Killing Mind

Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right, here I am, Stuck in the middle with you - Stealers Wheel

Tonight I stood in a pub, where a group of women to my right rythmically thrust their chests forward while screaming the words to yet another cliche karoake song. To my left a group of unashamedly drunk men discussed what they'd like to do the Asian girl in front of them, and in fact, what they'd already done to women like her. Immersed in a sea of painfully familiar songs, the words of Stealers Wheel came to me, and I wondered if in fact I was in the position they were singing about. Am I "stuck" in a relationship because the world of potential romantic encounters beyond that is so appallingly disagreeable?

I no longer enjoy the lowest common denominator music selection being thrust at me unnecessarily loudly. The drabs of conversation permissable amongst the background noise fall well short of worthwhile discourse. The reams of drunken men who evaluate no criteria (beyond gender) in their inelegant advances do not make me proud to be a man. The attention seeking, frivolous, pretentious women who encourage the disrespectful behaviour so generously available do not give me much hope for the fairer gender. The steadily increasing ramp-up costs required for meeting the inane, drunken social norm do not offer great incentive for reaching that potential. I'm free to find my own outlets, but the social barriers to requited love seem to cast that which has already been obtained in a particularly favourable, if distorting, light. In fact, it makes for a rather disconcerting parallel to the economic cost of change that keeps people using substandard services in many parts of their lives.