Sociopath

"Good evening, this is the library."

"Yes, hello. I would like to renew some books."

"Do I know you?"

"Um, no, I don't believe so. I'd just like to renew some books please. Do you need my barcode number?"

"I'm sorry. I don't feel comfortable talking to you if we haven't been introduced. Is there someone you do know here you'd like to talk to?"



I woke up this morning feeling a little guilty for telling three teens who were waiting for their ride, fifteen minutes after the library had closed, that they had to leave. And feeling a little guilty I thought I'd better write a blog post about it and see what my writer self would come up with. What I came up with was, perplexingly, that odd dialogue up above. It originally popped into my mind last night after a call from some patron. I thought of the person calling the library to ask for some innocent thing and me saying, in a kind of affronted, upper class horror "Do I know you?"

Also last night I read about sociopaths. A self described sociopath said that sociopaths generally have a pretty good idea that they are sociopaths, unlike narcissists. Narcissists simply think they're being normal and reasonable. Sociopaths are more aware of standing outside of empathy. They also were kind of proud of their sociopathology, perhaps feeling cool and reasoned, like Spock. I didn't wish I was a sociopath, but I did think it would be handy to be able to become one, like turning on a switch, for certain events. Like:

"We're closed. You have to leave."

One of the teenagers was very bitter about having to leave. The other two were accepting. It was about zero degrees outside. So I suppose that though their views were different about it then, they're all the same now, what with they're all being dead and everything. Being frozen just outside the doors of the locked up library, hands reaching in stiff claws towards the last glimmers of heat barely leaking through the thick glass is the great equalizer.

Thank you. I feel better now.