Xenos

Loner

  Bohemian, boho, counterculturist, deviant, enfant terrible, free spirit, heretic, iconoclast, individualist, loner, lone wolf, maverick, nonconformer, freethinker; character, codger, crackpot, crank, eccentric, freak, kook, nut, oddball, screwball, weirdo, eight ball, misfit, outsider, aberrant, anomaly.

  Uh-huh.  I'm all of these.

  I was just thinking about the friends of a friend of mine.  I don't like them.

  That's not entirely true -- it's not that I don't like them, I don't like the way they are.

  There's one I do like.  He's a thirty-something punker, living his dream on the road playing in his band.  He's from NYC, & we get along OK.  Of course, we'd run into each other on the street one day & had nothing to say to one another.  It's rather odd for me to run into a New Yorker & not be able to converse easily.  But there we were, trying to think of something to talk about.  We both finally gave up & went our separate ways.  It's strange, but I don't mind it too much.  I have a theory why.

  You've heard of the Seattle Freeze.  The Urban Dictionary begins explaining it this way:

  It's not that people here are 
  unfriendly, they will hold the 
  door for you and wave you into 
  traffic and stuff like that,  
  it's that everything is  
  maddeningly impersonal. The  
  attitude is:  "Have a nice day, 
  somewhere else".

  Many also -- & it doesn't matter whether they're from here or elsewhere -- believe they're cooler-smarter-hipper & better looking, than you.  Where many have taught us that each & every one of us is the center of our own universes, people here believe their universe is the only universe that exists & everyone & everything within must conform to their ideal or you don't exist either.

  Granted, not all of the friends here in Seattle of my friend are like this, but each has developed this to some degree.  It reminds me -- to a slightly lesser degree -- of what I had experienced before I gave up & succumbed to my loner nature.  I used to befriend foreigners.  I still do, but not so much any longer.  People of other cultures often experience a great deal more of life & have read more than the average American at an early age.  I still find most foreigners more interesting than most Americans, but I was the outsider.  I was accepted into the fold only so far, allowed to join in, but only to degree closer than other Americans.

  In Japanese, there are three forms of communication.  Let's call them "Formal", "Friendly" & "Loose".  While a native of Japanese descent (although Japanese born outside Japan may be in the same boat I would be) can speak to one another in any of these forms, depending upon the relationship between them, no matter how accepted a gaijin (outsider) becomes, he or she is not allowed to speak to their friends in the "Loose" form despite the fact they would speak to the outsider in that form.

  This is only one example.  An example similar to what seems stronger in Seattle than anywhere else I've lived.  I've been disappointed & betrayed all over the country by many selfish people, but never so frequently or consistently than here.  It is sad that I have frequently had to go without work; sadder still that the one place I can usually come up with some crappy work is here in Seattle.

  My theory?  Sure.  Naturally, people have grown continually more self-centered -- even noticeably in my life time.  But specifically, I think that the isolation that Seattle has historically experienced, an isolation (perhaps) self imposed & greater than that experienced by Alaskans, has cast an aura over the region.  It permeates everything & everyone who comes here.  Some are more susceptible to it's effects, but we're all victims of it.

  In my case, it's made me grow very disinterested in interacting with others.

  Ah, well.  I guess I'll watch another movie in my single apartment.