Friday 4 January 2008

Hell is other people (it's not as bad as it sounds)

At last, I got paid to day so I was able to buy some food that isn't pasta. I even got up early this morning to go down the local cafe and have a fry up and it was amazing. I really can't remember the last time I had one, I think it might've been over a month ago on my housemates birthday.
Ordering and waiting for my food was a slightly awkward experience though. The lady who works in the cafe is a really nice, friendly, and welcoming person who enjoys small talk. I however, am quiet, at times stand offish, not unfriendly but not always the warmest person either, and I really really hate small talk. To me it's pointless talk. They call it small talk because it is about nothing, and people only really use it with people they don't know because for some reason, when you don't know someone very well, silence is uncomfortable and wrong. In those moments we all seem to forget that often with friends and loved ones there are times conversation stops and you share long moments of silence togther that can go by unnoticed.

Back to the lady in the cafe, like I said she's friendly and likes to chat, though really it's kind of one sided, which suits me fine. She just makes short bubbly statements that don't necessarily require an answer; that I can just smile and nod my head to, and she seems happy with that. I've found that the kind of women you generally find working in places like greasy spoons and burger vans actually find me quite sweet and think I have a lovely smile (though according to one friend I have a face that says "I'm gonna fuck you hard", so maybe that's why they take a shine to me (when my friend made that comment to me about my face I took it as a compliment, but I have since started to think that it could be interpreted to mean that I have one of those faces that says "I'm gonna rape you"). So ordering my food this time wasn't too bad as I didn't really have to say anything.

While waiting for my food I began to feel uncomfortable again. I made the mistake of not bringing a paper, which means having sit around pretending to read the menus off the walls or looking at my table. In most restaurants or cafes waiting around generally isn't a problem, but like I said the woman in the cafe was quite chatty and I was afraid at any minute she was gonna say something to me like "cheer up love, it might never happen". I know it sounds neurotic for me to think like this, but that particular phrase is said to me all the time because people think I look unhappy even though I'm not. It's just the way my face sits. I'm not saying I'm bursting with joy in those particular moments, I'm usually either in a state of indifference or in deep thought about something. In fact, someone telling me to cheer up when I'm enjoying a perfectly good think will almost certainly put me in a bad mood.

So to avoid this happening I looked around to see if there was a newspaper free but it looked like the four builders sitting at the table next to me already had them all. I then considered going across the road to the newsagents to buy a paper, but if i did that I would have to buy the Sun, Mirror, or *shudder* the Daily Mail. To walk back in and sit down to read the Guardian could draw negative attention from the Daily Star reading builders next to me, because a) I'm a reading a "lefty" newspaper, and b) they'll realise I'm a student. In the end I opted not to leave to buy a newspaper and just waited for my food to arrive, desperately hoping that the lady in the cafe wouldn't make a comment regarding the state of my face (the emotional state that she thinks it's projecting I mean).

Now I know I was probably overthinking the situation far too much, shifting myself into the realms of paranoia, but this is the way I think nearly all the time. But I do know that I'm not the only one. Like a friend of mine who has a fear of walking past groups of young girls because he thinks they might start trying to shout at him or make fun. I have another friend who now walks further away than he should have to so he can buy cigerrettes in a shop where the woman who serves him is rude and abrasive because he can't think of anything new to chat about with the guy in his local shop.

If I'm honest though, I've always been paranoid, it's not been a subtle progression into neurosis. For example, when I was about four I really liked fish (still do), but I refused to eat fish that had come out of a can or a packet. I didn't trust it. I wasn't convinced it was real fish and I would make my dad go to the fish mongers and buy a fish with it's head still attached. With morbid fascination I would insist on watching him cut its head off and prepare it in the kitchen to make sure he wasn't goint to try and switch it with the canned stuff.

Another case in point, this evening when I went to the bus stop to catch my bus to work, as I approached the stop, a woman/girl (i'll explain in a minute) who was sitting waiting for her bus stared at me for longer than felt comfortable. I imediately thought that there must be something wrong with me, like a bird had shat on my head, or maybe she thought I had one of those "I'm gonna rape you" faces. I began to feel very concious of myself. To avoid her stares I stood behind her.

She turned her head and looked at me again. I put my hand to my face to check there was nothing on it. But then I considered the possibility that perhaps she was checking me out, but perhaps a little (a lot) more blantantly than a girl would usually check a guy out.
Over the next couple of minutes she frequently looked my way and I became more certain that she was looking at me, but in some ways it was too late for me to want to do anything about it. That initial look from her as I came up to the bus stop had made me feel a little uncomfortable and freaked me out a little and it wasn't going away. Plus there was the issue of her age. I tried to glance over at her a few times without letting her see me staring just as she would turn her head away from looking at me. She seemed to look different each time I looked at her. One minute she looked like a fairly attractive girl of around 21, but I would look again and she looked like she could be a woman in her mid to late thirties, and not quite as attractive.

Then the moment came when it was made very clear that she was looking at me. She got out of her seat to look at the bus times behind her and pretended to read it for a few moments. Then, rather than turning back to her right to face the direction she was facing before and the direction the bus would be coming from, she instead made a needless and almost bizarre looking 360 degree turn to her left, looking at me as she went round and back to the direction she was facing before. Still undecided whether she was young and attractive, or over thirty and not so attractive (i think she was probably still attractive), I realised it didn't matter what she looked like because I now thought she was a little odd and was scaring me a little.

Anyway, the bus came shortly after and like a gentlemen I let her get on before me, which also meant that I could choose to sit away from her. Now I could be left alone with my thoughts, not having to worry about someone staring at me or telling me to "cheer up". It might never happen.

Dan

2 comments:

Chart Smart said...

HAPPY NEW YEAR :)

Sophie said...

Best one yet, really enjoyed this x