Bitchy McBitcherson's Blog

Tag: hermit

  • I am not a social caterpillar.

    I keep trying to write something about my weekend, but I am still too tired to manage. It kept trying to turn into some large thing about introversion, which wasn’t what I actually wanted to say about the weekend.

    I am antisocial. I am an introvert. These two things are not the same. I have always been an introvert and have no reason at all to expect this to change. There have been studies which show differing brain activities between introverts and extroverts. This lends credence to the fact I was simply born this way, and will continue to be this way, short of a serious head trauma.

    Main Entry: an·ti·so·cial
    Function: adjective
    Date: 1797
    1 : averse to the society of others : UNSOCIABLE
    2 : hostile or harmful to organized society; especially : being or marked by behavior deviating sharply from the social norm

    Main Entry: un·so·cia·ble
    Function: adjective
    Date: 1600
    1 : having or showing a disinclination for social activity : SOLITARY, RESERVED

    Main Entry: dis·in·cli·na·tion
    Function: noun
    Date: 1647
    : a preference for avoiding something : slight aversion

    Today I will just look at antisocial in the first definition provided by Merriam-Webster. I am not always unsociable. This is a learned behavior, and is affected by my moods. There have been times in my life when I was not antisocial, there are times when I am less and more social. Being social always drains my energy reserves and I always need time to recuperate. However sometimes I am much more open to that, and sometimes I am even less enamored of social interaction than I am right now. I know many introverts who are much more social than I am, either by choice or simple function of their chosen career or significant other.

    There are many factors that play into my general antisocial nature, but probably the biggest one is that I just don’t tend to like people. Liking somebody is a big deal to me. This is not the same as hating everybody. I am not sitting here feeling intense hatred for everybody I do not actively like. I do not have enough energy to be bothered with that. Most people fall into the vast sea of indifference. If forced to look directly at them I might briefly feel something else toward them, but it is of little consequence.

    Admittedly this likely has ties in to my introversion. I have a friend who is an extrovert. Her assessment of people, if we speak specifically about them, is very similar to mine. She dislikes the same sort of behaviors and is very easily annoyed or disgusted by things. However her overall view of people, while not actually more optimistic than mine, is warmer than mine. I am convinced that this is because being around all those people, who are essentially in her sea of indifference, still gives her an energy boost.

    I know another extrovert who is so much an extrovert I actually believe it is pathological. It is basically impossible for him to not like somebody, no matter how much of a real and true complete asshole they are, because he simply gets such a big ass high from being around people. Literally the more the merrier for him. So much so, that he drives away people that are supposedly closer to him because he invites anybody he can think of to anything, even people that ones close to him have real reasons for disliking. He can sit through a party and do nothing but have a fight with somebody, and he is having fun. It is almost impossible for him to grasp that maybe the person he is fighting with is not enjoying it just as much. He feels like all human interaction is good. This is not a conceptual thing, it is real and physical for him.

    Since being around people drains me, I prefer to do it, either for work, or with people I really like, and I don’t seek out a lot of interaction with the masses. I know introverts who like a lot more people than I do, it is not solely a symptom of introversion, not at all. I also happen to have a very long and detailed memory. I don’t make an effort to hold a grudge, I just can’t help it. I still feel exactly how I felt when whatever happened, happened. I can hear the sounds. I can smell the smells. I probably know exactly what I was wearing. Plus the older I get the less tolerance I have.

    Now I find myself tempted into launching into something about friends, but I am way too tired for that as well. I also happen to be antisocial according the the second definition provided by Merriam-Webster, but that is also a post for another day. Today I am just going to stick with this.

  • Another step toward becoming a hermit, on a mountain… with a shotgun (and internet access)

    We were running out of things we needed, important things, like dog food. Since I know that if we go too long without dog food, we’ll become the food, I forced myself to go to the grocery store.

    I had forgotten to make a list, so the shopping experience took longer and was more frustrating than usual, except in many ways that is the usual. I even knocked an item off the shelf and broke it, creating a mess. “Clean up on aisle 13!” I was finally ready to checkout, and there was only one line open. There were 10 people ahead of me (but some were together), and as I waited 3 more people joined the line behind me. People were getting antsy.

    The Assistant Manager spoke to the cashier and then walked over to another lane. As the cashier informed the people in our line that another check stand would be opening, an older woman walked up with her cart to where the AM was getting signed in to the register. The AM had not turned on the light. The older woman asked, “Are you open?” Obviously she thought we were all stupid. Of course the line was open, but we couldn’t be bothered to ask and just preferred to queue up with more than a dozen other people. The AM pointed toward our long line and told her, “I’ll be opening up, but I’ll be taking the next person in line.”

    The older woman huffed and muttered something under her breath.

    Meanwhile, in the line I am waiting in, everybody looks at each other to determine who is splitting off and who is staying. The next person in line already had her items on the belt. The people behind her decided to peel off for the new lane. This was a group of six people who were all there together, but paying separately. They only had four items between them. The person directly in front of me elected to stay in line, so I went to the new line and one person behind me followed.

    The older woman was pissed. She grumbled her way over to the first line I had been in, at exactly the place she would have been had she got into line to start with, complaining the whole way about “people cutting in front of her”. When she got up to the cashier she asked who was in charge, and the cashier pointed to the AM. This angered the older woman even more. The AM is trying to answer her angry accusations from the other lane, which slows her considerably in getting through my order.

    This allowed the older woman to finish checking out before me. She then came over and started complaining up close and personal to the AM. The AM was trying to finish ringing me up, but the older woman kept interrupting her. She wanted the manager’s name and phone number and the AM told her it was printed on the bottom of her receipt. The older woman insisted that the AM write it down for her and write down her own name. The AM finished helping me first, enraging the customer further. Essentially she was pissed off because she thought that the AM should have only taken one person from the other line, and then allowed her to be second. She said the AM had treated her badly by saying she was “taking the next person in line” but then taking more than one per person from the line. Absolutely nobody had gotten checked out ahead of her who hadn’t already been in line when she came up to the front of the store. Not only that but all her arguing meant that two people finished AFTER she did. She didn’t even seem to be in much of a hurry, since she was still hanging out to gripe long after her own transaction was complete.

    I checked over my receipt until MrsGrumpyBritches finally stomped and muttered her way out the door, and then I gave the AM my business card and told her that if manager had any questions, she could call me.

    I try to avoid leaving my house, it rarely works out well for me. Stupid dogs.