sarah eve kelly

I have a headache.

About half an hour ago my husband came downstairs while I was reading an email that was neither important nor even particularly interesting. He began to talk, and I cut him off, saying, ‘I really have to read this.’

He knows what that means, and he went back upstairs.

I call my misanthropy ‘chronic’ because it’s not always there. Sometimes I’m lonely; sometimes I’m up for a drink. But when it’s on, it’s on, and it’s not as though there are people (apart from said husband) whom I can withstand when I’m going through a misanthropic phase because they’re smart enough or nice enough. When I go through this, all the smart and nice people in my life go out the window.

I don’t, of course, bear any of them any ill-will, unless they try to contact me during one of these phases, which I do my best to announce as far in advance as possible. This has caused considerable and sometimes irreparable damage to some of my friendships. When the telephone rings, I feel like I’m being assaulted. It’s even worse than the doorbell, because usually the guy at the door is just delivering a package or asking to inspect the piping. The door guy I can ignore. The telephone’s immediate demand of recognition reduces me to cringing in a corner. It has, as I say, nothing to do with the quality of the person on the other end of the line, nor with the esteem in which I hold him or her.

Usually, though, I weather my periods of misanthropy happily enough. I say to my husband, ‘I’m going under,’ and he says ‘Right’ and silently disappears as I don my headphones. More than half the time there’s nothing coming out of the headphones: they serve merely as an insulator, an indicator that I Am Not Available. And my husband, who is part of my solitude, understands and loves me anyway. (It doesn’t hurt that he’s a bit of a misanthrope himself.)

I am lucky enough to have more than the average share of people in my life who understand this side of my character, and accept it willingly enough. (One friend, when I had a - well, I guess you’d call it a ‘misanthropic seizure’ so severe that I didn’t even go to class, slipped lecture notes under the front door of my flat.) There are others who don’t, but who are too precious to me to give up. The rest I’ve left behind, one way or another: I’m not good at casual friendships because I don’t see the point of them. Having an army of people around you just for the sake of it? No. I have a precious few, and very, very precious they are.

I suppose if Florence King were reading this she would say that I’m not really a misanthrope at all, because I have people I love fiercely - I just can’t be with them a lot of the time. I have no particular hate-on for humanity as an abstract, as eyed through a telescope - I just can’t stand crowds. And misanthropy probably isn’t the word for that, but I can’t think of a better one.

And there are days like today - be honest: weeks like this week - when the tiniest pieces of digital human excrement are enough to drive me into apoplexy. Self-righteousness; self-absorption; self-self-self when all I’m interested in is me. (Not always. Just today. Just this week.) I’m not even that interested in me, if we’re honest; sometimes I wish I would go away, too.

(You might wonder: do I think misanthropy makes for a better writer? My answer is no, no, a thousand times no. There is nothing to a novel if the interactions aren’t real ones. Without my occasional pockets of sociability, I don’t think I’d be any kind of writer at all.)

This is why I love my digital friendships and my digital presence - posting to Twitter is like dropping a coin into a well. Sometimes you hear the splash; sometimes you don’t, but it requires nothing more of you. Similarly reading tweets keeps you apprised, again, without requiring anything of you. When writing emails and letters, there’s no one on the other side of the desk looking at you, and waiting. It’s still communication, and it eliminates so much of the mess from communication. There are no awkward silences on Twitter.

Besides which, for an antisocial git I’m externally motivated to a ridiculous degree. I write to be read. I care - I really, really care, probably too much - what other people think. This machine in front of me is my way of keeping up with the world, especially at times like this, because I can’t bear the other ways.

Be patient with me, universe, while I wait for this episode to run its course. That is, of course, if you like me. If you don’t, or don’t care, feel free to ignore. (I love putting caveats at the bottom of posts. It’s my favourite.)

Till next time, &c &c.

No related posts.