Toxic Cleanup
In my continuing campaign to rid my life of toxic people, I have reached the following conclusions:
1. I have shockingly little patience with women who are genuinely distraught over their single status and can think/talk of little else but how to get a man. (N.B., not to be confused under any circumstances with our ribald humor/merriment/incomprehension/ridicule re our single status).
2. I have even less patience for people who are totally unable to fend for themselves or generate an independent thought, whether it be on topics such as "what shall I do this weekend" (people actually ask me that. response: whatever you'd like to do.) or "I'm hiring a new secretary - what should I ask her in the interview?" (I got that one this morning. response: whatever you'd like to know about her), or "does the library have such and such a book?" (response: ask the library).
3. I do not wish to be the cruise director for my vast number of social acquaintances. "Keep me in mind if you're doing anything fun" is a sure way to kill a friendship. Or, "Call me if you'd like to come over to my house for dinner sometime and let me know who would be fun to invite." That one is tricky - it masquerades as an invitation but it in fact puts all the planning and organizational onus on you, which does not make the invitee feel like a "pampered guest."
4. Beware of the polite inquiry which is really an effort to drag the answeree into a defense of the inquiring party's personality.
To wit: "how're you doing?" Unwitting dragee responds, "good, and you?" To which inquiring party responds with something like: "Oh I'm doing pretty well for me but probably not as good as you because my job is SOOO much more stressful and difficult and my clients are SOO much nastier, you'll see when you get to be my age." Dragee is left wondering what ever lead her to participate in this conversation. 5. I can't abide people who don't read the newspaper or listen to NPR or make some effort to "keep abreast" of local happenings. Then they ask "how did you know about that book fair?" Might as well walk around with a bag on your head. Related is the person who says she refuses to attend a certain meeting because she's not interested, and then conducts a detailed examination of you afterwards to learn "everything that happened."
6. If you have no idea who Proust is, or if you've never heard of the Iliad, I may have a hard time being your friend. You need not have read either (I haven't read more than the first 100 pages of Proust - enough to get the madeleine part down), but you must be sufficiently knowledgeable about major pieces of world literature so as not to make yourself a crashing bore. I'm growing more and more fond of our various secondary institutions that drilled "cocktail party learning" into our heads. Here here! (or is it hear hear?) It is possible to make up for lack of basic, superficial knowledge of the classics with other skills. You will receive points for willingness to learn.
7. If none of your major body parts move when someone at the table says something stupendously stupid, you may need to rethink being my friend.
8. People who lack taste buds (literally - I know some such people) are by definition, toxic.
This list will likely grow.
I was inspired to prepare it because I read M.F.K. Fisher's A to Z, An Alphabet for Gourmets, on the plane up to NYC and back yesterday and this a.m., and she says she refuses repeat invitations with people who don't figure out within the first 10 minutes or so that she is unlikely to want a glass of Muscatel. Her precise words were:
"Only once did a professional bachelor ever offer me a glass of sweet liqueur. I never saw him again, feeling that his perceptions were too dull for me to exhaust myself, if after even the short time needed to win my acceptance of his dinner invitation he had not guessed my tastes that far."
posted by Anonymous @ 8:48 PM
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