Xero's other waste of space

Now that I’m living with my grandparents I’m surrounded by archaic systems. Some systems around here work fine, and aren’t really all that archaic, but these certain things that do bother me are things that bother me quite personally as the illogicality of these things is vast.

Manners. This doesn’t matter much any more in the real world but my grandparents basically insist I use a napkin even if I do not get myself dirty. When I said I wasn’t going to get anything on myself, or didn’t need one, they insisted that didn’t matter. This is illogical. If not for prevention of dirt, then for what? It was almost religious.

Which brings me to the next one, religion. My grandpa loves try and sneak religion into the topic when least suspecting. With things like “you can get a bar mitzvah any time in your life you know” or “you should go to synagogue this Friday.” If only I had the guts to show my grandpa one of my writings about religion, he’d probably think I was the devil.

Another one which never came up much until today was that I don’t say “I love you” to people. I responded saying that I don’t like to throw around the “L” word and explained how what it means is family compassion, or sex, depending on the context. He said it was bullshit before I even finished. It’s weird how some people’s belief in love is almost like their belief in religion. They treat it blindly like religion and throw around words without ever explaining what they mean or providing any proof.

All I ever get when it comes to proof of love is that “you’ll know when it happens” and “It’ll happen someday” and “It’s something you can’t control” among other things. Family compassion is more obvious and well, while I care about family more then I do some random person off the street, don’t push your luck. I’m not as compassionate as most people are.

I’m so far convinced that love is the biggest load of crap and is just part of the societal expectation of reproduction and survival of the race at this point that I just want to shoot the next person who mentions the word in the head with a .44 magnum.

Oh yeah, that’s reminds me of another thing my grandpa loves to bug me about. “Someday you’ll meet a nice jewish girl and this and that will change” with this and that usually being something about eating habits, physical appearance, or personal hygiene. All things which I don’t care about that much and only do the absolute minimum I can get away with in a particular situation.

And who says I want to date people? And at that, why do they have to be jewish? As if I’d give a shit. I mean damn, fuck too many jews and where’s the gene diversity? Being surrounded by old traditions really gets to me, as I don’t stick to anything when it comes to ideas and philosophies. Seeing people so stuck on things pisses me off, especially when it’s people that I’m trying not to hate.

During that same conversation, me not saying “god bless you” when people sneeze was brought up. I don’t even have to explain this one do I? I must seem like the anti-christ to him. Or maybe that should be anti-moses?

It’s mainly my grandpa bothering me at this point, while my grandma does have some expectations of me most of them are reasonable and not so damn illogical. There’s a certain way they like things done around here and most of which aren’t really any more trouble than what I’d be doing anyway. Some things are, but only when they make no sense does it piss me off.

There’s a high paranoia around here with locking doors and security, I guess with good reason – they almost got robbed once. The alarm system saved the day, which they still have, and have upgraded over the years. It seems some of the paranoia is just part of my grandma’s personality but it’s something that, while slightly illogical at times, doesn’t bother me that much, as I’m one to keep my room door locked most of the time. More because I hate people busting into my room whenever they feel like it then it is over fear.

All and all I don’t mind living here that much but the things my grandpa tries to push on me and the comments he makes can be quite annoying. He made a comment like “we’ll change him” or something like that which had to be the easiest way to ensure he fails. I still don’t think he grasps that I’m not like most people and in fact differ greatly. Most of my cousins and other such relatives around my age are pretty average people doing pretty average things. Those are his other grandchildren. I’m not them. If I’m living here he’ll have to live with me just as much as I’ll have to live with him. He can hold his archaic viewpoints as long as he’s not pushing them on me.

I don’t have time to waste time on other people and the past few days living here it seems that my time has gone by faster than ever. I’m not sure why but I’ve been unable to do many of the things I like and keep up with my schedules as there’s still some minor chaos going on around here. Things are settling down but I doubt the nagging will anytime soon, which might delay settling down further.

The last thing I could think of was the whole getting a job thing, which my grandpa has apparently told every single relative of mine about and now they all proceed to bother me with it. With bother usually being trying to help. I mean, he’s got good intentions and is trying to use his connections to get me a job and all but he doesn’t seem to understand that I’m not ready to make that kind of commitment to anything right now. I’m not just being greedy.

I’m really starting to get pissed off about this one. Today I said I’d rather be working a desk job and not dealing with people so much and my grandpa seemed surprised. He’s been in the automotive business all his life and dealt with people a lot. It must be hard for him to see why I don’t like dealing with people, I don’t suppose he understands how I can’t really associate that well with people who aren’t on or around the same level as me. Some people would say I’m too picky but I dismiss that as it’s not my fault that other people are so damn illogical.

My grandpa has always been a pretty social guy always participating in communities and money drives and other things like that. I on the other hand tend to see the worst in people. I get to know people and realize that there’s no way I can like them. I can’t leave people as just associates. It doesn’t work. My social instincts are quick and my brain usually just says “stay away” before it even gets to a point of bother.

I try to be friendly sometimes, I really do, but in the end I will always seem different and never really fit in. I don’t have a problem with this, as long as no one’s trying to force me to be social, which obviously won’t work and when it’s happened in the past it lead to many problems. School is a prime example of this. I don’t have the time to be mocked and made fun of. I can so easily put most of those kind of people in their place but I’d rather not even attempt to because I don’t want to deal with people I don’t like.

I’ve been pushed into seclusion by other people. I won’t stay in seclusion because of that though. I’ll stay in it because now I realize I don’t want to know those people anyway. I’ll come out of my hole when I have to but when I don’t I’m perfectly content with myself.

That’s another thing, why do people have a problem with me not trying to be happy all the time? When I make any mention of that people instantly think I’m depressed. Like as if a neutral state of being isn’t possible, I must be either happy or sad all the time because those are the only valid emotions some average persons psychological knowledge acknowledges. Sorry, I’m not going to be happy (or say I am) to make someone happy. Although it really wouldn’t make them happy, it’d just acknowledge their limited knowledge as being correct, which I’m not going to do. No wonder people think I’m always trying to be right.

I don’t agree with people to make things easier. I won’t even tell little fibs or white lies. Of the times I have recently (twice in past 2 years) they were just to get out of being social. When it’s over something that has to do with logic or flawed philosophies you won’t ever see me back down from the challenge.

I don’t like to be bothered unless it’s an absolute emergency. If it’s something petty, just keep it to yourself. You’ll have no luck pushing petty methods on me.