Obnoxity

[revena]

I just went to my friend Andy's birthday party. Andy (and most of my social circle) really enjoys a loud, raucous, heavy-drinking sort of party, so Jameson and I planned to show up early, wish the birthday boy well, and leave before the drinking got really underway, as that's not something either of us are particularly into. We ended up staying for a little over an hour, enjoying conversations with Andy and many of our other friends.

And then, there was Rude Guy. Rude Guy showed up and sat himself down at a table where deserttango and myself happened to be conversing about a new blogging feature that he is going to be getting on his website. We were talking about how the new weblog was going to be different from his lj, and I made some gentle fun of his spelling.

"Are you, by any chance, in the Humanities?" Rude Guy asked, not yet being rude.

I answered in the affirmative, since I am an English major, after all, and we briefly joked about how people in the Humanities tend to be pretty serious about their spelling and grammar. Then, I turned back to Erik and kept up with our previous conversation.

"Pardon me," Rude Guy said. "But I must ask an intrusive question. -Why- would you want to put all of your innermost thoughts and feelings out on the internet for -anyone- on LiveJournal to read?"

You'll note that Rude Guy did -not- say "y'know, I've never really understood LiveJournal... What's the appeal?" or something similarly inoffensive, but instead asked his question in a way that could very well provoke an antagonistic response.

Erik was not in the least offended, however, and while I thought the guy could use a healthy dose of tact, I didn't say anything about it. We started to discuss the many non-diary uses of LiveJournal. Then, my friend Oni arived.

"Oni!" I said, "I have a very important question for you! How long does it take for a person to die from gangrene?"

Oni is involved in medicine, and my friend Becky had suggested earlier in the afternoon, when I asked out EMT-trained friend Joel the same question, that Oni might know the answer. She thought about it for a while, and then hazarded a few guesses, ending with, predictably, "why?"

"Oh," I said, "I'm sort've doing research for a story. I've got a character who has had a pretty serious injury, and I was wondering how long he'd really have if an infection set in. I don't want to mess with suspension of disbelief too much."

"Just kill him! It's more realistic," said Rude Guy.

"Well," I said, "I've considered it, but I like to know what my options are, and killing him at this point would make for a rather dissapointing story. And while realism is important, this is a sort of sword-and-sorcery story, so it's not -too- important."

Rude Guy then proceeded to suggest, in great detail, just how I might write a section on the injury so boring that "it'd drive anyone trying to read it crazy, and they'd just give up. Problem solved."

"Er," said I, "except the point isn't really to dissuade people from reading. Rather the opposite."

I got up shortly after that for a soda refill, and figured I was done with Rude Guy.

Except that he was in the living room when I went to say goodbye to the birthday boy, and spent some time rather ostentatiously staring at my chest.

It happens that I'm wearing my < geek > < /geek > shirt, and I figured that's what he was looking at.

"It's an HTML joke," I said, turning around so that he could see the back, and Jameson explained how the shirt was saying that the thing between the tags, i.e., me, was "geek."

"Yeah, I get that," said Rude Guy, "but if you're a geek, do you really want to -advertise- it?"

"No sense in hiding it," I said, breezily, though I was a bit affronted at his tone.

He shrugged elaborately.

"I -guess-. But seriously, why advertise it?" said Rude Guy, apparently not realising that he was behaving like a total jerk.

"To attract other geeks," I said, giving Jameson a little kiss.

Rude Guy rolled his eyes and shrugged, but I said my goodbyes before he could open his mouth again.

Telling it now, it doesn't seem that bad... But I'm still feeling intensely irritated. I think a lot of it had to do with his body language, which was very confrontational and agressive. He just doesn't seem as rude, distilled into text form. Ah well.