Ya can't win.

Have you ever started out liking someone, maybe even admiring them a bit, and then, over time, as you spent more time around them, you kind of...didn't anymore?

That's happened to me with a woman in my book club. I can blog about it because no one in my book club reads my blog. I only gave the address to one person in there, my closest friend in the group, and she informed me she doesn't have time to read blogs, so that was that. I don't think she's ever read an entry. Luckily, I like her enough not to take it personally. But it means I can now blog about people she knows with impunity. That's what you get, Busy Friend.

The person in question is a friend of Busy Friend. She's very smart - I could tell that right away. She's lived all over the world, and she seemed to be friendly and have a good sense of humor - or maybe it was just that she smiled a lot or laughed easily, which is not necessarily the same thing, I have learned. She has her own business, which I admire, since I often think I would like to do that, but never quite take the plunge. It's usually when people who actually have their own businesses wearily recount to me the 80-100 hours a week that they work and the fact that they can never take a vacation that I sour on the prospect. But I digress.

When I first met this woman, aside from her obvious intelligence and seemingly open nature, I noticed she had a very distracting physical manner. By that I mean, she has a sort of jerky way of moving, and speaking for that matter, as if she has a mild form of Parkinson's. Perhaps she does. I don't know, because it's not a question you can ask. "Do you have a debilitating disease? Cuz ya kinda seem like you do."

Anyway, maybe because of this weird physicality, I *wanted* to like her - wanted to see past it to her impressive qualities. I wanted to lift her up a little in my mind, maybe. I might have felt a little sorry for her. Why, I don't know, since she was married and successful and clearly didn't need me to be concerned about her physical ticks and her extra 50 pounds, but I'm just psychoanalyzing a little here.

Anyway, as time has gone by, I've found myself less impressed with her. She still has her own business. She's still smart. She's gotten divorced since I've known her and didn't turn into some lump of goo like I would have. But I've also seen a quality in her that sort of spoils all the impressive stuff for me. Intellectual arrogance.

I'm used to people who think they're intellectually superior to me because I watch lots of TV. I blow it off. I couldn't care less. I like TV, and at least I'm honest about it. Lots of other people do, too - they just don't admit it. And besides, I'm perfectly aware of what my IQ is, and it kicks ass. So there.

I also know that I don't like to argue. Some people call it "debate" but most of the time it's just arguing. And the few times I've actually gone ahead and "debated" someone in a social situation, the very people who claim to like debating insulted me or chastised me later for doing it. So, there's really no winning. If you do it, you're a crazy bitch and if you don't, you're a doormat or people think you're too stupid to win an argument, and they assume they've triumphed over you, when in fact, I could often blow their logic out of the water, but just don't feel like being called a bitch. So, there's that.

But what Friend of Busy Friend does is more subtle. She has this way of presenting her opinions and the books she likes as being inherently correct, so if you disagree, it's because you're a poor, misguided soul. "Oh, you didn't like that book? I guess you didn't get it." No, asshole, I got it. I just didn't like it. I actually found myself last night, giving my credentials before announcing that I don't like the "The Catcher in the Rye." Since when should I have to present my authority to say I don't like something? But that's what it's come to with this woman. The book we read this last time, 3 of the 4 of us chiming in on it said we didn't like it because some aspects of the character aggravated us, but FBF did like it, so she finally said, "I think if the author were watching this, she would say, 'Ladies! It's a study of the absurd!'" Oooooooh - so the over-the-top character she wrote, and the over-the-top reaction of the other character wasn't REAL????!!! In a NOVEL???!!!

Yes, Genius of All That Is Literary, we GOT that it was absurd. It just irritated us. The two are not mutually exclusive. And you needn't tell us what the author would have said, seeing that you aren't the author, and you don't know her, and you can't possibly know what her reaction would be. I hate to shock you with that revelation, but you're neither that intellectual superior nor clairvoyant. If anything, the author might have loved that we had such strong reactions, because it means she created characters that moved us. But I don't plan on assuming what would be in her mind and lecturing other people about it. And I don't appreciate being talked to like I'm an idiot and intellectually immature and my adolescent comprehension of a comedic novel exasperates your refined mental sensibility so that you must set me straight on how wrong my reaction and understanding was.

Let me express it another way: Cram it.

Yes, that feels good to say. Cram it - wherever you'd like. Sometimes, most times, the simple expression is the best one. It's neither passive-aggressive nor confusing. I may be just a common TV watcher who likes to laugh and doesn't know much about wine and can't remember that she doesn't like almond extract, but I won't be treated as intellectually inferior to anyone who hasn't discovered DNA or created the computer - certainly not by someone in my book club which is supposed to be friendly and fun. We don't have to like the same books, but we do have to treat each other with respect. And the next time you suggest that I didn't like something because I didn't understand it or that you liked it because you're just so much smarter, more worldly and more savvy, be prepared, because I'm going to call you on it. Got it FBF? I'm calling you out. And then you know what will happen? I'll end up being labeled the bitch. That'll be fair. YOU insult ME/US, and I'M the jerk. See how great debating is? (sigh)