Three assholes

I think I'm a pretty easy-going guy. Much of my easy-going nature is rooted in laziness, of course, but as my personality manifests itself towards people, I tend to get along well with most people, I think.

I don't actually LIKE most people, but I can tolerate them and realize that they're good people without going out of my way to be buddies with them. The flipside to this general indifference is that I rarely actively dislike anyone. I don't know whether it's a reflection of my optimism that the number of people I like (as relatively meager as it is) outweighs the number I dislike, or whether my optimism reflects that positive imbalance.

In any event, I rarely dislike people. I can count on one hand the number of people that, right now, I can tell you that I don't like. As a matter of fact, I am going to do that in this post.

To protect the identities of these poor SOBs, I am going to do some creative time management. I hope that, by reading these descriptions, an observer won't be able to tell about whom (or from what time in my life) these three emerged on my radar screen. I will tell you (a) none of them are on my MySpace friends list, and (b) this blog is friends-only. [Blogger.com migration note: (b) is no longer accurate.]

Without further ado, and in no specific order (such as chronological or intensity) here we go. Three assholes.

1. Once upon a time, I liked a woman. She liked me for a bit and then changed her mind. Time went on and I still clinged to the feelings and, after a considerable haitus from communicating with her, we met up and spent the better part of an evening together. We talked about this and that and then we talked about a guy. A guy she had a crush on. Her smile lit up and as she shared specifics I felt like I was going to vomit.

I had never met the guy, but there are ways of learning things about people (muhahahaha) and she'd given me his name so, after a week or two, I knew things about him. What he looked like, where (generally) he worked, where he played high school baseball (OK, Google.com sometimes returns some crazy shit).

I also knew that I didn't like him (although I didn't know, one day, that I would be blogging about him).

One day I was walking downtown and I saw him walking down the street and I wanted to spit on his shoes. Or punch him in the groin. I restrained myself.

Did he do anything wrong? No. Might he be a nice guy? Yes. Do I give a crap? No. He's someone I still don't like, and even if he never meets me or knows who I am he'll always be an asshole.

2. My family all lives in other parts of the country nowadays. I don't visit as much as I'd like (although maybe more than they'd like), but the second guy on this list emerged during one such visit. I had a redeye flight and I was lying on a couch, watching TV, in anticipation of some sort of party or gathering of friends (none of whom I knew). I was dozing happily in spite of the hustle-bustle of the house when I felt something hitting me in the face. I kinda brushed it away but it persisted and I finally opened my eyes.

Standing over me was a guy with a goatee and an annoying voice. I learned both of those things simultaneously, as he apologized half-heartedly (in terms of emotion, not in terms of volume) for opening the blinds next to the couch, and the drawstring things were hitting me in the face.

He was going out to have a smoke on the porch, you see, and wanted to see the television. He was unconcerned, it seems, that I was trying to get a bit of sleep. He had to have his nicotine and he couldn't miss any part of the game that he was watching.

I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt... after all, I am a sports fan, too.

But the guy was annoying. Loud (as mentioned), short, a big-talker (slightly different from merely loud)... just generally extroverted and lacking in anything I would consider a sense of humor. He also had a pretty darn cute wife. And his family had money.

Asshole.

3. There have been a few times in my life where I've been between jobs. I have never been comfortable or confident talking myself up, so the application and interview process is terrifically uncertain for me. At one of these points of unemployment, I got a lead on a job and jumped through a few hoops to get an interview.

I was expected to speak to multiple people and to give a presentation in front of a group. Lunch with a group of employees was a possibility, as well. The longer the interview process went, the thinking went, the better my chances of getting a job.

Things were going swimmingly for the first couple of hours ... until I walked into the room to give the presentation. I noticed a face I'd recognized--someone I had worked with previously--and I gave him a smile and said hi. He gave me a stoneface in return, but I thought he just had his gameface on and so I moved forward. I spent the rest of the day with the company. Things went well.

My former coworker, as it turns out, had an issue with me. With my personality? With my work ethic? With my beautiful hair? I never learned. But he said something--or somethingS--bad about me, and I didn't get the job offer.

After initial confusion, my emotion resolved into anger. I have always got along with people I've worked with. I was shocked that someone would go out of their way to submarine my chances to get a job.

Why would he do that? I was higher on the food chain when we worked together, but we simply didn't share many tasks or conversations. Had he held some kind of grudge for that time, and when he was presented with an opportunity to "get even", he did?

Who would do that? An asshole.