Nihilist

As I sat at a nearby table, nursing an old fashioned, I cracked open the notebook I was carrying and the pen I went searching twenty minutes for (not easy to buy a pen in downtown LA). I was going to jot down a few notes, maybe write some deeper thoughts, but I was overpowered by the conversation of the three people at a table across the room. They spoke loudly, unaware and or unconcerned with being overheard. Worse, the woman talked in that high-pitched baby voice, and the overly affected way of making every sentence, sound like a question? Where her voice goes up at the end? Sounding like she’s consistently unsure of anything she’s saying? But the men with her were the obnoxious ones. I tried to figure out their dynamic. What was their relationship to each other? Was one of them the third wheel? Co-workers? Or were there power dynamics at play. There did not seem to be any boundaries.

The woman was picking up the check, she made note of her tab at the bad. It was interesting, the sheer volume of topics they covered and the way their conversation would zig and zag into strange terrain every few moments. Obviously, I was not a part of their discussion, not directly. Most of that half of the bar within earshot was a part of their discussion, indirectly. They were perfect examples of people I’m glad I don’t have to interact with on any regular basis, and here, an incomplete list of topics they covered of things I don’t care about:

• Going to parties
• Cocaine
• Having a solid instagram selfie
• Krysten Ritter’s birthday party (unclear if this was in the past or future)
• Underwriting Classes
• Having someone pick up laundry
• The guy in his office with a sick new Porsche
• Undergrad intramural sports
• Marley and Me
• Their opinion on the Harvey Weistein “saga” (he’s a bad guy, but he made it easier for everyone to come forward now – though, unclear how that was his doing)
• Where he learned how to play pool
• How good he is at pool
• His preference for nine ball
• Referring to something as “fucking retarded”
• The Ohio State game
• How he “crushed” his barmitzvah
• The best way from Manhattan Beach to El Segundo
• How Sara is sooo getting fired
• How mediocre the new guy at the firm is (though he does not appear to be soooo getting fired, at least not before Sara)
• His DISC profile (He’s an S apparently, but comes across as a huge D. Side note – I tested as a strong D that flexes C).
• How much he likes people, DISC totally called that right
• How Jake just needs to spit some better game
• How the current environment of everything being harassment will make it harder to get laid
• Kendall or Kylie Jenner and how she’s the worst, but she does know how to do Insta
• How she literally just can’t with some people