Directory of Lost Causes (By Quentin S. Crisp)

Pet Peeves

Recently - or not so recently now - I was tagged by Melissa for a meme about pet peeves. I have to name six of them. Of course, I really hate to complain about anything at all, and regular readers will know that I'm not a petty person, but, alas, I am forced into complaining on this occasion. It is my duty and I cannot avoid it. Therefore, I will try to come up with six things that perhaps mildly irritate me:

1) The battle of the sexes. Apparently men always leave the toilet seat up and women can't read maps etcetera. It's all such a yawn. And yet I have come to suspect that the battle of the sexes is the tedious eternal dance in which one must engage if one doesn't want to be alone. Sexual pacifists are treated with suspicion and get caught in the crossfire. Nobody likes a traitor, apparently.

2) Genre tribalism. When I was a teenager, I was told by my best friend, who was a rocker, that if I was a rocker I couldn't listen to Thomas Dolby. Of course, I found this utterly ridiculous. I thought maybe people grow out of this kind of narrow-mindedness in adult life, but apparently not. Those who flit from genre to genre are treated with suspicion. Nobody likes a sell-out, apparently.

3) People who are rude. There's simply no excuse for it. Rudeness is never a crime of passsion. It is, in fact, the ultimate crime, of which all other crimes are mere symptoms - the crime of disrespecting other human beings. Those found guilty should be separated from their hands and feet and sterilised.

4) Litter. It's not big, and it's not clever. See #3 above. Litter is a form of environmental rudeness. Do litterers imagine they are being rebellious or free-spirited? No, they are just being ignorant dicks. Really, what is the motivation here?

5)People who use the word 'sad' as an insult, or instruct others to 'get a life'. The whole assumption behind these 'insults' is that the person using them is not 'sad', that they actually have 'a life'. They are buying into a philosophy of social Darwinism - winners and losers. Those who are loud and self-satisfied, preferably with lots of money and the most prestigious sexual partners, are the winners. Those who are filled with uncertainty, and have little or no money and no sexual partner, are the losers. Usually these winners have problems facing the idea of death. I would advise them to visit a morgue. We're all a bit sad, really. And any life we have is only borrowed.

6) Politicisation of simple human issues. We're in a lifeboat at sea. Most of us seem to think there's a storm coming. In their boredom and frustration, some of us have started knocking holes in the bottom of the boat with pick axes. Someone suggests it might be a good idea to stop knocking holes in the bottom of the boat and prepare for the storm. "Hey man, are you taking away my right to knock holes in the boat? There is absolutely no link between us knocking holes in the boat and water coming in. The sea was there already, man. Anyway, who says there's a storm coming? Prove it."

I think that at least half of these (if not all of them), are to do with the us-and-them mentality that seems ubiquitous in human beings. Bush proclaimed not long ago, in his so-called 'war on terror' that, if you're not with us, you're against us; this seems to be the attitude of many. But I don't feel like I've ever been with any 'us'. Okay then, I'm not with you. I'm against you. All of you.

Now I have to name three others to take up this pet peeves meme. I shall name them and leave it up to them whether they wish to do so:


http://my.opera.com/CaptainPenguin/blog/

http://my.opera.com/Ravo/blog/

http://my.opera.com/musickna/blog/