“I hate EVERYONE!!!”
How many times a day do I say this? Five? Ten? Four Hundred Sixty-Two?
Oh, wait. Maybe it’s a rhetorical question. Or maybe it should be, because I say it so much that it’s almost become part of me, like my nose or my spleen or my perpetually raised eyebrow.
The bizarre thing is that even though people get on my fucking nerves — and I’m always fantasizing about the ways I would slap someone across the face or grab ahold of someone’s hair and hold it above her head with one hand (so she looked like an onion) as I punched her face, punching-bag style, with the other — yes, even though they get on my nerves, I just have to be around them.
Of course, there are those days when I sequester myself from the world (with the exception of email, of course, and my own romps around the internet) and suffer from a sort of agoraphobia (damn those frightening agoras!) and tell myself that I would be happy if I never came in contact with an actual person again, with the exception of the person I live with and my aromatherapist. But even a seasoned misanthrope such as I can only go for so long without seeing people (if not actually speaking to them).
Yes, as much as people irritate the living fuck out of me, I just can’t live without them. (Sort of like that banal “Women — can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em” thing.) It’s something I only suspected before, but today I realized it to be true.
You see, this morning I accompanied the DOG to the gym he just joined, to take advantage of a one-week free pass I signed up for (even though, when I did so, I knew I wouldn’t want to use it). Anyway, we arrived at 6:00, when the place opened, and three other people were already there working out. Only three. (I say “only” because the early-morning crowd is much larger at Equinox, my regular gym.)
I must say, that for a person who isn’t too fond of people, I was quite disappointed. I actually wanted other people around when I worked out. This isn’t to say I wanted to be surrounded by them or even to talk to them; I just wanted the energy of more pumping hearts, more expanding lungs, more blinking eyes. I wanted to “feed” off of them, to compete against them (I must confess that I “race” my unwitting treadmill neighbors) … even to hate them for one of the many, sometimes petty (hey, at least I admit it) reasons I hate them.
So I did a whopping 15 minutes on the stationary bike, followed by a stellar seven on the treadmill, and then told the DOG I was leaving to go to Equinox. He, ever the consummate gentleman, interrupted his own workout to retrieve my jacket, walked me to the elevator, and gave me $4.00 (for what, I don’t know — just for being adorable, I guess). And then I dashed down the street to Equinox, where I happily hated everyone there.