MATURE BOZOS AND CULTURAL DISSONANCE

Quite a while back one of my friends suggested that, in order to as he put it, "meet girls", I should hang around the student union. Precisely like Snoopy.
Dang, dude, I can't possibly look like Joe Cool.

For one thing, I don't have sunglasses.

Those are extremely important.

Even at night.

Woof!

Besides, a middle-aged man hanging around any area where young people congregate (such as pools, playgrounds, church social halls, and universities) is a red flag. There are very good reasons why professors and library staff leave under armed guard right around the cocktail hour; that's when the students let down their hair and start smoking crack. Tension mounts, and any man past thirty will be savagely brutalized by jocks and junior Barbie.


A college campus is NO place for a rational person.


Reasonably mature pipe-smoking gentlemen hang around alleyways, the quiet end of Waverly, and on the periphery of Portsmouth Square, within a block of places where a nice cup of milk-tea may be found as well as flaky pastries, and no politically correct parents or sustainably green and Vegan teenagers will chivy him, flocking around and swiping at his calves with their sharp, sharp talons.

Real men avoid juvenile bloodsports.

They also frequent tobacconists. Which, I can assure you, are the very last places in the world where one can find a date. All women who enter do so with a "guide", and then act bored and cranky, because contrary to expectations there are no handbags or shoes there.

Women, for some reason that baffles me, do not smoke pipes or cigars.
Yes indeed, there are exceptions -- who are all attached, much as if totally magnetic -- but so very few that they do not count. Despite the immense appeal of good tobacco, whether in a pipe or rolled into a toro or perfecto, the modern American female understands that any chance of catching a wealthy banker or real-estate tycoon diminishes to the point of absolute zero if she shows an iota of the intelligence and individuality required to master the challenges that come with discriminating taste.


THE OPPOSITE OF THEIR GENDER

It goes without saying that the ideal woman is post-collegiate. But I am as far from understanding most of them as I am from relating to their mothers or their children. Some of them can be conversationally charming, but very few of them seem to have interests that translate into deep and wide knowledge sets, and many of them fall into set behavioural patterns quite as dull as their brothers and fathers. Though instead of watching sports, they subscribe to the "Shopping For Hello Kitty Pursies" channel, and choose clothing based on the latest scheme of three stylish colours as decided by Gap or Old Navy, instead of Jerseys that betray undying allegiance to the local collection of overpaid glandular freaks who run around on astroturf.

[Most modern females would like to do nothing better than spend the day internet shopping, swilling diet bevs, and listening to Miley Cyrus, precisely like men might want to play Grand Theft Otto and endlessly repeat sports stats. Yes, I know that that isn't quite true. But it's very close, isn't it?]


Our habits and passions are formed during childhood; the family and the school strengthen these, and we are rigidly conditioned away from any disturbing individualism. Boundaries are defined by the tolerances of our parents and peers, and, in the modern age, by television and social media.

If all of your friends are on Facebook and insta-message, there is a great chance that you will end up being a shallow spongiform unit, indistinguishable from your peers.


I suspect that there were people like that in Mediaeval times too, whose entire life revolved around parchment and oak-gall ink. They must have been unbearably dull.

Their friends probably thought they were cool, though.


Tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet.


Nowadays people thumb-write and emotify their con; but do they still read anything? That is to say, anything requiring thought?

Or is it all fragmentary blink-byte?

I am mr. Badger, and I have a book you should read.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================