I was looking forwards to a Sunday of peace quiet rest & thinking about religious stuff. But predictably, 215 PM, such was interrupted by the phone ringing like a bomb going off. It was the Hindu I call Moonrabbit. As usual: his voice was loud & exaggeratedly deep; he sounded like a 12-yr old impersonating a Black gangster. I picked up the phone.
He announced he had an argument with his father; he had been confrontational with his dad in a way his brother never could get away with. He repeated what he had said to me last night when he had called, regarding his going to the Indian store to buy ingredients to cook his "Sambar". He repeated the long list of ingredients he had bought.
I attempted empathetic conversation re his dad's defects, but he interrupted with nonstop verbal noise. I honestly told him that as usual (doing something he's been asked 100 times not to do) he was interrupting me whenever I spoke. He said, "You're lying!". Honestly I replied: "You're lying about me lying...You interrupted me 5 times in the past 3 minutes".
I tried to explain to him that a social-interaction does not consist of him being a show on a stage and the other person the audience (we've tried to explain such to him dozens of times), but he interrupted me with nonstop verbal noise. Then he erupted: "I'm way more social than you. Go to hell". And slammed down the phone.
I was planning on explaining to him that things are difficult & dangerous for his dad's health because his dad is 85 years old, but I never got the chance because he hung up.
Re his boast about being social: 1) he presumes to know much re my social-life. 2) He equates being social, with knowing HOW to be social.
30 minutes after the 1st call of theday, the phone rang again, sounding like a bomb going off. It was Moonrabbit again. I did not answer. As usual he left a long loud message in the machine. This time the complaint was: when he calls me or his father or Chicago-pal 'Rudofsky', we want to talk and dislike him doing all the talking. And the proclamation was: we're all obligated to listen & not talk while he talks because he has called us as opposed to us having called him. Whereas in reality, what would be more reasonable: when A calls B, the social-interaction should consist primarily of A listening & B speaking.
Moonrabbit does not understand, that people get pleasure out of the give & take of conversation & find just listening to be boring depressing tiring stressful. Moonrabbit, in combination with my experiences with other Hindus, makes it seem like Hindus hypocritically deny those they socially interact with, the same pleasures they themselves get out of the social-interactions.
Labels: Hindus, Moonrabbit, social-interactions, Stress
