Society loves a syndrome these days. It’s a great Get out Jail Free card to play. Why take ownership for your own shitty personality, when you can excuse it with claims of suffering from one syndrome or another? Self-diagnosed, but internet-endorsed, it affords you a pass to be a prick. I’m a very easily irritated prick. I spend every day muttering “Oh, for fuck’s sake” to myself in response to various human interactions, sharing the road with other vehicle users or just passively staring at something online or on the telly. I’d hate to live with someone like me. I hate listening to moany bastards. If I had to live with myself, I’d spend all day muttering “Oh, for fuck’s sake”. But this self-realisation hasn’t helped me to make an effort to be less irritated, so I am going to claim diminished responsibility for my actions on account of being a sufferer of Oh For Fuck’s Sake Syndrome, also known as OFFSS.
Only a medical condition like the one I just made up can explain why some of my most hated things in life are totally irrational. Like people on the way to work carrying coffee drinks on public transport. Logically, absolutely no reason why they shouldn’t. But the fact that they do, that so many people do, manages to scratch at my calmness like a pair of pants made out of stinging nettles. Is it some kind of affectation, to be seen holding a paper cup full of boiling water with a gobfull of froth so flavourless you’ve had to ask them to add a dash of syrup for taste? Are you trying to look like you have a busy and important career that means you can’t stay at home for 15 minutes more in the morning to make your own fucking cup of coffee?
More broadly speaking, I can’t tolerate people eating in public either. I’ve always been a fan of the London Underground rule on not eating hot food on the tube, but a crime that should carry a heavier sentence (perhaps the electric chair) is the scoffing of crisps within ten metres of another person. Unless you do what I would do, out of good manners and some degree of self-awareness, which is to suck each crisp to a pulp and swallow it without chewing, so as to not to inflict an open mouthed crunching variation of Chinese water torture on other people.
But again, I can’t deny, eating in public is totally defensible. People are hungry, why not eat? Similarly, people who don’t use cars for a variety of perfectly understandable reasons - cost, accessibility, environmental, convenience - and therefore get from A to B on an electric scooter, well, who am I to judge? But I do. Adults on fucking scooters! On the fucking pavement! You inconsiderate bastards! Even on the road! You reckless shits! I watch in desperate anticipation of seeing them knocked off onto their arses. There’s something even irritating about the posture required to stand on an electric scooter, like a sanctimonious priest gliding past his congregation with buttocks clenched.
Another pet hate of mine (I have a menagerie of them) is what people post online. If you are a non-OFFSS sufferer, then you’ll be justifiably and deeply angered by the saturation of hatred on social media which is racially, sexually, politically or some other kind of discrimination based. But me… I hate those boring bastards who reply to adverts for concerts saying “Got my tickets”or “Saw them in 2012, what a great band”. I know that some of that is a set up to make an advertised event or product sound good, but I’m sure some comments are by genuine dullards, who really have nothing interesting to say about anything in life.
Finally, I wish to lay in to some of the things people say in the belief that they are making a profound statement, a sound bite of wisdom or some pithy truism for life. Here are my favourite targets for hatred:
“I don’t judge people / you shouldn’t judge others” - of course you fucking do, all the time, and of course you fucking should, because if you don’t judge others, how will they know when they’re being a cunt?
“I’m just being honest, I’m speaking my truth” and in response “I respect your opinion”. - for fuck’s sake, honesty doesn’t mean saying everything you think and expecting people to put up with your fucking rudeness.
“I don’t care what people think of me” - bollocks, even saying that shows you want people to admire you for not caring what people think of you.
“I don’t take any shit” - which means you look for trouble and could start a fight in cathedral over how much cream they put in the chocolate eclairs in the cafe.
“I’m a bit mad really” - the fact you’re telling me that suggests you’re the world’s most boring bastard.
Ok, ok, I’ll stop here, or my meds will stop working in keeping my heart rate down, especially as I’ve been trying to ignore the Strictly final on telly as I typed this. At one point, a male dancer started sobbing and my syndrome kicked in big time.
Oh for fuck’s sake.
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