I was in a Wetherspoons with a friend recently. I forget which one and in which city (not because I was drunk – I swear on my mum’s left nipple that I wasn’t), I’ve just been in quite a few different ones in different places recently: Brighton, Kingston, Surbiton, Cambridge, Belfast. This one that I was in though, while it was dark and quiet and cosy like all the others, and the coins jangling in my pocket felt pleased to be exchanged for something not hideously overpriced, the girl behind the bar was different. She wasn’t like all the others.
She looked English, spoke English, had an English accent, but it was like the discovery of language was a new thing to her. She was awkward about it. Incredibly so. She didn’t look at me, didn’t quite manage to tell me how much my beer was and had some kind of nervous thing going as she gave me my pint.
I immediately liked her.
Weird people, outsiders, unusual people, interesting people, people who wear hats all the time: these are the people I like the most. I don’t “get on” with all of them; some are just far too weird to connect with but I love watching them. I love sharing the world with them.
There’s a lot of normal people in the world. Far too many. Earth would be a much better place if, say, there was a psychological test we all had to do and 20% of anyone who scores a certain amount is killed, thus bumping up the percentage of unusual people in the world. Come on, don’t tell me that’s not a good idea.
In Before the Cynicism 