because this city also has people who will treat complete strangers like family. Maybe that’s the problem: people might treat you like family but some people treat their family like shit.

Another example happened after I got off the subway and was walking up the stairs. It’s a stairway. At least 8 (Asian) people can walk abreast on the stairway. And yet, as I’m about to plant my foot on the first stair, an older guy who was swerving left to grab the handrail on the left side as he went up, SUDDENLY decides that the right side is better and cuts me off. Really? He’s not in a hurry. He’s walking slow as hell. But instead of “oh why don’t I wait the 0.14 seconds it takes for this guy to go up,” he decides that it is IMPERATIVE, a matter of life or DEATH for him to grab that handrail and slowly walk up the steps. So he cuts me off instead of just waiting for me to pass.

It’s not like he’s going anywhere fast anyway, he’s moving about as slow as you’d expect an old man to move. But no, when he’s gotta grab the right handrail (and he’s already at the left handrail) he’s gotta jump in front of me like someone stabbed him with a cattle prod.

Final example is yesterday, I’m getting out of the elevator on the first floor and SURE ENOUGH some lady almost ploughs into me because she expects the elevator to be empty. LADY. It’s an elevator. The purpose and sole reason for the elevator’s existence is to convey people. Let’s assume that people will be in it rather than not. It carries people as a primary function: PEOPLE WILL BE ON IT. The 0.25 seconds it takes to OPEN YOUR DAMN EYES and look to see if someone is getting off will not prevent you from getting onto the elevator. I promise. Especially since you were waiting for the elevator ALONE. There is plenty of room inside for you and your crazy ego you psychopath. Stop running people over. I have to get out so you can get on. This is very basic: I must leave so you can enter. You can’t enter while I exit simultaneously. Stop. Trying.

I used to be concerned that when I go back to the US I’ll be elbowing old ladies in the face and kicking over baby strollers to get onto the elevator. My recent trip to Japan showed me that I still have decent manners ingrained into my behavior. Which is a good thing, because I’d hate to return to the US and be “that rude Chinese kid.”

My new boss tells EVERYONE we meet my name and that I graduated from college in three years.

While it’s a cool fact, it’s kind of like calling out “BLACKJACK!” at the roulette table. It’s really not relevant to any conversation we could be having. It’s to the point that my last meeting with a student started with “You went to the University of Chicago and graduated in three years?!?”

I have a name, kid. Let’s start there and see where that takes us.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m incredibly proud of myself and more than a little vain. I say I don’t have an ego, but I totally do. It’s just a subtle honking ego.

I don’t want to have to announce how awesome I am; I want people to FEEL the pure awesomeness that leaks from every pore. (See what I mean about a subtle ego?)

It brought me to the self-examination that is the source of today’s inane thought: How do we want to be perceived by others and what kind of disconnect is there, if any?

For instance, I want to be perceived as a hyper intelligent, incredibly good looking, well-rounded,-adjusted, and -read individual who is so sensitive it’s refreshing from all the other assholes out there, but not so sensitive you’d rather snuggle with your favorite gay, a stereotypical tub of ice cream, a few cosmopolitans, and a DVD of “The Notebook” with complimentary Snuggies.

I’m complicated, I know. Women love complicated, right? (Riiiiiiiight. Just keep telling yourself that)

Riding the train, I noticed an old man sitting quietly with his wife. She dozed in the seat next to him as they rode to their destination. The old man seemed lost in thought and I said to myself “When I get old, I’d like for there to be someone there next to me, getting old together.”

And then a pretty young lady walked by and the old man looked her up and down and kept his gaze on her as she walked by him. Eventually his gaze settled on his wife dozing next to him and he let out a great, big sigh.

Another beautiful moment ruined by a Y chromosome. Damn, men are pigs!

I don’t do it because I enjoy hurting people. Actually, that’s usually what stops me from raining on someone’s parade: it occurs to me that I will be doing more harm than good. Despite how arrogant it seems, I really am trying to help when I criticize or correct someone. Maybe it’s my upbringing or just my own personal demons/OCD but when people are flat out wrong and ignorant of it, I feel compelled to let them know. Would you want to know if your fly was down? What does it say about the people who let you walk around all day with your Namdaemun (Southern Gate) down?

I’m the guy who says “by the way, you’re not using that word correctly.” Yeah you hate that guy. Me too, but only because I take serious pains not to ever meet that guy. That is to say, I don’t talk about something I have no idea about and I make sure that I can prove what ever the hell I’m talking about.

For instance, one friend on Facebook posts a photo of her kids in a fairly advanced class begging her to stay by writing on her whiteboard. Ok, her students love her, fine. But kids who are in a class that is supposedly fluent in English are writing “You was my best English teacher” and other grammar atrocities. How good of an English teacher was she if she let her kids get away with that crap? And she didn’t even notice!

I didn’t rain on her parade because 1) we’re not that close and 2) nothing about her personality says to me that she would even really understand the irony there.

Another example is someone who, when I joked that she should make a very unflattering picture her profile picture, she had the gall to tell me that she only puts up unflattering pictures because she has no ego. Really? Cuz I have a helluvan ego. And telling me she doesn’t have an ego and how she doesn’t put up pretty pictures of herself because of that lack of an ego…she keeps using that word but I don’t think she knows what it means.

Anyway, I’m complaining about all this on here because Facebook has become too small of a place for all of my complaining. Like the barber of King Midas, I need to dig a hole and whisper about everything I can’t say outright.

But seriously, are people this clueless? Or am I overly introspective…if I could cut out 1 hour of introspection a day I’d probably be rich and famous and successful. Yay for introspection~~heh….heh….

[…]

I sat there, unable to move for fear of it being the wrong move. There are times in life when there is a right move and a wrong move. And then there are times in life where any move, or even lack thereof, is the wrong move. This was the former.

She made a few half-hearted jabs that seemed more like she was grasping at words she thought she should say but wasn’t quite committed to saying. I had already anticipated them and two weeks of agonizing over the situation had already hardened my heart.

But when she wiped her tears with the tissues I handed to her, I thought to myself that I had no right. I had no right to hold those tears. Those tears were not for me or for her: those tears were for the versions of us who existed before I broke her heart. Those two people would never exist again and so she shed tears for their passing.

What right had I, the one responsible for erasing their existence, to hold those tears? And that hand, that same damned, unworthy hand that held those tears now held my spare key, which she left to me.

That hand carried the weight of one metal key and all the weight of her sorrow, drained into her tears. And I stood there, unworthy: both of her and of her tears and of the damage to her pure heart that these pathetic hands had wrought.

And I’m still there. While she is gone. And so are those two people who existed, in the time before I became unworthy of those tears.

So if you haven’t seen it yet, this (http://gizmodo.com/5833787/my-brief-okcupid-affair-with-a-world-champion-magic-the-gathering-player) is basically an ugly bitch’s rant about how nerds should be easily identifiable, like foreigners – maybe with nametags or arm patches or some sort of funky accent that makes you want to shout “LEARN HOW TO SPEAK LIKE A REAL PERSON.”

What really gets me about this article is that she whines about there not being decent guys in the world, but she can’t get over the fact that this guy is the world champion of something. Sure, it’s Magic: the Gathering. But do you think Michael Phelps has this problem? “Oh my god girl, he has like TWENTY GOLD MEDALS around his neck – ALL THE TIME.”

No, Magic is not nearly as strenuous as swimming. Having done both, I can say that with certainty. But being the best in the world at something requires dedication, intelligence, creativity, and a whole lot of other things this chick is lacking. Which is all for the best, because she doesn’t deserve to be with anyone, as she seems to be of the opinion that only nerds should date nerds or that they shouldn’t be allowed to procreate at all (god what if it spreads like some kind of virus? A sort of—gasp—INTELLIGENCE virus, passed down from generation to generation…like a..like a…GENE or something).

Darwin’s theories produced a similar opinion: stupid people shouldn’t procreate. It’s why nature doesn’t have safety labels. It’s why animals that are too stupid end up dying or caught in traps. It’s why this chick ought to end up forever alone if she can’t believe this guy could be allowed to date HER kind. I mean, friends and acquaintances?!? By god, if these nerds are allowed to talk to non-nerd (in other words, PRETTY girls), we’ll have a revolution on our hands.

It’s fine if she didn’t enjoy her time with him. That’s her opinion and she can even write a shitty blog post about it (although who her audience is, I don’t know. People cut from the same cloth as she is don’t know where the internet is or how to find it, since everything they look for is usually at the bottom of a beer or two or ten). But to suggest that everyone warn their daughters that this Nerd King of Geekdom is going to rain some sort of Card-Game Holocaust down on the women of the “normal folk” and should somehow be prevented from that is just wrong.

So he didn’t put “big fucking nerd” on his OKCupid profile. You didn’t put judgmental narrow-minded bitch on yours. At the end of the day, who really suffers? His “character flaw” you can google. Yours, I had to sit through that poor excuse of an article to sniff out. If there were a Wikipedia page for you, it would have “Are you looking for old maid (disambiguation)? If so, you are the only one because this bitch is dying cold and alone.”

And to be fair, this guy is the best in the world at what he does. Sure, what he does isn’t really a great conversation starter. But your list of achievements wouldn’t even fill the blurb that is on your blog for “profile.” And you still get to procreate, right?

Whatever her opinion, trying to stage some sort of INTERNET Cockblock has got to be out-of-this-world stupid. Who the fuck do you think is on the internet? Nobody who subscribes to the same flavor of crazy as you, lady. Just us nerds. Uh-hurh, uh-hurh, uh-hurh-hurh-hurh.

By the way, he probably banks better than you do, too.

(Most nerds do, since they paid attention in school. All of them, not just high school. Yes there are schools after high school. You just weren’t allowed to go to any of them. Discrimination at its finest – based off of intelligence.)

It’s always awkward when you make a mistake. Even more so when someone has to politely point this out to you. But by far, it is most awkward when you’re not mistaken and it’s getting increasingly harder to be polite as you defend your position.

I was supposed to hang out with a friend this Saturday. I asked him, “Hey man, what you are up to on Saturday?” He tells me he -HAS- to meet up with some old coworkers. “—But, if you’re planning stuff, I’d much rather hang out with you and your friends.”

Well that’s quite the fluff to the old ego. I am, after all, awesome. So I quickly make plans (I’ve come to realize that I’m a bit of the planner type, “where should we meet, when, etc” because leaving it to chance or to your friends will result in it not happening, lazy bastards). He agrees, he’s stoked. YEAH VIDEO GAMES UNTIL FOREVERRRRRRR

That was Thursday. Today is Saturday. I send him a quick email confirming our plans. He sends me back this:

“Haha, yeah it would be great to hang out. But did you forget I’m hanging out with my former coworkers? Sorry man, maybe next time :-(“

If I could zoom in, I’d be zooming in on “BUT DID YOU FORGET I’M HANGING OUT WITH MY FORMER COWORKERS? SORRY MAN, MAYBE NEXT TIME :-(”

WTF? I understand if I had just mentioned it and let it drop. But we made concrete plans, he agreed to them, he was even happy about it! And then on the day of, he acts like we never made concrete plans?

I know I sound like a chick. It’s one thing if he REALLY wanted to go. But to say that he’d rather hang out with me and then totally ditch me for his former coworkers who he doesn’t even like??? Seriously?

And they all speak Korean. What is he going to say?

Whatever the case, I was most annoyed at having to respond to that. How do I stay polite while also telling him he made the plans and then broke them? I mean…there’s not a polite way to do that. Not to mention I just helped him get a brand new TV for super cheap (saved him like $300) out of the goodness of my blackened heart.

Sometimes I don’t understand people. Being a good friend is apparently not what some people are looking for. I’m not losing sleep over this, but I was making the effort to be friends because his girlfriend just left Korea (who I am good friends with and who actually begged me to spend more time with him since he has almost no friends here in Korea) and now I just don’t even feel like it.

[EDIT] I am not even kidding you, right after I clicked “publish” I got a text from him saying “Hold up, video game night might still happen. Text you back in an hour.” I am ripping out my hair at this point. Say WHAT? Like…do I even want to hang out with this guy now? Not only that, but I shifted plans since his email. Even if things do happen, it’s gonna be awkward as hell hanging out with him.

How do you deal with people who reject your friendship?

…is the anthem of every drunken friend ever. In the history of all time. And of being drunk.

Randomly at work, I get struck by a memory. It has NOTHING to do with anything I was seeing or thinking of. Rather than something triggering the memory, it felt more like a random burst of memory.

I’m with my friends and we’ve had a little to eat and a lot to drink (not me, I don’t drink) and it’s late. Like early morning late. We decide to hit up a KFC because it looks fried and delicious. After we eat, my friend who is pretty wasted but not completely gone, tries to get me to translate for him (we’re in Korea and his Korean is terrible when he’s sober). He won a stuffed animal in win-a-stuffed-animal-dart-game and he wants to give it to the woman working the register. She’s not one of the regular grunts, one of those manager-types.

B = Friend. Me = Well, me.

B: I’m not drunk, man.

Me: Are you ordering? Let’s go man…

B: *shaking me off* No no..hold on…tell her this is a present. For her. *hands her stuffed animal*

Me: *long sigh* [in Korean] This is for you. A present.

Woman: [Yes?] *looks really uncomfortable*

B: No no…it’s not like that….Tell her I just want her to have it.

Me: [I’m sorry, my friend is drunk. Please take the toy. Feel free to throw it away]

B: You know, it’s late, she’s tired, I’m tired…but she’s here working. I just want to do this nice thing for her.

Me: You are so drunk. We’re creeping her out. Let’s go…

B: What? No, no I’m not drunk…did you tell her? Tell her *grabs my arm*

Me: [Please don’t call the cops. We’re leaving. He’s a really nice guy when he’s sober. I think he just wants to brighten up your evening.]

Woman: [Um…] *smiles politely* [Tell him I said thank you]

B: I’m not drunk man! *falls against me*

Me: [Please don’t call the cops. For real. We’re gone]

I wonder what happened to her. Did she throw it away? Did she have a funny anecdote to tell her friends? Was she maybe touched in some corner of her heart?

I often wonder about how an event unfolds when I’m not around to witness it.

How would you feel in her shoes?

Kids these days…they have such a wide variety of toys. I think I must be getting old because 1) I say “kids these days” and 2) I’m about to say “Back in MY day…”

Judge for yourself, though. Which toy would YOU rather have as a child:

1) Modern, super detailed blabbity-blah-blah Marvel Universe Sentinel Action Figure:
http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/07/07/hasbro-comic-con-exclusive-sentinel-action-figure/

OR

2) KICKASS does all sorts of cool shit, offering hours of entertainment and pure awesome, mid-90’s block of cool-as-hell plastic toy:
http://whydidibuythat.blogspot.com/2011/06/sentinel.html

I owned #2, in case you were wondering. AND HE WAS AWESOME!!! OMG!!!! I still remember that a friend broke the grappling hook thing…what a dick. But the fist punch and the pop-out chest cavity still rocked my socks off. I COMPLETELY forgot about the pop-out feet, though.

A friend on Twitter posted up pics of #1 and was all drooly over it. Which I can understand. But #2!!!!!!! Lookit that lack of detail but plethora of function! Who fricken cares that he’s probably killing the environment!

Mutants: BEWARE!

I miss my packed-away Gundams and all the action figures my mom threw away when I left for college.