Instant Dislike

Have you ever taken an instant dislike to someone? Someone who hasn't done anything bad to you or anyone else, but for some reason you just can't stand them? The dislike comes quickly, almost immediately. Rather than waning as you get to know the person, it grows in strength.

I had an instant dislike to one of my co-workers. He's never done anything to me worthy of such disdain. In fact he probably senses that I can't stand him and tries to ingratiate himself to me. This only serves to make me despise him more. I have tried really hard not to let my dislike show. I have tried to find things that are likable about him, but I can't find any. The opposite has happened. My tolerance of him is shrinking. Things he used to do that I was indifferent about, now totally annoy me. It's like a force beyond my control is compelling me to dislike this guy.

I have found that since my dislike for him has been almost instant, whenever he does something I dislike I say to myself, see that's why you can't stand him. Maybe I look for them. But there are so many, it's like he can't stop doing things that irk me. I also go out of my way to note clever or amusing things he does.

I feel guilty for disliking him. What does it say about me that without reason,I can't stand someone? My sister, who is a little on the new age side, said that if you dislike someone for no good reason, then it is because there is something about him that reminds you of what you dislike about your self, in your shadow. Perhaps they reflect parts of you that you don't acknowledge, embrace or reject.

Could this be true? I thought about the things about him I don't like. He's lazy, he pawns his work off on everyone (he actually has done this to me), he's a slow talker, he constantly uses superfluous words like "with respect to" and "in regards of," he summarizes when unnecessary, his jokes aren't funny, he does the bare minimum in his work and doesn't show any creativity or initiative and he wears a ponytail. If these are qualities I have, then I have suppressed these parts of myself, because I can't stand them. Do I despise him because he embodies those parts of myself that I reject and don't give myself permission to surface? Do I dislike him because he allows himself to be a way that I try very hard not to be?

Could it be that sometimes you just don't like people for the same reason that you don't like all foods. Perhaps the expectation that you must like everyone isn't reasonable. I don't wish him ill, although I do admit to some schadenfreude when his manager chews him out at meetings for his ineptitude. Yes, everyone is beautiful in their own way...plus who am I to cast judgements? Everyone has redeeming qualities and worth. Everyone has a right to be who they are. Does that mean you have to like them?

Maybe I am arrogant and judgemental. But I just don't like him.

Vile Duets

My co worker and I try to break up the day by coming up with horrible songs. I pride myself on being able to come up with really pretty disgustingly, bad songs, but he somehow always can top me. His knowledge of bad songs from the 70's is outstanding. Having said that, I would have to say that I soundly defeated him at horrible Billy Joel songs. But he came back and took the Wilson Phillips contest. This ongoing amusement we have includes singing these horrible songs, looking up lyrics and sometimes youtubing them. It is always accompanied with groans of disgust and laughter. These songs then become brain worms that stay in your head all day like some sort of time share tumour. I have to say it really does make the day go by faster, even if it sounds like something you would see on The Office.

Here is our list of Vile Duets. Be prepared to get sick.
In no particular order of Vileness:

1. Crusin', Huey Lewis and Gwenyth Paltrow. I can't stand him, but she really ruins the song. I feel nauseous just remembering in my head.

2. Endless Love, Diana Ross and Lionel Ritchie. He is responsible for a lot of horrible songs. And Madame Ross has a few other horrible duets under her belt. Remember that terrible one, All of You, with Julio Iglesias?

3. Tell Him, Celine Dion and Barbra Streisand. That one just makes me shudder. It is enough to put me in the hospital.

4. Should Have Never Let You Go. Neil Sedaka and Dara Sedaka. As if the song weren't bad enough on its own, this is a father and daughter duet! It is so gross that they are singing a romantic love song together. It is vile and just plain wrong!

5. I Finally Found Someone, Bryan Adams and Barbra Streisand. Babs makes several well earned appearances on the list.

6. After All, Cher and Peter Cetera. Who thought up this pairing? They must have been high.

7. Almost Paradise, Nancy Wilson and Mike Reno. This is an all Canadian barf fest.

8. The Girl is Mine & Say Say Say, Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney. You can't mention the one retched song without mentioning the other.

9. Ebony and Ivory, Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney. This song is supposed to promote harmony , but it just makes me want to hurt both of them.

10. Can't We Try, Dan Hill and Vonda Sheppard. Thank God Ally McBeal isn't on anymore.

11. When You Believe, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. Yuck, yuck, yucky and yuck.

12. 'Til I Loved You, Barbra Streisand and Don Johnson. Yeah, they were in a relationship and they sang together. Just because you are screwing each other, doesn't mean you have to sing together!!!

13. Friends and Lovers, Gloria Loring and Carl Anderson. What I love about this song is that my co worker's brother played it as the first dance at his wedding. The song is all about cheating! So totally inappropriate for a wedding. Has anyone else been at a wedding when the first dance song was totally inappropriate? Please tell!

Got any others? I am sure there are more...

Halloween cats

Why do I find cats stuck in clothes and costumes so amusing? Normally anything mean to cats really bothers me and the cats look really pissed off. But I just love these pictures. Maybe I should send my cat out trick or treating tonight. It can't be any worse than the adults who come to my door with a bag and say, "it's for the baby." As if.

Creep Appeal

When I was in my teens is when it first became apparent. If there was a weirdo, strange person, wacko, whatever derogatory term you want to use for someone who is just a little off or sometimes a lot off, they would be drawn to me. So much so that my friends told me I had "creep appeal". Sometimes it was really harmless, I'd have a little chat with the off person and it would end there. But one time in particular it became really problematic when the most psychotic guy in the neighbourhood, decided out of the blue, that he was in love with me.

I had been in high school with this poor soul and probably never said more than a few words to him. It had been years since I had seen him when I saw him one day on the bus. It was obvious that he had become very unwell and was psychotic. I felt badly for him, but we didn't speak or even make eye contact. Of course, true to creep appeal form, a few nights later he called to ask me out for a date. Not wanting to upset him and definitely not wanting to go out with him, I told him that I had a boyfriend already. Thus began a year of phone calls, flowers, nights outside the house yelling how much he loved me, calls from his probation officer asking if we were getting married, parka wearing in summer while playing bongos on the sidewalk, people on the street asking me if we were getting married and graffiti all over the neighbourhood with his and my name in a heart. It culminated with me having to get a restraining order. I felt terrible through the whole thing because he was so clearly unwell, but at the same time he scared the crap out of me and my friends. I am not sure what happened to him, I haven't seen him in the old neighbourhood in years.

There have been many other instances of the creep appeal, most not as extreme as that, but some as recently as Tuesday night. I had the pleasure of attending the Annie Lennox concert at Massey Hall. There were actually two occurrences that night. When my friend and I approached the entrance she handed her ticket over. I began to walk in and the ticket taker told me that he only had been given one ticket. I told him no my friend has mine, she then said that no she had given it to me weeks ago. No I said, I was certain that she had not. Yes, she said you were on drugs then. Really, I was shocked by my complete lack of memory of this at all. What else have I completely forgotten? Suddenly it came back to me. It was in my day timer in the car. Unbeknownst to me a slightly off guy was listening to this whole exchange and while my friend and began to walk to my car he tagged along asking if my car was far and would I be listening to Annie Lennox in the car and did I listen to her on the way down.

Later once we were in our seats waiting for Annie to come on, I was telling my friend where my seats for Neil Young were. The woman on my left, said "Oh you have Neil Young tickets I love him." Not really a big deal that she said this, she's just friendly I thought to myself, which was actually opposite to my initial impression of her which was sort of uptight and fussy. But when she reached over and squeezed my knee I was a bit taken back. I let it go. When the show finally started a few minutes later this woman started cheering and bouncing in her seat. Suddenly, she hugged me and kissed me on the cheek. I was staring at my friend with a what the hell is she doing look. A few songs later she leaned over and said, sorry I was just really excited. No problem I told her. Why she didn't hug the guy she was with is another story.

The show was fantastic. The sound was excellent and what a great performer Annie Lennox is. She also looks amazing for a 52 year old. As my friend said it is nice to see that a woman in her fifties is sexy. And a woman in her 40's still has her creep appeal fully functioning.

Random Facts

Okay it has taken me a while to respond to being tagged about seven random facts about myself. I have been busy, finishing my father's house, attending various therapies, getting German lessons from a seventeen year old, having bad dates and feeling sorry for myself.




1. This is one of my favourite photos. I have seen it so many times and it still makes me laugh. I love to send people on their birthday.



2. The top speed I have ever driven was 170kms on the autobahn in Germany. Would have gone faster if I had a more powerful car. This is a goal of mine.

3. I have a habit of saving things for when I think the most excellent time to enjoy them may be. I save special outfits, movies, music, wine, food and bath/skin products. The sad thing is that sometimes, the most excellent time never comes.

4. I am fascinated by things having to do with WWI. I have read many books fiction mostly, watched documentaries and would love to go the Vimy monument.

5. One of my lottery fantasies is to have a deluxe camper on each continent that I could tour around in, exploring the world while having the comfort of being at home and not having to pack and unpack. In the extremely self indulgent form of this fantasy I also have a personal trainer, chef and hairstylist at my disposal wherever I go.

6. Once when I was home sick with a bad flu, I got addicted to watching reruns of The Waltons. Yes, I realize what an embarrassing confession that is.

7. I do impressions of actors from The Young and the Restless in the 1980s. I do a great Victor Newman and Jill Abbott when she was played by Brenda Dickson. My favourite line of hers, "John our baby has birth defects!" I am forever indebted to Jacy who, a few months ago, provided me with the following link :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5cS07X06VY
It is one of the funniest videos I have ever seen and it stars Brenda Dickson. Watch it; you will not be disappointed.

Dating Cluelessness

I have come to realize that I am equally inept at detecting if a guy is into me or not into me. Which is shocking to me as I pride myself on my ability to read others. It is partially what I do for a living. I am blaming this cluelessness on my mother and her genes. I think it may be inherited. After all she did spend almost all of grade twelve holding hands with another female student without the thought entering her mind, that the other student may be a lesbian and into her. "I thought she just wanted to be friends." Way to reinforce all those Catholic, all girls school, weirdness, stuff stereotypes, mom. It was only after the poor, unintentionally lead on, lesbian student tried to kiss her, that my mother clued in. Unfortunately for the other student, my mother is straight and apparently stunned.

Went out with the dutch boy last weekend and absolutely cannot tell if this guy is into me. We had been talking and messaging throughout the week. His texts are rather flirty, but then in person, not much happens. I think that the waiter, who was this cute, young, Indian guy with big eyes, flirted with me more. Maybe he is shy and it's hard for him to be flirty in person. I don't know. This is going to sound so conceited, but it never occurred to me after the first date that he may not like me. It was only the next day when the thought crossed my mind that he might not be all that smitten with me. I guess that it really didn't matter that much to me if he was or wasn't. Perhaps he is like me, a little ambivalent.

This ambivalence is of course getting fuel from my superficial side that has already made note of a few things that are potentially problematic. Just to prove that I am a horrible shallow person, here is a list of items upon which we do not see eye to eye:

1. He drives a bright and I mean painful on the retinal nerves, yellow car. On the plus side, he has a car and it can always be located quickly in the mall parking lot.

2. He lives in Brampton and has room mates. It takes over an hour to drive there and is the kind of suburbia that could make me insane. On the plus side, I don't have to worry about running into him at Tim Horton's if things don't work out between us. Room mates, just too university days for me. On the plus side, he is trying to save to buy his own place and knows how to share, respect other's privacy and clean up after himself.

3. He hasn't cut his hair since May. This wouldn't be so bad, but he isn't much into styling it. Worse yet, he confessed that he had really long hair, prior to the May cut that was at times and I cringe as I write this, in a pony tail. The horror. On the plus side, he has lots of hair. He showed me a picture from a few years ago when he had short hair and he looked really cute. I tried to stress how nice it looked and hoped that he would pick up on it, but who knows. It is probably a good thing for me not to go out with a vain guy. I have done this in the past to disastrous consequences.

4. He likes to listen to something called symphonic rock. Which sounds like metal with orchestration. I don't really like it and I like almost all types of music. This guy really needs to let go of the early 90's.

5. He likes to watch Formula One racing. Cars going around and around for hours? Unless you have smoked some weed, this just seems so boring to me. But he likes soccer, which other people have told me is boring. Although I think there could be a major falling out between us, if Holland were to face Deutschland in Euro 2008.

6. This is perhaps the most concerning thing, he loves the Star Wars Trilogy. I can't stand Star Wars; hated the first one which I saw when I was ten years old and can't bear to watch any of the others. He tried to convince me that it had deeper political and social meaning. Maybe I have a closed mind about this. At the risk of further alienating him, I told him that I also hated The Lord of The Rings Trilogy. Fortunately, he is not so crazy about it either. He loves movies and has a fabulous collection. This is a major plus.

See how superficial, I am. He is also intelligent, polite, thoughtful and respectful. He thinks I am very funny and laughs at my stories. He has beautiful lips and very well kept, clean hands. And I think somewhere under all the loose clothes, could be a pretty nice body. He hasn't really tried to make any moves on me. Which could be a good thing or could just mean that he really isn't that into me. I just can't tell. This could all mean that maybe he is exactly the kind of guy that I should go for or at least try out.

If a Tree Falls In The Emotional Forest

A philosophical question: if someone cares but doesn't show it, then does this caring have any meaning? Obviously it has meaning to the person with the feeling, but aside from this, does it matter to the person who is cared about but doesn't know it? Isn't "caring" when you do something about your feelings towards this person? Can caring truly exist without an action to signify it? Isn't it just the emotional equivalent of a tree falling in the forest?