"So you're pretty much dead inside, then" I said to a friend the other day.
This is not my usual conversation opener, nor was it the first time I'd used such a insult. It is, to my mind, such a nice one that I have rolled it out on more than one occassion, even if it was particularly appropriate for this particular friend. What surprised me this time around, though, is that the DII (dead inside individual) in question didn't take it as an insult. Indeed he later conceded a certain "serene weltanschauung" (yeah look it up - I had to) at the thought.
And only then did it occur to me that there IS something bleakly comforting at the thought of being dead inside, in a weird way that is vaguely connected to what Johnson says about being a beast ridding one of the pain of being a man (I'm paraphrasing - I think I read that one on the back of a fantale wrapper). And it also occurred to me that there is a reason I have used this insult more than once in that I rather LIKE people of this ilk and have, in recent years, managed to acquire several dear friends who at least partly fit the profile.
You can recognise them thusly:
1. They secretly suspect their mild to severe drinking problem makes them more interesting. They are mostly right.
2. They laugh at the end of Love Story.
3. They tell you not to fall in love with them with a seriousness that suggests they fear you are planning to do just that. Again, they are mostly right.
4. You will go for weeks or months without talking to them only to receive a rambling drunken call at 3am that starts with a two hour rant and ends with them passing out on your couch.
5. They will have no recollection of either the conversation or how they came to be on your couch the next morning.
6. You will forgive them for this behaviour even after you find out what they did to your cat.
7. They use words like "weltanschauung".
8. Just quietly they are actually quite, quite fucked up.
And yes it's a smacked bottom for the first person to suggest there is anything of myself in the above. I've never been so well adjusted in my life.
3 comments:
There seems to be a strong link in your theory to being dead inside and practicing some form of alcoholism...
I don't feel dead inside, but I've certainly been in one or two of those situations before. In fact, this very weekend...
I just watched slumdog millionaire and depite EVERYONE saying it was the best movie ever, so moving, sad, tears etc, I remained quite unmoved. I'm worried I am dead inside.
I second Lindsay's wank call.
And I suggest that everyone prone to long bouts of introspection after drinking too much gin could in fact fall into all of the above categories. Including the wankety wank wank one.
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