Social Skills

I went out to a bar today for the first time in months with this friend of mine that came in town. While we were chillin, this girl just walks all up in the kool-aid asking what we were doin. Me and my man are both lookin at this chick like wtf are u talkin bout. After about a minute of her "breaking the ice" she admits that she came over to us because her friend, wanted to know my name. I didn't know that grown women were doing that in 2009, but whatever. I decide to go make my way over to ol girl and ask her name and we talk for a little bit. She seemed like a nice person but she had one absolutely glaring problem. At no point during the conversation did she ask me ANYTHING about myself. Now, the not too long ago me, would've been just fine with that because I've always preferred hearing you talk about yourself than me telling you about me. But I found myself while she was talking thinking to myself, "This b#@ch hasn't even thought to gather any information from me." I, on the other hand, found out everything about her, from the usual info like age, job, and where she's from, to personal information like how hard it was for her to deal with the sudden death of her father last year. Normally if someone asks you where you're from, you tell them and then you ask them where they're from. Not this one. She answered, then went on to talk about something else. CRAZY. I got her number so I wouldn't look like an asshole, but I ain't calling that one. NEXT!

Laws of Cell Phone Usage

I really really really dislike when people get in my car and get on their cell phone. Maybe I'm just old school like that, but I've always thought it rude to have an extended cell phone conversation in close proximity to anyone, ANYWHERE. If I know it's going to be a long conversation, I will excuse myself and go somewhere else. I find it especially irritating when I get in the car with people who don't seem to recognize that someone is in the car with them. Firstly, I dislike it because I'm one that likes to enjoy music in my car. It's one of the few places where I get to listen to music with no distractions. So when someone gets in my car, then gets on the phone and says, "Can you turn it down?" I really want to reach across them, open the passenger door, and boot their a$$ outta my car. I don't care who you're talking too, it's real easy to say, "Hey, I'm in the car with someone, and I don't wanna be rude, so I'll call you back in a minute..." See how simple that was?

Secondly, when you get in my car and get on the phone, I'm thinking "Well bump you too then..." I know I'm not the king of talking about nothing, I think I can hold some form of stimulating conversation. How you gonna just get in the car and get on the phone ALL the way to where we going? That's WACK HOMIE!

Anyways...I'm just venting...



a$$hole...

Let's talk about social skills

*Names changed to protect reputations

Okay so I have a friend at work by the name of Jon. Now, Jon stops by my desk everyday just to holla at me about whatever's goin on in his life at the time and he shares stories with me. When I first started working at my current workplace, I met Jon and he seemed like a real cool down to earth dude. It didn't take me long to realize that Jon has a horrible habit. He repeats himself. ALL THE TIME. I mean he'll tell you a story on Monday, then turn around on Tuesday and tell you the EXACT SAME STORY. Somehow in the 24 hours that passed since you last spoke with him, he completely forgot the previous conversation you both had IN ITS ENTIRETY. Now again, he's a pretty cool dude (other than his annoying little habit) so I can deal with it, but tonight just took me absolutely over the edge.

Jon is a DJ right, and he's been repeatedly reminding me of that fact ever since I have met him. Now he asked me to come over to his house so I could hear him spin. He talks to me about what he likes to play all the time (he names the same old school artists EVERY TIME in the SAME ORDER) and we dig a lot of the same music so I decided to stop by. I was over there for about 2 hours listening to him drop everything from old school to new school and I actually enjoyed the experience. Well the following week, he brought me over to tell some of our other co-workers about his spinning abilities and I gave him a good review so a couple of other people wanted to stop by. We went over there tonight to just chill and listen to him put his thang down. He played the first song (Chubb Rock's "Treat 'Em Right") which he also played for me and I thought maybe it was just his leadoff song. He plays his second song (Cheryl Lynn "Got to Be Real") and my thought was "Oh no....". While everyone else was jammin to the song, I was wondering if this ninja really was going to play the SAME D#@N MIX he played for me last weekend. Turns out, my hunch was correct. This negro played the same mix, but what made it even more astounding, he was scratching and using effects in the SAME EXACT places of the song as he did when I was there earlier. Like it was a routine or something. Then, when he finished, this ninja looked at me, and in all seriousness said, "So what did you think of my mix?" WTF?! NINJA I JUST HEARD IT 5 DAYS AGO!!YOU DIDN'T CHANGE A D#@N THING SINCE THEN!!!

What also really kills me about Jon is that when he's repeating these stories, he makes extra sure to have the proper time period as a context to the story. In fact, he'll discuss his thoughts OUT LOUD about him recalling when things happened ("When was that? Oh yeah that was when blah blah blah because I was waiting on blah blah blah that week and Biggie died that Thursday blah blah blah). For some reason he can remember ALL OF THAT, but can't remember that he just REMEMBERED that whole background to the story yesterday as he was telling me the story YESTERDAY.

Now I try to give him hints that he's repeating himself by finishing his stories for him ("Oh yea you told me about that...") but to no avail. I decided I had to take it up a notch so I tried to show disinterested body language. I might look away while he's talking or take out my phone and text when he's retelling a story. Also, TO NO AVAIL. This man has absolutely NO social skills whatsoever. I think he's one of those people you just have to break down and be mean to because otherwise, they just won't get it. The problem is, I CAN'T DO IT. He's such a genuine and nice guy that I just don't have the heart to tell him to shut the f#@k up.

Times like this I wish there was a "Rent-a-A$$hole" service where I could have some heartless bastard say what I feel for me. I would just call the hotline and I an a$$hole would pull up to where I'm at in a scooter (they save gas), hop off, say "SHUT...THE F#@K.....UP!", hop back on the scooter and be out...

Somebody should look into this....