Loads of people believe in love at first sight, and rightly so. I fall in love with about three different girls each day. Today it was the bookish brunette who I walked passed on the way to work, the adorable redhead who was sitting at the window of the 149 and the cute blond who cycled by me on Kingsland Road. They all made my stomach fill with vomiting butterflies and forced me spend the next five minutes staring nervously at my shoes - yes, I’m a dweeb. But what about the flip side? Is there such as thing as hate at first sight? Well I wouldn’t ask the question if I didn’t have an answer.
I fell deep in hate with this one guy last Friday night. I was with a group of friends in a pub in East London and sat in the opposite corner of the room, too far away to hit but too close to ignore, was this podgy man mountain - clothes by Burton, opinions by The Mirror and jokes by Chris Moyles. Now that makes me sound like a snob and I’m not (no one from Leicester can be a snob, it’s an oxymoron). It wouldn’t have mattered what this guy was wearing. He was just a prick pure and simple, and this inner prickishness shone through from his core like a blinking lighthouse beacon, catching your eye every few seconds and warning - DANGER! STAY CLEAR! HERE BE PRICKS!
Sartre said that ‘hell is other people’, well on that particular evening it was one person, this guy. Hell incarnate. But what made him so bad?
For starters he was yelling loud and stupid things, he wouldn’t stop punching and shoving his mates in that pseudo-macho rugby club way and despite having one of those Piers Morgan faces that gives you the irrepressible urge to smash a pint glass into it, he looked really pleased with himself. And it wasn’t just me he was rubbing up the wrong way, all my friends and people all around the room had picked up on his prick vibe, which he was transmitting around the room via, I assume, some sort of prick Wi-Fi.
When I couldn’t stand to stare at his face any longer, I escaped to the toilet. I also needed a piss so it was one of those ‘two birds’ situations. Looking to secure a moment of peace I used the toilet’s only cubicle (this information will become important later), and after finishing I opened the door to find the PRICK standing there smirking with an accomplice. “Hurry up darlin’” he said with obvious satisfaction - in his head he was funnier than Michael McIntyre - and before I was out the door they both pushed passed into the cubicle, roughly slamming the door behind them.
To be honest I was a little relieved. At least now his excessive prick behaviour could be explained away with cocaine. He wasn’t legitimately the biggest prick in the world, he was using performance enhancing drugs. What a cheat! Coke had worked, as it does, as a grade A prick detector. Think of it like that litmus paper stuff you used to use in high school science experiments to test if something was acid or alkali by measuring the pH, but in this case instead of identifying pH you’re identifying PRICKS.
So yeah, this guy was a mega-prick but it was a temporary state and it got me thinking, what about the people who live their lives in this unnatural coke bubble? I mean the people with bloated egos who are constantly buzzing off their own supposed success, operating with an arrogance that their talent and achievements simply don’t warrant. Basically people who are really pleased with themselves.
Here are some examples of the kind of people who are always patting themselves on the back and bang on about their achievements as if they’ve just done a bump.
“I’m a photographer“
No you’re not, you’re a kid with a camera and an overinflated sense of your own self importance. Your not carrying that camera bag to transport flash guns, filters and film, it’s so you can cart around your immense ego. Party photography is the last refuge of the talentless. Why don’t you put your camera down and have some real fun instead living your life through a lens and trying to trick young girls into showing you their tits, that’s what Chatroulette is for.
“I’m a DJ”
No you’re not, you’re a berk with Tracktor on your laptop and too much time on your hands. Anyone can DJ and I mean anyone, you don’t even need opposable thumbs. When it’s done well it can be a wonderful thing, but I know from personal experience that maybe one DJ in a million is better than average and the rest of them are slowing killing music with their hateful mash-ups and artless song selection. People who really love music make music, they don’t press play on a CDJ and then stand there looking pleased with themselves. Get some ambition and stop piggy backing on real artist’s success.
“I’m a socialite”
You’re already planning your outfit for next weekend’s secret warehouse party, people know you as “that guy”, you never have to pay admission and to you queueing is a foreign concept - you cause havoc in Tesco. But there’s a reason why you thrive in a dark, loud and drug fueled environment. It’s because if people had to interact with you on equal terms, if they could hear you speak or look into your eyes, they would see a dark empty space where a personality should be. If you were a sweet you’d be a flying saucer with the fizzy sherbet removed. A hollow rice paper husk. One drop of water will cause you to dissolve away to nothing.
“I’ve been traveling”
OK, you’ve been to [insert name of South East Asian or South American country here], congrats! So has every other middle class kid pre or post university. I’ve been “traveling” so I know that the myth of having a ‘unique experience’, where you learn something deep and meaningful about yourself, is a misnomer. This isn’t the 60s and you’re not venturing into the Heart of Darkness. What’ll happen is that you’ll arrive in a country you don’t really understand and follow a well trodden tourist route, clutching your Rough Guide to your chest like it’s a suckling infant. The only people you will meet on your travels will be other wondering Europeans (probably Irish) who you’ll kept bumping into time and time again because you’re both playing landmark bingo and there are only a few Rough Guide approved ways to get around.
What you did wasn’t “traveling”, it was a glorified package holiday. Don’t put it on your CV and don’t tell me about how it made you a better person because it didn’t, it just made you an arrogant one.
“I’m a blogger”
Oh are you? How many people actually read your blog? Can I have a quick look at your Google analytics? Your blog is just your own personal diary, the fact that it is on the internet is just an unhappy accident. In fact, if it wasn’t online but committed to the pages of a sticker covered journal that you hid under your pillow then I would be more inclined to read it because at least then there would be an element of mystery and intrigue. As it stands you’ve laid your whole existence out there on a plate for the world to see, and you know what? It sucks.
If the devil’s greatest trick was convincing the world that he doesn’t exist, the the internet’s greatest trick was convincing the world that other people give a shit about their inane lives. Do something truly exceptional and people will seek you out. If you sit at a computer all day blogging about funny stuff you saw on someone else’s blog and winging about how your mouse hand is beginning to ache no one will give a shit… Oh no wait, I’ve just described myself. D’oh!
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That was all a tiny bit scathing and I don’t want to end on a downer, so for everyone out there who is keeping it real, working hard and staying humble here’s Special Agent Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks with a big thumbs up especially for you. You’ve earnt it.