by Cazzie David
The inside of a grapefruit looks like alien flesh
On a scale of sadness from 1 to 100 a waiter working at a restaurant not getting any business is like an 11. But anything on the scale from 1 to 100 can feel like level 100
Even if there was nothing sad in the world except for one old, lonely dog that died fifty years ago life would still be sad just bc of that knowledge
The meanest thing you can say about someone’s work is “It’s cute.”
My mom said my book was cute.
I saw my therapist after she watched the premiere of Curb and she said, “I watched Curb last night.” I said, “Oh yeah?” She said, “Yeah. Cute.” I wouldn’t tell my dad that but he’s read it now in this book.
The way that people force themselves to pay attention to politics so they don’t become complacent is what I do with stupidity. Yes, that’s right, I take on the enormous burden of hyper-focusing on people’s secret awfulness for the benefit of society. I’m a true hero.
Shit-Talking Etiquette
Ms. Muller and Mr. Baron, Cazzie’s math and English teachers, rate her with significant externalizing problems (sometimes annoys others on purpose, gets in trouble, defies teachers, disobeys; teases others). Both teachers in addition to Mr. Tsakiris see symptoms of depression (almost always seems lonely, is sad, is negative, is pessimistic, is easily upset, says she doesn’t have friends) while Mr. Baron and Mr. Tsakiris also see symptoms of withdrawal (almost always refusing to join group activities).
—Excerpt from neuropsychological evaluation of Cazzie David, 2007
Depression is the opposite of anxiety. It numbs you from your head to your toes and makes you feel like nothing matters. You don’t care about anything or anyone, including yourself. Anxiety, on the other hand, makes you feel everything. You care about everything and everyone, especially yourself. Depression has always been the only cure for my anxiety. Deep down, there’s a relief in it. It takes all of the terror I feel about everything away, and although the misery is excruciating, and I no longer value myself or my life, that state of mind is almost preferable to the constant panic and fear that will slowly kill me while I panic about being killed.
There is something about depression that makes me feel powerful, like I’ve developed a weapon that can hurt someone just by having them look into my eyes. No matter how deeply someone were to stare, all they’ll see is a wall that screams back, “YEAH, SCARY RIGHT? I DON’T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT ANYTHING!” I’ll drive recklessly, smoke cigarettes, get on the back of a motorcycle, be able to stand outside alone at night and not freak out. Meanwhile, when I’m anxious, I’ll drive below the speed limit and question the act of driving so much so that I’ll forget how to drive and have to pull over until I can stop my brain from overthinking the concept of automobiles. I’ll worry about every toxin I’ve ever put in my body. I wouldn’t get on the back of a motorcycle for one million dollars and I am not brave enough to sit in my own living room at night.
If depression is the opposite of anxiety, misanthropy is both of them combined plus rage. It’s the only thing I’ve found more challenging to live with than my depression or anxiety, and I often consider it the catalyst for both of these conditions. The people you have around you can help calm you down or distract you from your anxiety. Sometimes just knowing there are people who are there for you can help with depression. There are no people who can help you with the issue of hating people.
Misanthropy is so all-consuming that it should really be its own disorder. Symptoms include thinking something is deeply wrong with you for thinking how much is wrong with everyone else; having so much energy you don’t know what to do with it and yet not enough energy even to make an expression on your face; a soul-sucking, heavy depression you feel in every cell, especially your chest and eyes. Your blood is always boiling; you have a constant desire to punch everything but you also want everything to punch you back. You’re always on the verge of tears but too angry to cry. You are in an eternal bad mood, because what is at the root of every single bad mood anyone has ever had? People.
It may seem like my policy when it comes to hating people is that they’re guilty until proven innocent, but that is not the case. Like a true American, I abide by the rule that someone is innocent until proven guilty. It’s just that many people tend to prove themselves guilty the second they open their mouths. Humans are deeply flawed. They can be pathological liars or have ulterior motives, they fall asleep during movies, or, on a milder but just as enraging scale, they simply don’t get it (it being agreeing with all of my opinions). Inauthentic people are all around us, often living under the guise of “nice.” “I think she’s nice,” someone will say. “You’ll like her, she’s really nice.” No, I won’t like her because she’s nice. Nice is a meaningless quality. Sociopaths can be nice. You need to be more than just nice for me to like you.
Of course I don’t actually hate everyone. There are many people who are painfully good, so brave, strong, kind, and hardworking that it makes you hate the people you hate more than you already do. People who devote their lives to helping others, people who face injustices, people who actually do get it. Most people either make me cry from the absolute love I have for them or enrage me. Then there’s a gray area, which is composed of people who are great except for the fact that they like things or other people I can’t stand. I’ll meet someone who is seemingly good-natured and think to myself, Oh, cool, I don’t hate them, but then I’ll check their socials and think, How can I like this person who likes and supports someone that I wouldn’t follow on Instagram even if they saved me from a burning building?
Still, I hate myself more than all of the people whom I hate combined, which is deeply confusing considering the amount I hate them. There’s a whole lot you could say about me; I think of something new every time I breathe or move my body. I’m constantly inducing anxiety in others just from my presence alone. My disposition is persistently that of a teenage boy who wants to leave the dinner table so he can go play Nintendo. I’m wildly inarticulate for someone who wants to be a writer. I know close to nothing about anything but come off like I think I’m smart because I’m far too opinionated and much too passionate about those opinions, which are only ever in regard to things no one else cares about. I’m like the Nelson Mandela of petty grievances. There are also hundreds of mean comparisons that can be made about my face and voice, starting with the fact that I look closely related to Nick Kroll and sound like a man with pneumonia.
My worst trait, though, would be that I talk too much shit about people. It’s okay. I have come to terms with it, as it is the only thing that has ever eased my misanthropy. I know when I die, people won’t be able to say the things you want them to say, like, “She only saw the good in people.” “She never said a bad word about anyone.” “She didn’t have a speck of envy or anger inside her.” “She was a true angel.” When I die, it will be more of a Steve Jobs situation, where people can’t help but recognize and discuss my obvious flaws—except I’m not also a genius.
My shit-talking seems to have environmental roots. When I was growing up, after my mother hosted some dinner party or event and the last guest had sauntered over to their car, my parents, sister, and I would all gather in my parents’ bedroom to talk shit. It might be the only thing the four of us have in common—a keen ability to detect the most inconsequential flaws in others’ social behaviors. Anytime during the party that I observed something I knew we’d all find ridiculous, I’d store it in my head to bring up later, bursting with excitement to get it out of me and make my family laugh.
Going to school turned out to be a challenge, as it was like one massive dinner party every day. I had a 24/7 urge to talk shit about people. The quality was noxious. Every critical thought made me feel sick. But on the rare occasions when someone agreed with or, better yet, laughed at my shit-talk, I’d feel the opposite. It was only in those moments that I didn’t feel alone, because there is nothing more isolating to be in this wor
ld than someone who hates everything. No one can relate. Even the people who claim to hate everything don’t, actually, because if they really did feel the agony of hatred they wouldn’t post a Wednesday Addams meme and write LITERALLY ME on it because they too would hate people who did that. They would hate all people who write Me on anything because it is an admittance of unoriginality to openly relate to something that is purposely made for people to relate to.
I know this is starting to read like the Joker’s notebook. To be honest, I likely have many of the characteristics of a murderer without whatever it is that makes you actually fucking kill people. Imagine how angry murderers would be without the outlet to kill? That’s me. Well, me and, like, Eminem. Which is why I need to talk shit. Because I can’t rap.
Surprisingly, my misanthropic tendencies never made it hard for me to make friends. It only makes it hard for me to like my friends. You start to feel truly evil when one of your closest pals innocently sings along to the radio and for some reason you can’t understand, it makes you fantasize about biting your fingers off, one by one, like a werewolf, gratifyingly ripping them right off their stupid knuckles. Both of us should be in hell!!! I’ll think, them for singing and me for being so affected by the singing.
I met my first best friend, Rachel, in middle school, and we immediately became inseparable. We would sit in her bed taking embarrassing thermal photo-booth pictures on her laptop and talking shit about all of the bizarre things people from school were doing. She was smart and funny (rare), and we found almost all of the same things idiotic. The things I couldn’t express as to why I found them so stupid she could, and vice versa. Like shit-talking fireworks. And what more can you really ask for in a friendship?
Unfortunately, as it turned out for most people I would spend my time with, the more I hung out with Rachel, the more I unintentionally started to think shit about her. It all began when I unexpectedly got my period in her bed one night. A universally embarrassing incident, but at least it was in my best friend’s bed, I figured. The next morning when she woke up, I tentatively told her about the stain. She abruptly got out of bed and paced around the room in a panic, making big hand gestures.
“FUCK!” she yelled.
Probably the opposite of the reaction I had predicted. Usually when an accident occurs, you at least pretend not to be upset.
“I’m sorry,” I said, thrown. “It was obviously an accident.”
“I mean, it’s fine. I guess. It’s just my mom is going to freak the FUCK out at me.”
It’s always intimidating when someone can enunciate a fuck really well, which she could. “Why would she freak out at you? It was my fault.”
“You don’t know her. She just will. I’m telling you, I’m going to be in so much trouble!”
The period situation was my first understanding of “kicking a man when he’s down.” To simply not kick a person when she’s down is the most effortless form of kindness there is, a non-action action that some otherwise normal people are completely unable to do. My sister also kicks people when they’re down. My ex-boyfriend once spilled chlorophyll water onto our rug when my parents were out. He was so nervous, he ran to get a wet rag and ferociously scrubbed at the big blue droplet.
“It’s not going to come out. It’s chlorophyll,” my sister said, standing over him with crossed arms and zero compassion.
“It’s fine! Please don’t worry about it!” I told him. His anxiety over it made me so anxious, it was as if my sister was actually kicking him.
“I mean, it’s not fine. It’s a really bad stain,” my sister said, bludgeoning him with more guilt.
“Romy. Yes, it is! Stop!” I opened my eyes as wide as I could to wordlessly make her understand how insensitive she was being. But my sister never understands nonverbal cues. Anytime I’ve tried to give her one, she’ll just say, “Why do you keep making that face at me?” Or “Ow! Why’d you just kick me under the table?”
“How is it fine? It’s probably an expensive rug,” she said as he began to scrub even harder. I was mortified. I knew my parents would understand because it’s nearly impossible to get angry at someone over an accident. They didn’t mean to do it! That’s the definition of an accident! I knew Rachel’s mom, similar to my parents, wouldn’t freak out at my unforeseen blood because I’d found her to be, at the very least, a decent person.
A bit after we awoke, Rachel’s mom entered the bedroom, leading Rachel to throw the duvet over the stain in a panic. I believe she did this not to hide it from her mom but to hide the fact that her mom wouldn’t get mad. Because of this, I decided to tell her mom myself, as it was my fault anyway. Predictably, she couldn’t have been nicer about it. Is there another way to act toward a humiliated, awkward teen who is very new to periods and the stains that they cause?
Irritations like this started to build up. The more time I spent with Rachel, the more I realized that much of what I originally looked up to her for was artificial, all the way down to her voice. I’d watch in horror as she’d effortfully push out her lips as far as they could go and use an intentional lisp, one that would turn even stronger when she met new people. One day, she actually tried to convince me with a straight face that she was psychic. Absurd. I knew for a fact she wasn’t psychic because, first of all, if anyone was psychic, it was me, not Rachel, and my psychic abilities confirmed to me that not only was Rachel not psychic, she actually made stuff up. Obviously we were kids, and kids make stuff up. In reality, it was more normal for her to make stuff up than for me to be so bothered by it.
I could tell she was starting to get annoyed with me too. She had never been a particularly accommodating person, but she soon became exasperated by me needing anything anytime I was over. She’d roll her eyes, annoyed that I was a human who required things that were essential for survival, like water, snacks, or a phone charger.
I reached my breaking point when a fake British accent started to sometimes “slip out.” I swear, 85 percent of people with British accents who live in the United States have fake accents and will openly tell you—in their British accents—they’ve lived in the US since they were two. Like, at least lie and say you were fifteen. But now that I knew she was one of those people, I needed to talk shit about her. And I’m sure she needed to talk shit about me. I know you’re not supposed to talk shit about your friends, but it is quite literally the only thing that helps you cope with the nightmare of having friends. So I confided to one of our mutuals about the fake voice, fake psychic abilities, et cetera. I felt so much better, even though all my friend said back was “Oh, I never really noticed.” No surprise there. Most people don’t notice anything, even after they’re told. Straight guys, especially. Straight guys can barely differentiate between a person who is normal and a person who is blatantly psychotic. A straight guy could be stalked and photographed by a girl and if you brought up how fucked up that is to him, he’d say, “I don’t know. She’s just doing her thing . . . why do you care so much?”
Not too long after I had gotten the Rachel annoyances off my chest, I started at a new high school, which meant a whole new crop of people for me to hate. This school was a lot different than my previous one. Most of the students had recently been expelled from their last school, like me. Well, not really like me, as they were generally expelled for drugs and not bad grades, which made me wish I had just brought drugs to my old school so I could at least have left with some respect.
In this new environment, I quickly made friends with a group of girls who appeared to get it the most. I could only attribute their fondness of me to my shit-talking skills, which I resorted to out of fear that they wouldn’t want to hang out with me if I was boring. Sadly, the only way I knew how to not be boring was to be funny and the only way I knew how to be funny was to talk shit. They were definitely more experienced a.k.a. cooler than I was, which became clear after I listened to their stories of attending raves (I had never heard of a rave before) and giving blowjobs to nineteen-year-old guys i
n the alleyways of Venice Beach (disturbing but seemed cool?). They also looooooved drugs.
Every weekend, they’d buy an eight ball of cocaine and a bagful of two-milligram Xanax bars and crush them up into two separate mountains on the table, like they were old-timey rock stars. No one at my old school had done hard drugs. These girls had been doing them since they were, I don’t know, eleven!?! They never peer-pressured me; no one does that anymore. Regardless, I didn’t want to be the only one not doing drugs. I had never been a part of a friend group before, and even though my position felt secure, I didn’t want to be the loser of this crew. I could tell they all thought they were straight out of the movie Thirteen, which they never referenced but had obviously all watched twenty times and thought to themselves, OMG, this movie is so me, it’s my exact life! So I’d carefully participate, never doing above the minimal amount I had to in order for them not to say, “You won’t even be able to feel it!” But on the “special occasions” they got ecstasy pills—their “absolute favorite drug!”—I faked it. I faked it because the only thing dumber than faking taking E is actually taking E ’cause that shit can fucking kill you.
The hypocrisy did not escape me. I talked shit about Rachel for being fake. The main reason I hate people is because they’re fake. But yet here I was, faking. And not just faking but faking taking ecstasy—the worst thing I could ever be forced to fake because the feeling you are supposed to have on ecstasy is constant pleasure. This could not be a more unnatural emotion for me. Faking an orgasm, something I don’t particularly enjoy doing, is still preferable to faking being on E because you’re at least in the act of sex. On ecstasy, nothing is happening, yet you’re expected to experience an orgasm from a light arm graze or the sight of stupid flickering lights. You’re all starry-eyed and swaying, savoring things that could not be more disgusting, like a stranger coming up to you and touching your face all over. If you weren’t on drugs, you’d be fucking horrified, and if you’re pretending to be on drugs, you are horrified, but you’re forced to pretend that you love it. I knew that if someone found out I had faked it, I would be the best subject for shit-talk ever, and I’d deserve it.