things you shouldn't tell me

Have you ever woken to find yourself in a Beckett play?

If you’ve ever been my boyfriend you’re probably enthusiastically (or wearily) nodding right now, as you think back fondly (or woefully) to that first time you unintentionally woke up in Waiting for Godot, with you reading the part of Estragon.

ESTRAGON: (restored to the horror of his situation) I was asleep! (Despairingly) Why will you never let me sleep?

VLADIMIR: I felt lonely.

ESTRAGON: I had a dream.

VLADIMIR: Don't tell me!

ESTRAGON: I dreamt that—


VLADIMIR: DON'T TELL ME!

Then I probably said something about a starfish and hit you in the face. But that really was the least of your problems, considering that you thought you were in a relationship but it actually turned out to be an absurdist tragicomedy. So you can just stop your complaining, the starfish joke is hilarious (particularly the bit where you get hit in the face).

You totally had it coming, by the way. Sugar-coating the whole being deservedly hit in the face with a brilliant joke about a starfish was just me being kind. Because, really, how could you? And it’s not just you – it’s everyone else, ever. You’re all guilty.

You know how I feel about other people’s dreams. But just in case it’s slipped your mind, I’ll recap – I am not a fan.

I like to wake up slowly and peacefully. I don’t like to launch into complex and burdensome tasks like eating and talking right away. I need a run up. In truth, I do not truly wake up until about 3pm. I may bumble around, being physically present before then, but I wouldn’t expect many witty anecdotes from my end of the table. You might say this is your favourite part of the day, because of my lack of exuberance for comedy, and that is fine. All I ask in return is that you refrain from asking me to explain string theory or expect me to know where my keys are.

Actually, there is one more thing. Don’t tell me about your dreams. I don’t want to know. I just don’t like it. Maybe it’s because I so rarely remember my own dreams, perhaps I am secretly jealous. Whatever, I just don’t want to hear about everything that didn’t actually happen to you last night. I lack the capacity to follow a rambling narrative about shopping in a museum with your great aunt Mildred, who actually looked like your geography teacher with any interest. Or the fact that you did not eat a really big cake that turned out to have mice inside. If you ever meet a miniature giraffe that can tell the future, do let me know. But not if you just dreamt if – that’s like tempting me with something awesome and snatching it away with the cold, grasping fingers of reality.

I really don’t enjoy hearing about what crazy events didn’t actually take place last night, especially since the plot does not tend to be well formed. Please don’t tell me. My reaction may be extreme.

Time enough for an apparent non-sequitur:

Racism is bad.

If this was on television, I would turn to the camera for this bit. I’m sure you’re as disappointed that this isn’t possible as I am. If it helps, you can imagine me turning away from the action an looking straight into the camera (appearing to look you right in the eye) to tell you how racism isn’t all that great. If you’re finding that hard to imagine because you don’t know what I look like, it might help to know that I don’t look very much like this:

but I might if I were a drawing.

But we’re deviating from the subject of racism being bad, which was in itself a deviation from the subject of hearing about the irrational and mostly inane nonsense that doesn’t actually happen to people.

Because what I actually wanted to do was make a joke about Martin Luther King really having it coming.

I think that’s pretty funny. He made a 20 minute speech about his dream, which sounds like something I would hate. In reality, I actually think that speech is brilliant (which is a mark of how good it is, considering that 20 minutes of a man saying “dream” quite a bit isn’t my idea of greatness, generally) but sometimes things that aren’t true are funny. And I think the Martin Luther King joke has comedy legs, especially if I worked on it for a bit and made it really good.

Unfortunately, saying that Martin Luther King deserved it kind of sounds pretty racist, and that is not a good thing* to sound. I felt in a quandary, so I did what I always do when I feel like that – I asked Younger Sister.

She said she thought it was funny because she knew I wasn’t actually a massive racist. When pressed for further details she explained that if she didn’t know me, not only would she be overwhelmed by the whole experience of meeting a long-lost sister, but hearing me say that the murder of Martin Luther King was justified might lead her to assume that I was incredibly racist and not someone she would ever want to speak to again. The response of this one-woman focus group was not improved when I attempted to make it explicitly clear that I’m not racist by prefacing the joke with “I’m not racist, but…” It turns out that “I’m not racist, but Martin Luther King was totally asking for it” doesn’t come across well.

What kind of a world is it, where you can’t make an innocent joke about killing someone? What have we come to when someone can’t make a nice little murder joke every so often? And you know whose fault it is...

You might at this point think I’m going to launch into a rant about political correctness and how awful it is that schools don’t have sports days anymore because competition isn’t allowed. But I’m not – I hated sports day, actually. I am not built for speed.

No, the real problem is the racists. They make my life a living nightmare. You might not be able to tell from the drawing, because it’s not coloured in, but I can quite safely be classed as “white”, and thus not the traditional victim of racism. But that is where you’re wrong.

Like many non-racist white people, I suffer from the effects of racism being thrust upon me. I will be having a lovely conversation with a nice person, and then out of nowhere they’ll say something racist, and I’ll realise that actually they’re awful and stupid. This is a great disappointment to suffer when you’re not expecting it. And what makes it worse is the fact that I feel duty-bound to challenge their unfounded and offensive beliefs and have to take time out of my day to attempt to change their mind.

Now, judging from their baseless and obnoxious beliefs, I think we can safely assume that the majority of racists are illogical fools, unlikely to be swayed by rational argument. So they’re probably not going to change their mind, no matter how many hours I argue with them. I’m not likely to be converted to bigotry, so the racist and I appear to be at an impasse.

So maybe I should just ignore the abhorrent drivel that is emanating from the racist’s stupid face, but then they might think I agree. Their repugnant ideas are not ok, and I resent them thinking that they are, especially when they think that I think so too. And if there are other people within earshot they might think I’m racist as well, which is not the impression I seek to create.

So there really isn’t a good option – it’s either let everyone think I’m racist, or spend hours explaining why racism is bad to someone who is committed to thinking it’s great, or worse, being unaware that they are racist themselves, and hostile to such a suggestion. It really is about time people realised what a massive pain their terrible opinions are for me.

Phew, what a lot of words you’ve just read. You wouldn’t have to do that if I was on television. But we have to work with what we have, so perhaps we need another recap of what we’ve learned:

1. racism is bad
2. don’t tell me your dreams
3. you shouldn’t attempt to be in a relationship with me if you don’t like Beckett.

 Great.

*neither is racism, kids.