Persecution Complex

I don't know, I was going to write something ridiculous that will probably morph into something else by tomorrow, something about business meetings and bubble gum and a small elephant named James, but something else cropped up.

I was thinking about how Biff and I went out to dinner and after dinner cocktails Sunday night. We were sitting at the bar, me with my Maker's neat and she with her Manhattan, when little miss prissy bitch stomped up to the bar. See, we had been sitting there when she and her boy toy came up to begin with and mentioned that instead of waiting for a table, they would go sit outside. About five minutes later she stormed up to the barmaid and in the sort of bitchy tone that only a few can truly perfect proclaimed that, "they had been waiting outside for 15 minutes and no one had taken their order."

I smirked, more for the barmaid than to make Princess McBitchyson angry (though had I accomplished that I would have been proud). The barmaid deflected the bridge and tunnel bitchiness quite deftly, informing the woman that there was only her and one waitress for the whole of the busy restaurant and she would be happy to take the woman's order.

So I was thinking about that while I was reading an article linked to Buddy's post. This quote in particular made me tense up a little bit:

"It's actually OK to hate atheists," Kelly said. "We are like the last group that people overwhelmingly agree that it's OK to hate us, because there's an absurd caricature of atheism out there."

Well, some other groups might disagree with you there Kelly. Maybe gays, or blacks, or Muslims... See Kelly, the thing about being an atheist, the thing about being "persecuted" as an atheist is that no one knows you're an atheist until you point it out - unless you're walking around with your "Hey, I'm An Atheist" T-shirt on. You're like vegetarians, no one cares until you purposefully make a big deal out of it.

And from that quote, I peg you as one of those types of people; the people who need to act persecuted to get attention.

There's enough hatred out there, enough people truly being hated and beat and killed for who they are, that idiots who manufacture persecution make a mockery out of people with real problems. It sort of feels like putting yourself in an exclusive community didn't get you enough attention, so you need to begin this childish wailing that people treat you differently because you're in this minority.

It’s like complaining that mainstream music fans just don’t get the band like you do. It's like bitching that the one bedraggled waitress hasn't come outside to get your order for five minutes.

It’s actually only sort of like those things.

There is that same sort of power in feeling like you're hated as there is in swimming around in an ocean of anger; it feels like you're doing something, striking a chord for your side, it gives you motivation... I guess. Actually, it's childish and egotistic, and it's a lesson I'm forced to learn over and over.