Self to world: There are retards, then there are the Narcissistic Social Retards. I am refering to one in particular, one person that I see 5 days out of 7. Perhaps you know of someone in your life that comes close to the following description. If not then consider yourself blessed.
1. Loves to hear himself ramble. Ad nauseum. So oblivious that one could set a timer for 2 minutes, start it, and tell him that 2 minutes is all he has to make his point. That he must shut up after the alarm signals that the 2 minutes is over. So desperate to make himself heard that he acutally accepts this challenge with glee, and actually won't shut up even when said timer is loudly beeping. Needs to have the beeping timer waved in his face as a reminder that he was supposed to shut up.
2. Loves to ramble about himself and his self interests, including family and especially about the significant other. Never asks, "How are you?" or "What do you think?". 99.9997% of the conversation is one-directional.
3. Is arrogantly aloof. How else to nicely describe a quality that can be summed up as A-S-S-H-O-L-E.
4. Always wants to be part of a social group that wants to have no part in taking him in. People have varying shades of being aware of their social standing amoungst their peers. Some have more awareness than others. It is rare indeed to be completely oblivious to the fact that all of the little social groups in our area avoid/don't like this person. Especially when you are that person.
5. Never contributes to occasions of reciprocity displayed by said social groups. Sometimes individuals bring food items in to celebrate birthdays, milestones, or for no reason. I'm all for bringing food to work and sharing it with people that I know will appreciate it, and will eventually reciprocate the gesture. I'm not for keeping tabs of frequency, quality, and presentation but just the fact that one is capable of being considerate, even once. Due to good timing/instinct on his part or bad luck on ours, this person always finds a way to awkwardly invite himself over to have a slice of birthday cake/ice cream, chips, whatever we're serving. It was uncomfortable the first few times (we did not invite him on purpose) but the last few times it has become awkward to downright embarrassing. Not for him, but for me. I am embarrassed for him but he is compeltely oblivious. An obvious sign of pathology.
This leads me to what happened this morning when I was in the same room with Dana (you've probably figured out that I'm not Dana by now - HA!!). Yesterday Dana brought in an entire box of fancy looking donuts from Top Pot. There must have been 14 donuts for seven people. These donuts had pink icing, frills, ruffles, sprinkles, the whole nine yards.
She left them on the bottom of the hallway cart, which signifies to the rest of the world, "Step the fuck away from this box of donuts. Do not even think of eating one unless you are one of these seven or so people." BTW, the Social Retard (SR) is not one of the seven. We have about 30 people total in our area and if you leave food on the top of the cart or in the office, it will be gone within 2 hours of setting it down.
SR walks in and asks me a small talk question, then turns to DLM to ask her the money question. "Dana, Can I have a donut? I know they're a day old by now but I don't care because I just want something sweet". Dana mumbled something under her breath and said, "Yes" and he immediately left the room and took off to get one. I was left wondering, "What is wrong with people these days? Is it not obvious that you were not invited to partake in the donut fest on day one? You're not hurting for money - go buy a fresh one in the cafeteria for crying out loud!"
I was so astounded that I had to regroup for a second or two. We both looked at each other and she said, "Anything to get him out of here".
'Nuf said.
