Recently, In A Letter To A Friend...

I think it's unfortunate that I kicked off the new year in the following way. Oh, well.

Hmmm...idiot at the New Year's party. Well, we decided
to spend the evening with two friends at their party. As it turned out,
only 3 others made it: 2 of them were a couple.

I know the guy from my days at the university: he was a few years
ahead of me in philosophy, in the Doctorate program from which he
would eventually disappear. When I met him again through SCULLY's
friends, I instantly knew he was a jerk. His name is X.

So, while my friends are showing interest in what I do (they are
extremely supportive of my career choice), X has to talk to me about
what I do. My friends are dreading this, I can tell, and I am trying
to avoid eye contact. I can see him navigating around the room and,
finally, the conversation has to happen or I will be rude.

(SCULLY has decided to let me handle it: X is an idiot but I can
always hold my own. He had his own experiences with X while at
university: turns out SCULLY is far superior in intellect and better at
chess, too. The guy has consistently vied for the position of alpha
male ever since. Tedious.)

I entertain the questions about what I do for a living. He won't
leave me alone. He needs me to know that he thinks my psychic reading
cannot be real because it doesn't fall under the umbrella of science
and mathematics and, well, that's all there really is...blah, blah,
blah.

He also needs me to know that he believes that what I do with the
cards etc. can be easily explained. So, there's my chance to shut him
up: "What do I do with the cards? What does a psychic reading
involve? Do I use cards? Does that fact that I make predictions with
greater-than-average accuracy necessarily imply some statement about
the nature of reality, if such a Nature there be?" You see where I'm
going.

He won't be derailed. Despite the fact that he cannot adequately
explain what a reading is, that he can't tell me how my readings
proceed or what kind of predictions I make, he needs to establish his
superiority. He looks like an idiot. I tell him that his arguments
might be strengthened if actually knew something about what I did.

The only way that I can shake him off is by agreeing to call it an
evening when SCULLY asks if we could go...

It went on for hours and my head was hurting because I wanted to join
in the big people's conversation. :(

Anyway, I felt like telling him how inappropriate it was to expect
anyone to defend his/her career choice and no less so at a party!

At any rate, thanks for permitting me the rant.

At least I got to rant about it. Hmmph.