GRUMPY

Somehow, my situation reminds me of that of a prisoner in solitary confinement, who likes reading. A prisoner who has little contact with the outside world, and is allowed books to be brought in and to go out for half an hour a day for exercise. The picture is a man with a high stack of books, making his tiny space even tinier. In my case, very few messages come and when they come, they ask me, "How are you?," books come from online stores like Amazon and others, and I go out for grocery shopping to nearby supermarkets almost every day.

I appreciate those "How are you?" messages. I really do. It means at least I have a few people who have time to bother to see if I'm still alive.

Last month, one of the few messages said, "You isolate yourself" when I replied to her "How are you?" if there was something that's repulsive about myself. Isolating myself? No, I'm not isolating myself. "I'm not avoiding anybody unless the person is disgustingly disagreeable." That "Latin" guy may be in this category not only because of his bravado about his language faculty.

The message sender did not reply to my "I'm not avoiding..." answer. I'm not looking for any debate or polemics. Even not anything remotely serious. But when any exchange happens extremely rarely, I tend to go to what I'm most concerned of. Maybe, just maybe, those few people are not used to or have not learned to or do not wish to listen to what can be conceived to be complaints by a mere foreigner. They are "local" people. I even  think that people in this country are all domesticated or tamed quite nicely because of the socio-political system and because they are busy thinking only about how to make more money.

This may be an attempt of victimization on my part, and this may be my prejudice about the society here, but I cannot deny that I have to think very hard if I've ever had any meaningful, let alone inspiring, conversation with anybody here. It's always, "How are you?" Never go beyond that, not showing any interest in who I am. Or "How are you?" is a way to show your interest in me? And this impression seems to have become only stronger especially since the outset of the pandemic.