WHEN SILENCE ISN'T GOLDEN

Is there anything quite as depressing as being all excited about something and wanting to share it with a person only to have them display a total noninterest? Not just that, you're met with a disapproving silence and a stare. Any minute now you expect to be sent to the corner and have the proverbial dunce cap stuck on your head. If it happens to be on a dinner date, it's like the kiss of death.
You just hope that a sudden terminal illness hits or that should nuclear war break out, that it happens at that moment. Anything to break that uncomfortable silence. It's as though you had seriously misjudged some main character feature of this person.

I know that people do not all have the same interests and I do not expect them to. What I am talking about is that death stare of condemnation. Where they absolutely do not get where you're coming from at all. There I am, bounding in excitement like a lamb in the field with joy at some new band or film. Nothing. Nada. Then the proverbial...

"But, I just don't understand how anybody could find that funny?"

On the other hand, it is so wonderful to meet people who do understand. As a kid I read all of the books on "Anne of Green Gables" and she used the term kindred spirit. That about describes the feeling. To find that person who gets it. In highschool I had a friend who shared a love of Monty Python's "The Holy Grail'. We could do the skits from SNL. When I was in university I happened to be in a club downtown one night, when somebody in the washroom asked to borrow something. We began to talk and she knew somebody that I did. It turns out that she had to take the bus home early before the club closed. I said that I'd drive her instead. Over the years we've lamented breakups, my problems with food and a shared a love of old vampire films with Peter Cushing, similiar bands, etc. But what first cemented our friendship was some really stupid joke that both of us got.

I've noticed that the types of people with the death ray stare tend to fall into the zealot category. They are apt to be fearful of new ideas and often have their own agenda to push. Think Tom Cruise or those annoying people who knock on your door. They have such concrete thinking that everything is route; there is no spontaneity and it's a threat to them. Any great display of enthusiasm for something new or foreign is "wrong". Therefore, you are "wrong". I judge myself enough. I don't need attitude because I like a band, thankyou very much. I also resent then being put on the witness chair and defending my actions as though I have done something wrong.

I am trying really hard not to care as I judge myself enough. I don't need the help of some demented Church Lady/Soccer Mom hybrid who spent a little too much time listening to Dr. Laura. Likewise, I am not looking to have some alpha male lead me in the proper direction. There are worse things than being single. But I swear that sometimes we're still locked into high-school. On somedays it's just really hard not to care.