The life and times of a social outcast - Part I

In this life , my darling , there is no mercy...

If you are like them , you stifle yourself to death,.
If you are unlike them , they will make sure you stifle to death!

I am at a juncture in my life where i have come to the conclusion that i wasnt meant to be human. Not the kind who talks , hugs , laughs and hangs around in large groups , whose social circle is bigger than the size of his underwear.Who is one step away from taking his/her pals to the loo coz not doing that means spending entire 120 seconds without his/her 'friends for life' and that is surely nothing short of being blasphemic.

To my disdain and at times , my relief too ...I gasp for breath in crowds. I dont hug . I dont laugh on jokes that dont make me laugh and I dont talk unless and until i am in a jolly good mood to do so!

In strictly 'behavioural' terms , i am a social outcast. A sore thumb that sticks out and if thats not enough , i find the thumb growing everyday , sticking out even more starkly with every succeeding day.

There are a lot of things that have contributed to this exceptional state that i am in - my upbringing , my surroundings , the people i have been with , the books i read bla bla.All of them have beautifully merged together to create the social outcast , aka Whetstone whose life is nothing less than a social tragedy!!!
So what it is that makes me “that” weird ? I have thought for quite a while before penning these down...
Firstly, the fact that I couldn’t care less about most of the people i know and the remaining i wish i'd never known. I seem to have developed a weird dislike towards people in general. Not that this problem is new, the seeds were sown in early childhood where i grew up as a single child to two 'silent' parents. At home, we talked when we had to, random mumbling was never our thing. Although that in no way meant we were dysfunctional or anything - i have grown up in some of the most healthy surroundings where love was abundant , where companionship meant mom- dad and me going for long drives on weekends , playing chess on others , and learning badminton with both on yet others. ‘Champak’ was the culprit in getting me addicted to the joys of reading...which anyways a serious affair was for both mum n dad. My grandfathers’ place was an even richer treasure of books .What with vintage RDs, books on freedom fighters, encyclopaedias galore. I still remember flicking through the pages of a Somerset Maugham , sitting in a relatively quiet corner of the drawing room while the entire family watched ‘Hum Aapke hain Kaun’ on a summer afternoon in 1995.

Single children are spoilt ...Maybe that’s true...Coz today i find it hard to compromise on anything that I stand for...to the point of being obsessive about it at times. I am dismissive by nature and if i don’t like a thing i don’t look around twice before saying it aloud. I also do not think that i need to share the intimate details of my life with everyone i hang out with. Companionship for me is best felt in moments of silence. I find it extremely hard to 'relate' to most people and striking up conversations with random people doesnt interest me much either.

I dont hang aroung in groups if i cant laugh at people’s jokes, if their jibes only make my jaw ache as i force out another smile and i see nothing wrong in being by myself.

More often than not , others dont interest me as much i interest myself. i can spend hours being with me , doing my own thing or heck, even doing nothing...and not getting bored. In fact , at times i prefer this to being amidst a melee of random incoherent people. I am the perfect company for me , and I take pride in the fact!

I would love to be ' left alone ' and this seems difficult for people to digest!

I pique people a lot. They think i am either off my mind or depressed enough so as to not make any sense. Some think i am a tragedy queen awaiting some sort of absolution. Well sir, i have tragedies , yes, but i aint no tragedy queen , quite on the contrary ,i revel in being smug.

That’s what its like , thats what i am.

If you cant make peace with this fact , you are absolutely free ( welcome , actually) to turn back. Dont expect me to nanny you and feed you your daily bottle of milk coz i am your friend , i wont do that and please do not do that to me in return either. At times , i like to be left alone , if the concept sounds alien to you , i'd be more than happy to make way for you to leave.
If i am doing my own thing , i expect it out of a fellow human being to give me the freedom enough to do my own thing without having it dissected like a poor murdered cockroach. Dont expect me to hug you for no reason , it gives me no pleasure and so i wont do it. Think i am cold ? live with it , or dont ...either ways i dont care!
I'll be to you as you have been to me ...get that clear and straight. I have my own set of ' rights' and 'wrongs' and i stand by them strongly, i don’t care if you do/ don’t . I usually won’t trade my rights/wrongs with you unless and until you give me a damn good reason to. Sometimes, even after you’ve given me a damn good reason, i wont trade still ! I admire those who can keep quiet when they have nothing to say and despise those who keep on saying nothings simply because they can’t keep quiet!

So, that’s what it is and life aint easy! Most of the people i know are incongruous with my philosophy. Some have trashed it down implicitly, while others have shown utter disregard for it , explicitly.
I have even tried being congruous to the ‘love one – love all’ school of thought which by the way is in direct conflict with mine and have failed at it as miserably as Himesh Reshammiya has failed at acting ( or has he!)

Like i said, in this life , there is no mercy . I will stifle to death anyways!

Now that i have vented out the travails of my socially tragic life, I feel quite good!
Maybe i'll celebrate it by not talking to people tomorrow!
Aaah...What bliss!
:D :D