Pretense

There are people who obsessively buy things but never use them for its teleological purpose. I buy bestsellers and vintage classics and install them into my shelf, but I occasionally sit down to read them; I usually run my fingers over the cover or leaf thru the pages aimlessly. This confirms the exoticness of the book in its aged/mint condition. It takes a lot of effort for me to actually read because of anticipation and the fear of starting something. That usually answers my habit of starting things but never finishing them (starting a drawing but leaving it for another day, coaxing myself that I will finish it later). When I read, my left hand fingers would always rub the verso page in anticipation to turn it and move onto completing the book--this is impatience and a failure to concentrate. This is a problem because books no longer have value to me besides aesthetics (they gather dust and cobwebs and I will have wasted money). Sometimes I pride myself in telling others that I have read books when I just skimmed the intro and epilogue. This is characteristic of a procrastinator and a pseudo-intellect who culls bits and pieces of trivial information and rote memorizes them for sheer purpose of showing off during impromptu conversations by reciting these facts.

A pseudo-intellect seeks to put up a front that he/she is knowledgeable in everything! I bring a hardcover book with me everywhere, or flash a New York Times in subway riders' faces. This is pretentious behavior (similar to sitting at Starbucks and writing your first novel). I am unaware of the fact that other people don't care about me because I'm not that special. However I assume that people notice me; people may look at me (because that's what eyes are for) but they may not care. Why make an impression on persons who are passing through (it's not a house party!)?! Because the subway/streets are not a time and place to meet ppl, why make an impression on people you will never see again.

There is always an air of romanticism to the subjects that interest me. There is an unhelped halo effect surrounding certain women. Certain persons carry themselves in a certain way; they more or less emulate certain public figures or types they look up to. I model myself after Dan Humphrey (Gossip Girl) by assuming his paraphernalia and gesticulations. I have always found gangster Azn girls aka handball girls ("hard to get") and intellectual-artsy chicks appealing (snobby women who go to SVA and NYU). Gangster girls show off their legs in skin-tight jeans, and own North Face and Longchamp. A turn off is their year-round devotion to handball along with chasing spikey-haired lang jais because I can never be a tall dude. Note those are my presumptions of them. Therefore I create a self-fulfilling prophecy: upon assuming they are hard to get, I treat them with disdain and sometimes pathetic attentiveness. I end up sucking up to them unconsciously. This ends up affirming my assumptions about them and confirms my close-mindedness as a whole. Assumptions are dangerous because they only address my insecurities. However, assumptions arm us with certain understanding of persons -- we can assume that cops are pigs and violent, cold-hearted traitors; teachers are sadistic manufacturers of writing assignments that break our printers.

I find gangster girls amusing because they show different fronts when they are in front-stage mode and off-stage mode. In public they show this sassy, stylish persona so that handsome men will take them as eyecandy. These girls intrigue me because I am almost certain that their off-stage is perhaps a more artsy side and more intellectual side that they would never show in public.

I always complain that retail store clerks are "fake" and "pretentious." They are not being fake; they are only doing their job to serve customers even if it seems subservient, dogged, and pesky. Customers are always in the zone, assuming civil inattention towards clerks because they want to shop alone (or with their accompanying persons) or in the company of their talking minds. And when customers ask for help without being prompted for service by the clerk, they pose questions that save face e.g. "Sorry to bother you, do you have a size small?" I think that customers have certain expectations of clerks that they should be helpful and courteous. I don't think that they take into consideration the store clerk's burden throughout their work shift. A previous customer could have shifted temperament and caused an unsatisfactory shopping experience. Customers must not take it personal; store employees are human and reflections of their customers in a frantic mode.