No Humor

I just can't help but feel a sense of pity and a certain degree of contempt towards some people. Recently, a few folks from the workplace discovered my full name. Most people only know me by my nickname. Most people find my name too long, so I'm often introduced by my nickname. In fact, I'm rarely called by my full name--- I only hear my full name when my parents are angry, or during the first day of classes in school, before the teachers ask for my nickname so they can call me with that instead. Presently, the only people who know my full name are my close friends and relatives, or those who have access to my papers. That's one reason why I chose to use my full name on the social networking site I use most often, so that I could filter out the strangers and stalkers. That backfired though--- my classmates from elementary school, a number of whom I've never even talked to back then, have started adding me up because they know my full name. Social networking sites are really full of shepherds--- those people who keep on adding and adding people up, even the ones they have only met for a single second in their lives, in order to create a huge network of "friends"... to create some false sense of popularity, i guess. But hey, that's not what this is about.

So yeah, those folks discovered my full name, and for some reason they found it incredibly funny, and they kept on taunting me with my own name. D-oh. As if that would work. They said I was obviously struggling to keep a smiling face, but deep inside I was getting pissed. They said i was obviously getting annoyed. I don't think my name is funny; it's not even strange. Heck, it's a fairly common name, just not on these parts of the world. Do a search on the net and you'd find dozens of people who have the same name. So was I getting annoyed? Far from it. In truth, I was mildly amused, but there's also that overwhelming sense of pity. For some reason, my name seems strange to people belonging to the lower class, and some children find my name strange too, that's why they think it's funny. And what do children and people from the lower classes of society have in common? Lack of intellect, lack of knowledge--- at least when compared to the educated folks in our midst. It's true, I really pity them. The last time someone taunted me with my own name was way back in second grade, when a few of my classmates found my name funny. That was more than 20 years ago. Now, I find myself in the company of men in their late twenties and early thirties whose sense of humor is at par with that of a seven year old. Now that's something to laugh about. That's even funnier than my name. In fact, that's more than just funny.

It's pathetic, it's shameful, and downright pitiful.