Have you ever been in that weird situation where you have to work with someone who looks like someone you don’t like? I’m facing that at the moment, by which I mean there’s a guy at work who bears a striking resemblance to a person (from the online world) I can’t stand. They aren’t twins by any means but the guy at work could easily be the younger brother of the online troll.
This has two unfortunate effects. First, every time I pass this guy at work I’m reminded of a fuckwit I’d rather not waste time thinking about. Second, every time he says something I have to fight the urge to respond “What the fuck would you know? You’re just some pathetic troll who wastes his days attacking people who are actually trying to do something worthwhile!”
I have a suspicion that were I actually to make that outburst, it would be a career-limiting move.
It actually reminds of a situation I had years ago in a shared house where I really, really, REALLY didn’t like one of my housemates. It was pointed out to me that this housemate bore a striking resemblance to the actor Charles Dance. This proved to be a very interesting discovery to make because it turns out Charles Dance gets killed in nearly every movie he’s in.
He goes in a satisfying variety of ways too. Sometimes he’s shot, other times he’s stabbed, blown up, eviscerated by an alien or falls to his death. Hell, in one movie he even had a statue dropped on him. It’s incredibly cathartic to watch a convincing stand-in for someone you don’t suffer a cavalcade of painful deaths.
This guy actually went from being a source of depression to a major source of entertainment. Any time he acted like a total dick (usually several times a week) the situation could be remedied by whacking on a Charles Dance movie. Followed by a long household discussion on our favourite way to see him die.
Angry 365 Days a Year 
ahah thats awesome. It’s funny that we find it entertaining to watch people get killed.. 😀
mm, I haven’t really had one of those experiences but i could imagine having one seeing as there are a couple of people I really hate and loath (general dickhead tools at a learning institution i shall not mention).
Even worse is when your co-worker resembles a long lost love – yet this doppelganger is a complete bitch! Talk about ambivalence…
@squinch: We only find it funny to see someone be killed if we know its fake. Have you seen how a young child reacts to violence when hes watching a movie, but doesnt understand its fake. That shows what is closer to true human nature
squinch: it’s one of the oldest payoffs in storytelling
Davross: we all have them 🙂
pokksey: that is straight up weird
steel: much like a decent adult if they see documentary footage of death (e.g. war)
> REALLY didn’t like one of my housemates
Couldn’t be me? I used to live in a shared house, and I think all my housemates really really really didn’t like me. Because they were all friendly talkative easy-going well-rounded… whatever, and I was… not. So they liked to gather in the kitchen at night and yell gleefully, and then I came out of my room to yell at them to stop yelling.
At that time I liked to entertain myself by thinking about my favorite ways to kill them. Then, when I had finally settled on using a flame-thrower, workers came the very next day and installed smoke detectors in the house, and brought some brochures about fire preventing… I thought, wtf, they must have mind-reading equipment hidden in the walls, and moved out.
My Roommate. She looks like herself. She has beady eyes that squint whenever they’re looked into directly; they well up with suspicion during eye to eye contact. I have a hard time looking at her because my face involuntarily reflects back her bullshit. Her normal state seems to be always on the verge of opening up her fat mouth to issue my diagnosis.
She’s an addiction counselor who works for a major HMO well known for dolling out drugs like candy. Here, take a pill and go home; make a follow up appointment on your way out. What depth of madness perpetuated upon itself!
I don’t want to come out and admit that I hate her, but what else do you call feeling like you want to spit and then shower right after being in the same room? Besides cue that it’s time to find a roommate who isn’t a half baked therapist without a clue?
She’s a sadist; she becomes smug and self righteous whenever people let on that something, it could be anything, might make them in any way vulnerable.
Well, I’m moving very soon but she doesn’t know until I tell her on the 1st. I know she’ll be very pleased that I have to leave behind a cat that I adore, who happens to be hers. She knows damned well that I’m never going to confront her bullshit because I’ll want to visit the cat from time to time. I’ll miss that sweet big cat dearly but it’s almost consolation enough that I won’t have to wake up and see her duplicitous ass first thing when I walk outside my bedroom door.
Sorry, it all just finally slipped out. But better online than to my detriment here.
I had the reverse happen. I knew someone at uni that reminded me of a nice guy I knew before him. As a result I was always really friendly to him even though we weren’t all that close.
I figure it made for a nice change since I’m not usually the most sociable person.
As for disliking people it’s usually because they remind me of an archetype rather than a particular person. You could be the nicest person in the world but if you resemble, for example, the image of the football hooligan I have in my head, we probably wont be the best of friends.
Vlad: I don’t think it was you 🙂
Gap: this blog is all about catharsis 🙂
DOA: I did see a study recently that suggested happy and open looking faces make us more likely to trust someone even if they don’t deserve it. A face we associate with happy memories is bound to make us like someone.
An addition to my earlier post:
I just watched untraceable, and it got me thinking about what people get from killing, or watching murder on TV, the internet, or anything else.
In he beginning, One guy posts on forums about it. The cat gets killed fairly slowly. People think its fake, but they also know its very realistic. And they begin to talk, people watch our of curiosity, a man dies, people really begin to take notice, its no longer funny, and they begin to notice its real. The FBI takes a large interest in it. People talk, now why do people watch? They are curious, and they are addicted. They watch it for the same reason people watch salsa snack, fingerslam, or other sites like that, because they are horrified, but they feel a rush, not because they find it funny. What happens when the killer gets killed? people leave, they forget, they move on to the next fad, to find some other type of fad, entertainment if you will.
Thats the story of all human life, simply a series of Fads. People believe all life, individual and as a whole, must have meaning.
In their point of view, on persons life is made to solve world hunger and only that, while the other 34 billion people in the world, have no related purpose, other than that they are no longer hungry. Meanwhile, one individual, part of the 34 billion people that are no longer hungry, may be developing a cheaper computer so that 34 billion people are always connected, including the person who solved world hunger.
I have my own views on the meaning of life.
I believe there is no single meaning of life, except to be. As long as life exists, the meaning of life has been fulfilled, without life, there is no meaning, no purpose. Many people set their own meaning of life, and they believe they are to grow up to be an astronaut, however small the chances. Lthough that is not so much a meaning as a goal.
/rant
The only reason we are here is to procreate as far as I’m concerned, like why else would we be here, why else would we be alive, not to say that we should only live for sex but that is the answer to life, like why look any further into it! Be rational people!
“…I did see a study recently that suggested happy and open looking faces make us more likely to trust someone even if they don’t deserve it…”
Apparently, that’s why kids love the Tellytubbies (did they make it to Oz?), although I must confess to quite liking them, too – I think it’s Po’s scooter that does it, for me. Big, open, ingenuous faces – perhaps we assume that such a person has a personality to match?
Matt
Matt: I must say i do like ur argument, we do put a lot of pressure on face value.
Steeldrum: I plan to grow up to be an astronaut
Davross: Procreating is my favourite part of existing
Matt: I think that drives a lot of Japanese Anime too