Snobbery and the Great and Infamous Whore

My current reading material. Anything with that quote can't be that scary, amirite?
Image c/o the fantastic author's website.

A few days ago, while chatting with the only coworker who actually talks to me on the reg, I became aware of two things. One, reading on my lunch break apparently sends scary brain signals out to my fellow employees and they are intimidated by me and consider me an intellectual snob. And two, no matter how unobtrusive one attempts to become, others will gladly make decisions about who they think you are.

One might have thought I would have made that last leap long ago, you know, as a preteen when everyone else got the fucking memo, but I never really did. Why? Well here it is. I recall being picked on in 6th grade by a precociously aggressive and surprisingly sexual peer. My response to her attempted jibe was one of cheerfulness and affected idiocy and she never bothered me again. When I later offhandedly recounted my tale to my mother, she said something about gossips being gossips and not letting small minds get me down. To which I responded, "I'm not important enough to talk about." And I've pretty much carried on with that thought since. This isn't a discussion of failing ego or low self-esteem, rather, I knew I didn't then, and don't now, strive to float about in the circles where people are the topic du jour, rather than ideas. As such, I was, even at age twelve, aware that I possessed little-to-no social currency and thought my impoverished state would keep me from being a hot topic.

So I have, as I always have, retained a quiet, observant demeanor in a new environment. (If I am welcomed in, or posited interesting ideas, hold on to your britches, but that's another matter altogether.) It's not like I don't talk to people. In fact, I cheerfully respond in full to anyone who addresses me, attempt to invite further conversation, and often try to chime in on discussions around me. Cubicles are horrible for privacy, whether you want some or not, and I will often attempt to join an occasionally topical, benign chat that people near me are loudly having with EVERYONE ELSE. This usually fails miserably, as if I am a scrawny chimpanzee attempting to join the silver backs' society, and I pop my headphones back in and turn up the opera (by opera, I mean an amalgam of Journey and ELO) and return to regurgitating meaningless information meaninglessly. (It's what we snobs do, don't you know?)

Listen, I know I can be an intellectual snob, but that usually only comes out in discussions, which I have yet to have with pretty much 99% of my fellow employees. So, by practicing what I like to call reading, I've somehow been painted a scary, horrible snob who wouldn't deign to speak with my fellow cubicle denizens. This is not true. I tend to try, at the very least, to take people as they are, for who they are, and find common ground. But I have problems doing so when the very act of opening my mouth is oft met with blank stares. And when one of the women sitting near me gossips mercilessly with a friend, quiet enough to be subtle, but loud enough for me to know I'd prefer not to be the subject of a discussion like that, I think maybe being quiet and minding my Ps and Qs is the best way to get on with things. But alas, it seems I have not gone as unnoticed as I would have liked.

Ironically enough, the book I've had my nose stuffed in most recently is the one pictured above, a comprehensive biography of Mary Boleyn, sister to the beheaded Anne Boleyn, second wife of King Henry VIII. I'm reading it because Kat left it behind after her week of being stranded in the US, and suggested I might enjoy it. I am, and Mary and her world are compelling and interesting. Her entire existence, as we understand it, was essentially colored and redrawn through gossips motivated by ulterior motives, whether to besmirch Henry VIII or her sister, or simply out of assumption and conjecture in the desire to paint a more tawdry picture of a young woman who seemed, for all intents and purposes, to exist without a meaning of control, but made the most of her time anyway. Not all that bad, in a nutshell. You know, except for being painted as a "great and infamous whore" for 500 years.  For those interested in history, and not the Scarlett Johansson and The Tudors festooned "historical" shenanigans that we've been subjected to of late regarding Mary Boleyn, it's a worthy read. Weir also wrote a biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine, which I bet is really fantastic because she was one saucy lady who lived to be roughly 80, which is not a bad run for our time, but unbelievable for the fucking twelfth century. But I digress.

The one coworker I speak with regularly is affable and odd and rather dorky. So, you know, my kind of people. I realize I could talk to him when he wrote an email to the ENTIRE department rife with Lord of the Rings references, which I deeply appreciate because if you can't chuckle at a good hobbit second-breakfast reference then GTFO of my house. But when he told me that others are standoffish because of their perception of me, I am saddened, confused, and more than a little annoyed at myself. What has this post been, anyway, if not a bolstering of the very fact that I am, in fact, an intellectual snob? But really, I tried. I asked to join lunch tables, participated in company activities, brought food to the potluck. And I'm not going to stop trying, but I'm also not going to stop looking for a job that is less freaked out by my intellect and more appreciative of it.

The truth is, when, at a job like this, expectations are such that employees are asked only to go through the motions -- and in a culture that seems to actively quash the thought of personal development -- that's what people devolve to. And I work in a scenario that allows adults, bored and stunted, to live as though they are permanently in high school -- gossiping, snarking, and shunning at will. It's virtually inhumane. (And I'm allergic to the building. Thank Dog for Zyrtec.)

All the same, this persona non grata status does open the door for some intensely fascinating social fuckery. My new plan: get up from my desk exactly every 37 minutes and wander the floor of the office with a clipboard, taking notes while looking over my glasses at various individuals, and making thoughtful noises in the back of my throat.

Intellectual snob, out!