On the dickhead syndrome

I’m a dick.

I’m well aware of that, make no mistake about it.

I know.

The problem is that it keeps getting worse and I don’t know what to do about it. Actually, I know exactly what to do, But I can’t. And I’m not sure I would even try if I could.

Here are a few examples to elucidate my point:

Right off the bat, who uses the word “elucidate”? What’s wrong with “illustrate”? Except for me, the former pops into my head first, so I’m conflicted between using the fancy term that shows up first, or the less accurate term that will make me sound less irksome. I’m stuck between either being a dick or a coward… It's not a tough choice in my book.

Here’s another example:

People who love me text me things all the time. I like it. They say: “Hey, check this out”. More often than not, I’ve seen it before. So I treat these people poorly because I’m a dick. I say dickhead things like: “Yeah, seen that one 9 months ago when it was cool” or “Yeah, that one cracked me up like a baby when I first saw it in 2016”. Sometimes, I pull the biggest dickhead move of them all. I say: “😲. That’s amazing”

Here’s another example of how I frequently misbehave. Many well-intentioned people send me the same thing at roughly the same time. It happens more often than you’d think. It’s alarming. That’s a topic in and of its own. Sometimes I say: “Well, let me tell you what I told the third person who texted me this. He was more insightful than you, so I’ll adapt it to your context”. And sometimes I say: “Yeah! Ain’t that crazy”

I seem to have carved out a spot for myself in society where I’m beyond the reasonable boundaries of normal human interaction. I noticed this when I was 15 and had reliable mobile internet. I just immediately lost the ability to uphold effortless conversations with most people about anything that wasn’t a project.

A common theme of normal conversations is asking your friends about things. “Who do you think first came up with string music? I bet he was a bow hunter” or “I don‘t know why we don’t sanction Sweden into Oblivion after their WWII treason. Why should they reap the benefits of freedom if they didn’t help us achieve it? We don’t need their iron ore anymore, can’t we cut them off? We’re already assembling our furniture ourselves anyway”.

I didn’t have such interesting questions when I was a 15-year-old moron, but whatever questions I had were better answered with a Google search than another 15-year-old moron.

The affliction continues to this day and it keeps getting worse because the internet is getting better and I’m running out of entry-level questions.

I’m not the only one with the dickhead syndrome. I’ve met know-it-alls before. It was glorious. You make a reference and you know they’re going to catch it. Sometimes you get that coveted moment when somebody catches a double-entendre with a 3-layer deep reference and a movie quote. Sometimes they fire back with one of their own. in those rare occasion, I feel ok. But most times, I just feel like a dick.