Dad, why are there jerks in the world?
Originally published 13 February 2014
I’m feeling somewhat homicidal tonight. I’m hoping that writing about it will help dissipate the feeling.
The immediate reason comes courtesy of an insult artist who is making life miserable for my high schooler. In short, this is a guy who figures out ways to upset my daughter with some clever put-down which amuses him. Somehow this guy is in her circle of friends. She comes home from school sullen and irritable, and I thank her so much for telling me all the details tonight. She cried on my lap, and I don’t know if she noticed tears coming out of my eyes too. We’ve given her all the right advice that parents can give. Thank goodness Amy knows so much about counseling, because after months of this, I’m left with offering her the Hugh Grant option from “Love Actually:” having him murdered. I don’t own a gun, but I have a car, and a tragic “accident” on the road would get me less jail time anyway. Fortunately, Sophie graciously declined my offer.
This has made me very reflective tonight. Do assholes ever learn that they are assholes? Did the douchebags from John Hughes movies ever figure that out about themselves?
When Facebook suggests new friends for me, it will occasionally generate a suggestion that makes me snarf my chardonnay. These are world-class asshats from high school. I was never a big target for these guys, but they affected me significantly nonetheless. They made me hide my inner nerdiness for fear of embarrassment. They made my teachers miserable with their mocking insolence. They strutted with self-confidence that nothing could dent.
On more than one occasion, I have been told something unpleasant about myself. It was usually a well-meaning but painful communication, about how part of my personality was pissing off others. The most significant was someone telling me that I was a know-it-all (crazy, right?) and people I worked with didn’t like me because of it. I like to think I’ve made successful adjustments to my snarky personality because of these messages, and I try to restrict my know-it-all nature for trivia at Swirl every other Thursday. I’ve had many such humbling encounters. One of the best cures is having a lot of smart friends, like all of you.
Another confession — in elementary school, I was one of those guys who could come up with clever cruel nicknames for people who were different in some way, and some of these stuck. By junior high, I was very aware of how wrong this was, and I tried to atone for it. It still bothers me though, because I’m so afraid of what awful memories I was instrumental in creating for someone else.
I never knew anyone in high school who like Doctor Who, or read science fiction, or liked classical literature and history and chess and so on, because high school was the most isolating experience of my life. I drove away from graduation alone, attended no parties that night, and didn’t give a damn if I ever saw anybody ever again.My yearbook kiss-off said it all: Puro edisposto a salire a le stelle, which is Dante for “Screw all this, I am outtahere!” When someone started a facebook page for my graduating class, it was already a cliché to read so many remarks like “Wow, I wish I had known all of you so much better! I had no idea that you blah blah blah.” Why didn’t we know? Because we were trapped in a culture that elevated coolness and was ruthlessly policed against non-conformity. I exaggerate a bit. There were some who didn’t feel intimidated and pursued whatever they wanted. Frankly, I’m jealous of them, but I know that I wasn’t atypical.
College was much better. It was the assholes who were isolated, even if I was “fraternally” bonded with a couple of them. That didn’t matter, because someone was there to look after me, and tell me not to worry about the idiots, because few people liked them anyway (except each other). I’m also happy that Ari had a better social life in high school, and that nerdiness is the new sexy, according to my cousin. I see evidence of that all around.
I understand that kids who act meanly probably have a reason, likely related to their parents. No one is born an asshole, right? But I don’t care. When my daughter is crying, I really DON’T CARE. I just want to beat the crap out of someone. Unless they have an enormous trust fund coming their way, these kids will someday have to figure out how to co-exist with others. I want everyone to be forced to look in the mirror like I did. Part of me wants to know if the jerks from my high school ever had a catharsis, and are now decent human beings. But mostly I just hope they are miserable alcoholics with broken marriages and financial ruin. And I really hope they didn’t have kids.
