I'm sitting in the furnished lobby of an American hotel when, from down the hallway, come girlish screams and giddies that belong to women who are, of course (this being a Saturday night) intoxicated. I'm huddled up in the chair, my nose deep in the aroma of Consider The Lobster, when they round the corner. Okay, I'll give this to you: I look like a nerd. But, for what came next, I did not deserve.
They round the corner, a few ladies and one dude. They're all holding Miller Lite cans and are staggering from one side of the hall to the next. Clearly these people are a bit tipsy. I look up and for a second make eye contact with one of the ladies and dive back into the book. Maybe she smiled. Maybe I didn't see it. They make their way to the other wing of the hotel and I'm still reading my book when I hear, clearly (probably she would of said this more hushed hadn't she been quite so drunk):
"Loser."
Okay lady. Whatever. So maybe I didn't return the smile you so drunkenly gave me (like it would've made a difference; you wouldn't remember in the morning anyway) because I was caught up by David Foster Wallace's words. I'm sorry I like to educate myself. I'm sorry I'm smarter than you. I'm sorry I don't spend my Saturday nights drinking myself into a stupor only to wake up in some dude's random house, with a burning headache behind the eyes. I'm sorry I won't have to do The Walk of Shame tomorrow morning. I'm sorry I choose to use my brain cells wisely. Mostly, I'm sorry I didn't return your smile.
Because nobody deserves that. And the fact is that it's so uncalled for.
If you just consign people to certain labels without even talking to them then you, my fair lady, have a long life ahead of you full of unwanted pretentiousness. Maybe, if she weren't so drunk she might've not said it. But what is more likely is she would have said it only more under her breath. And that's a problem this world is faced with: giving people labels and condemning them before you even have a chance to utter simple words with them. Maybe she would've sat down with me and I could have discussed with her the finer points of Wallace's life-challenging philosophy and maybe then I could have cured her with hatepeopleonsightitis.
I only wished that I could've had the opportunity to show her the err of her ways and she might have pointed out some of my flaws and instead of disliking me straight off the blacktop we could've stayed up all night talking, like unreserved strangers, in the heat of the moment, baring all, having no shame and nothing to hide.