In America, there is a big social Catch-22:
1. On the one hand, you are expected to mind your own business, not need others, and leave other people alone (especially women, who are given special protective status in America). You are supposed to be independent, not lonely, and not complain about lack of companionship, friends or lovers. In fact, you are supposed to pretend that you don't have any natural desires for love, romance or sex (unless it is reciprocated) otherwise you are a creep and pervert. You are also expected to only socialize within your closed clique, while fearing all outside strangers as potentially dangerous psychos and creeps, essentially shutting them out.
2. On the other hand, if you don't have friends, can't get dates, can't meet people, and don't get invited to social activities, then you are considered a loser or socially dysfunctional. Yet given #1, this is what you'd expect as the logical consequence if you don't have an established clique of friends to begin with, for the inherent nature of such cliques is exclusive and designed to "shut you out". And this is true even if you are a really social outgoing extroverted friendly person! Hence the irony and hypocrisy. Essentially you are "between a rock and hard place".
This Catch-22 is the equivalent of me putting you in a locked cell, starving you without food, yet blaming YOU for getting hungry! It's sheer lunacy no doubt.
In spite of this Catch-22, it is taboo to complain about it or expose the conflicting nature of it. Instead, you are expected to utter the programmed party line that our culture and media promotes, which is that "People are naturally open, friendly and cool. If you are a great person who is positive and cool, you'd have plenty of friends and people would invite you into their social and personal lives."
If that isn't true for you, then you are expected to blame yourself, for it is assumed that if you were positive, fun and cool, then people would be open and inclusive toward you. So again, society pits the blame on the victim rather than on itself and its inherently dysfunctional and socially segregated nature.
So, we have a Catch-22 here that you aren't allowed to talk about, and a programmed belief that you're supposed to buy which does not necessarily fit the reality. And anything that conflicts with it is seen as false, wrong, or even socially deviant.
Go figure.
Ok America, I give up. If you don't value the plain and simple truth about your lies, hypocrisy, Catch-22's, dysfunctionality, social segregation, false programming and victim blaming mentality, then I won't participate in your insanity. No thank you! I'll take my sanity and precious valuable life and time someplace else that is saner and more socially functional, healthy and natural.
Peace out.
How true! America is an isolationist, antisocial culture. So of course it will be hard to meet people and make friends. On the other hand, if you admit that your having a hard time meeting people, you are considered a freak and a loser. So, you wind up lying to people and telling them how great your social life is! How strange is that! Only in America does that happen!
ReplyDeleteYup. I remember when I was living in a dorm and some of the women were friendly with me. Not flirtatious, but friendly.
ReplyDeleteThere was a campus concert event that I went to by myself. I didnt care if I was alone or not. This is when I was a freshman. She say me there and asked me why I was alone.
From then on out when I saw her in the common area of the dorm she was very cold and refused to engage me in conversation.
American women in general are like that. I also remember saying one time during another one of those dormitory events that I wash my hair with regular hand/body soap (a bar of soap), rather than shampoo. The collective stares of disgust and the "eww" from women was shocking.
Arbitrary Bullshit in the USA that if you vary away from one iota, you will be socially unacceptable.
Or just let one woman label you a dork, or weird or some other modifier they use to get rid of you. Creepy is another good one. Stalker.
I don't think it's always a matter of belonging to a clique, but it's a matter of learning a role and playing it to perfection.
ReplyDeleteFor example, if you are playing the role of a rich preppy kid and you move to a new town where you don't know anybody, you have seek out the other rich preppy kids in the area and make a powerful and flawless first impression so that they immediately see that you are "one of them" or are even better at playing the role (dress better, say wittier things, are richer, etc.) than they are.
It's like prison: you either kick someone's ass the first day (make a good first impression) or become someone's bitch (become a social outcast).
I think my problem and the problem of many of the guys on sites like this was that we didn't want to be any of the pre-made roles which American society had created. We wanted to be free from such limiting stupidity. We wanted to think outside the box and see reality clearly instead of living inside a constant neurotic charade.
This of course leads to the problem of not being any girl's "type." Most American girls need the implicit approval of society and the media before they can find a man acceptable. Simply thinking on her own and evaluating a man objectively based on his words and actions is not what the typical American woman does. That would be a frightening step into the unknown for her. It's much more comfortable for girls to quickly assign labels to people: "Oh, he's a jock. He's a computer nerd. He's a hippie. etc." Unfortunately, their default label for men for whom they cannot find a suitable pre-made label is "loser."