I don’t get how modern society works. This is largely a part of my very stupid upbringing. Both of my parents considered iconoclasm to be some kind of supreme virtue, and by their reckoning the less I was like everyone else the better off I was. Fast forward 20 years or so, and they wonder why I don’t seem to relate to others.

Loneliness is one of my many problems. Sure it bothers me, but not as much as the fact that I am completely unemployable does.

People are becoming very concerned about me, and the general idea is that so long as I am trying something, it is better than doing nothing. So people suggested that I try dating apps. I could go on for some time on why this is a terrible idea, but let’s just say it is the equivalent of dropping someone off in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, and just as you are about to sail the boat away, scream “this is really going to help you lose weight.” If they survive, it likely will help them lose weight.

(To be clear, I don’t actually think this is just a problem encountered with dating apps, but all meetup apps. I was using one to practice Greek and encountered many of the same problems. That one at least had the excuse of a time zone difference. Also, this has been my experience not just in terms of dating, but also just trying to make friends, something I have also tried to do with various apps, because I guess that is what people do now-a-days)

But I dove into these apps anyway, because why the fuck not. If nothing else it got the monkeys off my back. Largely, this did little more than kill what little self-esteem I have left. But every now and again I would actually match with someone, and I would actually attempt to chat with someone.

Largely, this ended up with me boring people to unresponsiveness. But every now and again the person would be more into it than me, and that led to another puzzling thing.

They would inundate me with messages, seemingly at all hours, but most often when I was at work. When you teach, you can’t exactly fiddle around with your phone while doing it. You are there, performing, for four hours. When you finally did get back to your phone all those hours later, you could tell from the dozen messages or so left while you were working that the person on the other end was pretty damn annoyed that you never answered back.

It’s god damn 10 am! Don’t any of you fucking people work?!

I don’t want to have too much of a fucking high horse here, but in the five hours a day that I am at work, I’m at fucking work. I’m not doing much of anything else at all. I occasionally, depending on the class, get short minute-long bursts of being able to do other thing – largely blogging. But people’s frustration that I am not immediately responding baffles me.  Don’t you have literally anything else that you should be doing right the fuck now?

And this is the fucking DCMA, where everyone is blue-balled to tell you their god damned profession at the drop of the hat. Now I get it – they do so to help them maintain the illusion that they actually do something at their job.

But here is the thing: I’m on the other side of that fence. I message friends in various other places all the time, and they don’t always reply. Want to know why? BECAUSE THEY ARE FUCKING HOLDING DOWN JOBS! With things that need their god damned attention.

And here is the real kick in the pants. Message these people after working hours, and they don’t answer.

TL:DR – no one is fucking working in DC and I have no idea how this place keeps it together.