The Crashing Boor

[plumtreeblossom]

I went to a small party at Todd's last night, the first of his I've been to since July. Though it was great to see everyone again, someone brought an acquaintence of theirs who, while they may not have spoiled everyone's good time, she more or less spoiled mine.

I'd never seen her before -- she was a friend of someone I don't know well. Sort of a bedraggled 50-something, all dressed in a sparkly blouse but with Osh Kosh overalls over it. I was the last to arrive, and as I was saying hello to people in the kitchen, she crossed way too far into my personal space zone and for no explainable reason said "WOO HOO HOOOOO!" very loudly. It was an awfully odd thing for someone who doesn't know me from Eve to do.

Have you ever seen how young children will interrupt you mid-sentence if there's a concept or reference they don't get, and demand an immediate explaination before letting you continue? This woman was like that. She was so utterly oblivious to basic conversational manners that it seemed like being in the presence of someone who's been incarcerated for the last 30 years.

The party was small enough that all of us were in one conversational circle, and every goddamn topic that came up was stonewalled with her loud interjections of lives-under-a-rock ignorant questions. What's Belize? Who's Keith Richards? What's Google? She would not allow the conversation to continue until she'd had her ass-ignorant remedial question answered.

She was like a Mistress Quickly gone very, very wrong. All of the clueless bumpkin dorkiness with none of the cute. She had a creepy, childlike, bug-eyed response to anything that hinted at anything even semi-sexual. Mentions of kissing, dating, or sexual activity all got a "WOO HOO HOOOO!" It started making my skin crawl. At one point I (big mistake!) mentioned about a friend in the group who is polyamorous. Which of course led to What's polyamorous? (10-second explaination of poly) IT IS?!? WOO HOO HOOOO!!.

Much as I love Todd and his parties, I couldn't wait to get the hell out of there. Nobody was leaving yet, so I called a cab to get me to the Malden T stop. When I said I was leaving by cab she blocked me in the kitchen door and bellowed YOU'RE PAYING FOR A CAB OH MY GOD THAT'S TERRIBLE!!!

At that point I knew I was dealing with a mad women, and my politeness had run out. I curtly said "Get. Out. Of. My. Way!"

Then I waited on the rainy porch for 15 minutes rather than go back in there with her. Poor Todd.

Comments

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

No, because I'm certain you would do the sensible thing when hearing an unfamiliar reference, and just listen politely to the speaker for a while. Usually you can gleen most of what you need to know by just listening, and then when they're done speaking you can ask for clarification. I know you wouldn't interrupt like her!