Secret Squirrel

Bob: Wow, I was beginning to think you’d fallen off teh intarwebs.

Shaun: Droll.

Bob: Well, I certainly thought so. What, nothing to say for the last over a month?

Shaun: …

Bob: I’ll take that as a no.

Shaun: Do you think this is healthy?

Bob: What? Talking to yourself, or being so apathetic you can’t even bring yourself to write about anything?

Shaun: There’s nothing to write! I played some video games, watched all of House… nothing exciting. I’m not Doogie Howser. No pithy lessons to write down every day.

Bob: Well, fine. What did you think of House?

Shaun: It’s good.

Bob: But?

Shaun: House is written as a thoughtful jerk. I’m sure the writers have some template they’re following, but they’re not psychologists, and I doubt the even have one on staff. I think they figure, if they make House look contemplative occasionally between his general narcissism, people will wonder at his motivations, and grant his character an illusion of depth. It’s lazy. I’m not certain the show’s creator even has a complex backstory; I think they’re just running with his archetype.

Bob: But you like the show anyway. Not because of the compelling medical mysteries, though… they could plug in any unpronounceable malady and you’d still watch it. You identify with that sorry bastard.

Shaun: …

Bob: Well? He has a general disdain for people because he thinks they’re hypocritical, self-deluding, knuckle-draggers. He’s an archetypical loner with about as much tact as a jar of mayo, and an acerbic streak a mile wide. The only real difference is that the writers made him spectacularly observant, while you’re the epitome of oblivious. Well, that and it seems he’s an ass on purpose, whereas you genuinely lack any sympathetic social filters.

Shaun: I never claimed to be a social butterfly. If anything, I’m the exact opposite. What you forgot to mention is that his character is sometimes so patently evil, his medical acumen can’t possibly redeem him.

Bob: Sticks and stones. But you’re diverting. You think people are idiots, including yourself, driven by a multitude of modernly irrelevant conflicting biological instincts. You’re paradoxically abrasive and goofy, eye-bleedingly logical one minute, and quoting Animaniacs the next. You rock back and forth when socially stressed (classic autistic trait, by the way), but long for fame as an author. You’re reclusive, but long for attention. What the hell? You have a screw loose, buddy.

Shaun: Being eccentric isn’t illegal. Yet.

Bob: You’re not helping.

Shaun: What do you want? I’m a shut-in. I know, alright? People scare me, and as ridiculous as it sounds, emulating social graces that come naturally to actual human beings is mentally exhausting. They subconsciously sense my atypical body-language and awkward nature and it makes them uncomfortable. I’m freaking thirty for fuck’s sake. I give up. I have less friends than anyone I know, and while I understand quantity isn’t quality, it’s obvious even to me something is amiss.

Bob: You certainly have a gift for understatement. I know for a fact you haven’t had more than an acquaintance until high school, and he turned out to be a sociopath. Even the group of weirdos in college was out of your league. A handful may consider you a mutual friend. That’s a pretty lonely existence.

Shaun: I just don’t relate. People are like aliens to me. I understand their motivations in a biological and psychological sense, but interacting with them is… frustrating and artificial.

Bob: How… clinical of you. You know, further exacerbating the situation by abandoning what little humanity you have to analyze everything is hardly a recipe for happiness.

Shaun: You got a better idea? And don’t even give me that “get out more,” bullshit. I would if anyone invited me to anything. Tagging along by request or going out alone? Pathetic and embarrassing.

Bob: Hmm, that is a tough one. Relax maybe? Calm down a little? Well, you’re a human chihuahua, so that won’t work either. I recommend drugs. The legal kind.

Shaun: I hate you.

Bob: You realize what you just said, right? And you’re seriously going to put this on your website?

Shaun: Why not? Random people won’t care, and even my friends don’t read it regularly. And it’s nothing they don’t know already anyway. I just had to write something after such a long absence. I might as well be disturbingly entertaining.

Bob: …

Shaun: Finally! I’m going to bed.