People are strange....

I am obsessed with CNN.com. I love it and am compelled by a force greater than myself to monitor it constantly. I have wasted months of my existence combing through breaking news stories and superfluous articles. What is truly saddening, though, is my particular brand of media fetish. Relevant, important news such as presidential elections or devastating natural disasters, blah! That rubbish is for people with too much time on their hands. Articles about “Toilet Paper Wedding Gowns Honored” or “8 Limbed ‘Goddess’ Baby Becomes Normal Girl”, shit, I stop teaching and pull out the worksheets when news like that breaks. It’s despicable, but my life revolves around meaningless crap.

I like to believe these exotic tidbits give me a certain edge at parties, or when I was still single, in helping to meet prospective sex partners. While other losers break the ice with anecdotes about the weather or the horrors of the genocide in Rwanda, bitches are literally throwing themselves at me to learn more about “Busy Moms: How do they Stay Afloat?” or how “Hats and Heels Reign Supreme on Ladies Day.”

Alright, so if I was not engaged I would probably never have sex again, but I know there have to be people out there who share my proclivity for useless, mundane news.

Right?

Apparently, this population is larger than I thought. Surfing through the latest updates, I recently noticed a new icon positioned next to CNN’s “Top Stories” that resembles a t – shit. Clicking on it, I learned that if one was so inclined, a person can now order a t –shirt with their favorite CNN.com headline printed on it. Yes, now you too can have a plain white t-shirt with “Autistic Man Found after Week in the Woods” or my personal favorite, “Condo Pool Nudity Rankles Residents” pasted across it. First of all, what in the hell does “rankles” mean, and secondly, who is buying this shit? Is there no God? I acknowledge that I am a sick freak, but I am not about to print it on a t-shirt for the entire world to see. If you wear one of these shirt s in public you might as well be saying, “Hey, be sure not to park next to my van in the mall parking lot because otherwise I’ll cut you up and eat your toes.”

Why do people have to be so damn odd?

I do not know about you, but I feel like the warped and socially incompetent of the world all flock to me. It is as if I send out some kind of signal that attracts their adult braces or oversized hearing aids. What makes it worse is once they have established contact, I am unable to push them away. I smile and nod and act as if I am fascinated by their grandmother’s discolored mole, and no, I did not know it was a bad sign if it started to itch.

My tolerance has nothing to do with kindness either. Fuck, I hate these people. It is my own sick self-conscious need to have everyone like me. No, not just like, I need them to revel in my presence. I need anyone near me to think “Wow, what a fun, down to earth guy. Clearly he is content.”

Meanwhile I am feeding my emaciated ego with their every smile and chuckle. Pathetic I know, but I must concede that weird people are the best. Finding most others intolerant of their lazy eye or lisp, my forged interest makes me a God to them. Finally, someone sitting at the cool lunch table cares. (Not that I actually sit at the cool lunch table, but when spend your life eating with the cafeteria staff and special ed. students, it does not take much.)

The problem of course is when these people continue to swarm around me well after my self-image has been fulfilled. Can’t they see I am done pretending to care? The worst is when a onetime conversation is misinterpreted as a friendship, and they follow me everywhere I go. For instance, there was a girl I attended graduate school with whose presence was about as pleasurable as an infected ingrown toenail, but who somehow adopted me as her new BFF. Though seemingly normal in appearances, after thirty seconds of conversation, I began wondering if she was raised in one of those polygamist cults that did not allow TV or peanut butter. Or maybe she was just retarded. Fuck, I don’t know. I just know she was weird and somehow thought I cared.

I recall one night sitting on the front porch of our dormitory with a friend and his wife, and while the rest of our group had gone to bed, Little Miss Weird – Ass Sunshine remained. While talking about teaching and retelling humorous little anecdotes about students and parents, girl wonder abruptly interrupts with, “Do y’all eat chalk?”

Do ya’ll eat chalk…?

What in the hell is a person suppose to say to that? And of course, as I am the one responsible for her presence, the obligation to respond falls upon me. Not knowing what to say or where she is going with this inquiry, I try the stoner approach and say, “Yeah, um, I hear that shit will fuck you up.” What? Fuck you up? I know, I know, but what other options did I have.

“I use to eat chalk”, she explains, and then suddenly gets up, gathers her things, and goes to bed. No explanation to her question. No justification for why one might eat chalk. At least she was gone, however. A few days later I was rushing to catch the elevator, and after throwing myself between the closing doors, I found it was just her, me, and 5 floors of forced conversation. Looking at her face it was obvious she had been crying, and needing to be needed, I asked what was wrong. Apparently her grandfather had just passed away unexpectedly, and she was making arrangements to leave for the funeral. While that was sad or whatever, what was really shocking was the lucidity this travesty had granted her. No awkward questions or uncomfortable non – sequiturs. It seems the shock of her grandfather’s death had somehow sent her into normal discourse. Well, thank God that woman died when she did. Otherwise, can you imagine how unpleasant that elevator ride might have been?

Just the other day I had another run in with the socially useless. While using the computer at the library, a man walked in and sat across from me. Though he seemed fairly normal at first, something about him caught my eye and compelled me to take a closer look. The man’s trimmed gray hair and clean shaven – chin were complimented by the orange foundation and deep crimson rouge caked to his face. This lovely aesthetic gesture was accented by the ruby stud costume earrings resting daintily under his forest of ear hair. Lovely. Now, I am no expert in this field, but I feel like if I were going to dress like a woman, I would at least want to look pretty.

Regardless, as I moved in for a closer look, we made eye contact, and then I knew I was screwed. I smiled and returned to my Facebook profile, but for the next thirty minutes, I found myself constantly peering across the table and smiling. I felt I had to make grand gestures of civility to this science experiment gone wrong so he would know I did not think him to be a freak of fucking nature that probably grew up masturbating with his mother’s panties over his head. No, I celebrated his diversity.

Not being able to leave till he did, lest he think I was afraid of him, I found myself back on CNN.com. Maybe more people should buy these t-shirts. That way, I could see “Kids Fed ‘Silly Pills’, made to do Sex Shows” from afar and just stay away.