Two types of annoying people.

Today there were two little annoyances. I boarded the trolley to get to work. (Isn’t it nice that Mexico still has these slightly archaic modes of transport. It’s the equivalent of the LRT in Singapore). There were three black guys behind me. And they started talking very loudly and ranting about “foreigners who don’t adapt” – I don’t know if they were talking about me or somebody who had since left the place, it was hard to tell. The streetcar is a nice set up, but the thing about public transport in the US is that it’s full of low class / homeless people. It’s understandable why Anton Casey assumed that Singapore public transport is also full of such people, if he’s still in the mentality that he’s in the US. So they were speaking loudly, motherfucker this, motherfucker that. Of course, limpeh looks so non-descript. (This non-descript exterior of mine is part of the plan, so that if and when I do say something totally shocking, it becomes even more outrageous.) So I suppose they didn’t know that they were talking in front of somebody with a mind as filthy, if not even more filthy than they were.

So that’s one thing that I didn’t like. You had three people, and they weren’t only talking to each other, they were talking loudly enough that they wanted to be heard by everybody else. And they wanted to outrage everybody else in the process. (They may or may not have succeeded.) So they were only doing it for the attention.

The other thing is this other new co-worker that I have. She’s Asian American. I can’t tell how old she is, although I know she has a 7-8 year old son. (That’s sad, that somebody can have a 7-8 year old son and you can’t tell whether or not she’s older than you are.) And she’s been hired to formulate an advertising strategy for the company. She has been pretty expressive to the point that I’m getting a little tired of her. You know what some Asian women are like. Has to be smiling and chatty to everybody. Always willing to please. Telling everybody about her perfect family and children. I don’t know if it’s about seeking social acceptance or promoting some kind of an image. I find it impossible to tell whether she’s a genuinely nice person so I’m going to be withholding judgement on this, but she rubs me the wrong way. And while it’s possible that she’s naturally an effusive / extroverted person who loves other people. But equally I sense some kind of anxiety behind this always wanting to please. If you're also an Asian / Chinese / Korean / Japanese / Vietnamese you will recognise these types easily, and I have family members, also my grandmother was like this. They will shower care and concern upon you, but you sense some smothering quality about all this. And sometimes you might find that I’m almost the opposite: the leaning back, cynical, sarcastic humour. The “hi nice to meet you I don’t give a shit about who you are” kind of guy. Almost the polar opposite of what she’s like. So I think maybe that’s why we’ve avoided each other thus far. Maybe it’s good that I’m old enough to know that there are some people that you just click with, and there are some people you know are going to annoy, and you know are going to annoy you, and there is a tacit and mutual understanding that we’re going to avoid each other in order to keep out of trouble.

So I suppose, we have two types of people who annoy me in the same day. First, the type of person who tries too hard to be offensive. Second, the type of person who tries too hard to be inoffensive.