The Arithmetics of Socialization

Well there you go, I actually got the urge to kill someone today. That makes it officially one week, 168 hours. I've spent almost 40 hours away and about 50 asleep, and a little more than 10 hiding away in safe, dark corners of glorious loneliness, let's largely overevaulate them to 18 (it's not, but that rounds off the final number nicely). That leaves something around 60 hours.

That is how long, although strained at the end, I can spend with my family until I really want to crawl out of my skin. Not on end, mind you. Spread out.

What ticked me over the edge was that one, and sometimes two, persons here insists on planning my life for me. Not in the sense of what to study or anything important like that. No, but what I am to eat, when, how, who I am to ask what, which bus to take, how to fix every little practical detail of my life according to what is apparently universally optimal, as if I wouldn't care about that myself, or am unable to know that if I work one hour longer one day I can leave one hour earlier another. Having been away for a really long time this time also enhances it, cuz, you know, I've successfully planned quite a number of days for myself and lo and behold, I haven't starved to death or completely ruined my life from missing a bus. Sometimes people seem to think that waiting for a bus for an hour or eating odd things together because you had nothing else is something terrible and must be avoided at all costs. I can play cellphone games for an hour at the bus stop instead of playing computer games at home, and I quite enjoy eating strange things - people are too conservative about what food goes together. People should also take care of their own big important problems before they start poking at my small and unimportant ones.

Actually, in most things I do, I enjoy it quite a bit more if I decided upon it alone, and figured out the method alone, and planned it and did it and finished it alone. Nothing is more satisfying than succeeding with something and to know I figured it out, I solved it, I managed. Maybe it's selfish. Maybe it's rude. Maybe I'm boring. Whatever.

60 hours.

In a way it's a lot. A little more than two whole days. In another, it's a very, very small number. No, cats are the way to go. I solve my problems, they solve theirs, and then we can cuddle.