There's a perverse satisfaction in torturing the deserving just by acting like a normal person.
acclimatization
I'm still in Pittsburgh mode—or more accurately, socially healthy mode—which means that I smile at strangers and attempt to make conversation. Just as when I arrived in Seattle 20 years ago, things quickly get awkward. It's hard to describe the discomfort such efforts cause here. The locals clearly regard social grace as some adjective, but which? Rude? Invasive? Creepy? Mentally ill? I'm not sure. But my attempts to engage another human being are comically unwelcome, and said human being invariably evokes the cat in the Pepe LePew cartoons. So desperate to flee, they can think of nothing else.
There's a perverse satisfaction in torturing the deserving just by acting like a normal person.
There's a perverse satisfaction in torturing the deserving just by acting like a normal person.