I Had No Idea I’d Despise So Many People (And Yet, Here We Are)
I used to think I was a nice person. The kind who smiled at grocery store clerks, who held doors open for the guy still thirty feet away, who gave the benefit of the doubt when someone said something stupid because maybe they just hadn’t had their coffee yet.
But then… the 2020s happened. And apparently, my tolerance for willful ignorance, performative patriotism, and conspiracy cosplay has a limit — and that limit is very breached.
I had no idea I’d grow to despise so many people. Not dislike. Not avoid. Not roll-my-eyes-and-scroll-past. No, we’re talking deep vein of contempt, the kind usually reserved for historical villains and humidity in July.
And it’s not just the obvious villains. Sure, the anti-vaxxers who think Bill Gates implanted them with a microchip via a cotton swab can take a seat. The flat-earthers? Cute, in a 14th-century plague doctor kind of way. The gun-fondlers who scream “my rights!” every time someone suggests that toddlers shouldn’t be shot in preschools? Absolutely. Despise.
But what surprises me is the other people I’ve come to loathe.
The neighbor with seventeen flags in his yard — none of which are American, unless you count the knockoff with Trump’s face where the stars should be. The one who fires up his leaf blower during dinner, because his backyard barbecue of freedom depends on violating the Geneva Convention of noise.
The person who uses phrases like “devil’s advocate” and “I’m just playing both sides” while defending fascism in a cardigan. The woman who says she’s “spiritual, not political” as if her good vibes alone can detoxify book bans and reproductive bans and human rights rollbacks.
The cousin who “doesn’t believe in the news anymore” but somehow does believe in a meme from “Freedom_Raptor1776” that claims Joe Biden is secretly a hologram being operated by a cabal of pedophilic sea turtles.
I’ve developed a visceral reaction to anyone who posts a selfie with a caption that begins “Just so blessed…” and ends with a hashtag that includes the word “hustle.” I can’t explain it, but I feel it in my bones. Like my DNA recoils.
And don’t even get me started on the “both sides” people. The ones who think that extremism is a matter of opinion and that maybe we should meet halfway between compassion and cruelty — because, you know, fairness. I now believe these people are actually worse than the extremists. At least the extremists have committed.
I used to think I was someone who believed in unity. Now I believe in noise-canceling headphones, strategic ghosting, and the block button as an act of spiritual hygiene.
And if that makes me a bad person? So be it.
Namaste, and stay the hell away,
Julie Bolejack, MBA
