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there are people regardless of gender/sexuality whose social skills are shit.
there decent smart folk who are shitty writers.
there are clods and idiots.
there are folk who are maladroit.
there are folk who are only sometimes maladroit.
there are people who are none of these things or who are sometimes one or more of these things or are mixes of all of them depending on factors like context and beverage intake.
there are lots of different kinds of people. it's simplistic at best to have recourse to gender when addressing the much wider phenomenon of being-a clod or being-an-idiot.
and there are media that encourage superficiality. they introduce distance between the meat-space human and others and momentarily conceal the people whose social skills are shit, the bad writers, the clods and idiots.
what's strange about most clods and idiots is that they're exhibitionists about being a clod or an idiot. it's like they can't stand that others don't know. so they tell you:
hello. i'm a fucking idiot. nice pix.
it's counterintuitive to me to process this moment of idiot exhibitionism as a characteristic of any broader social category than being an idiot.
and there are lots of kinds of idiots.
there are the assertive ones and the paranoid ones.
there are the insensitive ones and the paralyzed with the overwhelming tragedy of everything ones.
there are some whose idiocy cruises along the surface of a tunnel of pathology. they can be fun to talk to in certain situations. often they have really intricate fantasy lives and, because of this tendency of fucking idiots to be exhibitionists about being fucking idiots, they'll tell you about these fantasy lives at length. but things can go to hell with these people in a hurry sometimes, so situation management is obviously key.
but i mean, for the most part, you already know from jump that a fucking idiot is a fucking idiot because most insist that you know.
they approach you with lights flashing.
i can't say i entirely understand it.
but because i'm a burly gentleman with a beard i am in a position to find it funny rather than threatening. most of the time.
there are lots and lots and lots of idiots. men and women and young and old---idiots are everywhere waiting for someone who might not know that they can inform.
it's the principle occupation of people in publick houses, getting oiled up and waiting for someone who might be in the dark about this important matter. like it's a hobby.
they come tottering up to you.
they say: wait---did you not know? well, let me introduce myself.
hello there.
i'm a fucking idiot.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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