Friday, I'm In Love ! Volume Five - Mr SelfRighteous

Welcome to Friday, I’m in Love!  This Friday series will share my tales, both funny and absurd, but mostly funny, from my real life as a crummy dater.  Or, maybe just my crummy dates.  Either way, these cautionary tales are public service announcements for the heart weary and hopeful – read wisely, carefully.  These “types of dates” are rare breeds indeed, so, please, fellas, don’t be insulted – and also don’t be one of these guys.   Ladies:  interesting times, yes.  On the bright side, I've already spent time with these quirky cats so you don’t have to and you’re welcome.

Volume  Five – Mr SelfRighteous

Love this one.  The date itself wasn’t all that bad, but it did quite a bit to solidify my world view on something – that’s progress!

Mr SelfRighteous was (well, he still is I guess) an architect.  Cool.  Very cool.  People that can build things and are handy really excite me because I break things and don’t have fun with hammers.  I have anti-life skills, so I’m all for the solid life skills of build and make.  We met at The Swan, and chatted for a long while over oysters.  I don’t particularly like oysters but it’s good to be open minded and willing to try things – this is a good life skill, I think.

I’m a big fan of mindless chit chat.  Mr SelfRighteous not so much.  He was super serious and on point.  I appreciate that perhaps he had an agenda to get through, questions about me that needed answering before deciding to move forward or back, but at the end of the day does it really matter where I went to university or where I was born?  I don’t really think so.  The big question I want answered is:  can I talk to you?  and the only way to answer that is to actually do some talking.  Not Q&A talking, but simple common interest, anecdotal talking.  All the other stuff will come out and sort itself out naturally – maybe I’m being naïve, but I think this is ultra important. If you’re right and I’m left and we talk our way to centre, what’s better than that?  Anyway, I was trying to mindlessly chit chat and Mr SelfRighteous was questioning me but it was all pretty okay.

As a self confessed pop culture junkie, it doesn’t take long for a story or commonality to eventually reference its way back to a TV show I’ve watched, movie I’ve seen, book I’ve read, band I’ve heard.  I really love it when someone gets your reference points on this stuff without missing a beat - it’s like the sky has opened up and angels are singing – it is beyond the best.  Just an immediate click, a laugh and subliminal knowledge that you’re on the same page.  Often, this reference point works its way to Seinfeld because, well, it’s Seinfeld.  Come on.   After a very innocuous Seinfeld reference (I believe it was the big salad), my night went from pretty good to life altering.  Here’s how : (HE is in Italics.  ME is in This.)
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Oh – I’ve never watched Seinfeld. 

Wow.  (This is actually fascinating to me.)  Really?  Never an episode?

No, I don’t have a TV.  (This is equally fascinating to me.)

Really?  No TV?

No, I haven’t owned a TV since 1998.  (This is now science experiment fascinating to me.)

Really?  Since 1998?  That’s a hella long time, tell me about that. (This “tell me” business needs to stop as it’s usually where things go on the serious downslide.)

TV is pretty mindless to me. I enjoy listening to CBC Radio or jazz while reading in the evenings. (Oh. Dear. God.  Kill. Me. Now.  But, well, okay – he’s eccentric.  Until he posed two questions with such loathing and pretentiousness I almost felt my skin crawl.)

You have a TV?

(Dude.  Are you serious?  What type of question is that?  I was a little kid in the 70s when moms thought TV was a babysitter.)  Well, yes, of course I have a TV.

What do you watch on TV?

(Okay, so you want to judge me now?  You’re ON: ) The BBC, Documentaries & The History Channel (fine, mainly lies, but seriously, he deserved it).
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He was now simply unable to let this go.  My TV ownership and marginally fabricated viewing habits were so low classy and vapid you’d think I told him I believed those velvet dog paintings were high art.  He didn’t say this of course, but there was a tone of condescension that was inescapable.  Look, I know I could sometimes be nicknamed The Superficial, but seriously, it’s a friggin’ TV and yes, I watch some crap and I watch some good stuff but it’s really nothing worth judging because it’s totally normal.  Normal people own TVs.  Normal people watch TV.  Normal people do not judge other people for being normal.  We are not worse, we are not better, we simply are.

But Mr SelfRighteous thought he was better.  He thought he had one on me, what with all my flagrant TV owning and watching.  In truth I don’t watch a ton of TV it just seems like I do because I read Entertainment Weekly and watch The Soup so I get a full round up of everything without having to watch everything (so efficient!), but that’s not the point.  The point is, I’m not making you feel like a weird “where’s your pipe” nutjob because you listen to jazz and CBC Radio in the evening while reading so why are you lording over me and my TV?   I’m not judging you, why are you judging me? 

When did it become normal to be weird? When did we start judging people for being normal?  Why am I now the weirdo?

My life lesson here is pretty simple.  Live and let live.  Embrace eccentricities, but don’t be pretentious about your own.  Be open minded (I ate the fucking oysters) and curious.   We are all weird, we are all normal.  There’s room for everyone – that’s what makes the world the world – and that just makes everything better.  Mr SelfRighteous?  Judging normalcy with an upturned nose?  He’s just making things worse.