The Most Inexplicable Post You'll EVER Read

So, here I am working at the law firm. I go in every morning with my little shirt and tie on (not exactly true. It's only been 2 days, and I only wore the tie the first day). I do have my shirt tucked in though! I'm friendly. I'm punctual. I do any work that's assigned. But for some reason, totally beyond my (and probably yours, as well... Hey, off topic, but why doesn't "yours" have an apostrophe?) understanding, it seems like people don't like me. I'll give you a moment to pick yourself up off your floor, or to refill that cup of coffee you just spilled, or worse, spat onto your monitor. Sorry about that.

Yeah, it amazes me too. I mean, how can they not like me? It's not like they actually know me at this point. As far as they know, I'm smart, considerate, fun, witty, a bit... Debonair? Perhaps. My mom says I'm special, and she wouldn't lie (except for when she gave away our dog Charlie and lied to us for 15 years. Mark, I'm sorry I had to be the messenger on that one.)

Well, maybe it isn't exactly not liking me. It's kind of a cold shoulder type of thing. They give me these inscrutable looks, kind of blank stares. When the copier jams (I swear I just hit "print", there's no way that's my fault) and I'm standing there trying to see what's wrong, they give me that stare and slowly walk over, expressionless. It's kind of like Children of the Corn, except they all have black hair. I guess that's a little less creepy. A little.

Come to think of it, the women are less... mean? than the guys. I say "mean" because it's not too much to ask for a smile or at least don't look at me like you want to punch me. Anyhoo. Generally, the women are at least friendly, and will say hello. Maybe, if I'm extra lucky, they actually smile a little bit. It's like I'm a person. It's just weird that all of the guys kind of don't like me.

I guess it's possible that I exhibit such hyper-manliness, such Alpha-male attitude, such that they're just not familiar with it. Possible, but I'm going to be realistic and say there's probably only about a 30% chance of that being the reason. Is it the intimidation factor of my hovering-around-3.0-gpa-at-Suffolk-law-school aura? Is it the fact that I used to drive a motorcycle? I play guitar? What the hell is it?!

It's only been a couple of days, so I guess there's time to change things. Except for the fact that unlike back home, everyone really works hard around here (hi, Ana!). I mean, back home we do work. But it isn't as all encompassing during the day. It's ok to walk to the bathroom, or just stretch the legs for a trip around the floor, isn't it? Isn't it Ana?? But here, it's like we're all production machines, focused on the destruction of any and all free time around the office. It's gonna be a long month. Actually, it's been pretty cool so far. I'll post about work stuff a little later. Let's just try to figure out this people not liking me thing, first.

Unfortunately, the language barrier may make it a little harder for me to make these people love me. Since there's so little free time, I'd have to compress my witty comments into a couple of seconds, and I'm not sure that's gonna work when I'll have to choose my words so carefully. Maybe if I just go at normal speed and laugh at the end, they'll feel compelled by decency to laugh along? Am I ok with that?

It's just kind of inconceivable that I'm not making friends. Yeah, it's only been 2 days, but no one has invited me to lunch yet. What's up with that? It would actually be quite nice, apart from the chance to get to know people, because I can't go to half the places around work because I don't speak Chinese. Ordering is a little tough when there's the pressure of a line of 20 people behind me and I'm pointing at the menu and grunting. Maybe I should just grunt louder?

We'll see how the social scene goes in the next few weeks. It would be kind of a sad story if I spent the next month alone... I guess I'd just have to lie about that? Keep up the mystique of me being a fun, affable guy?

And as you're all aware by now, I've got a little underwear situation going on. I'm taking care of business (as I always do), so there's a multistage solution in the works. I'll post about that later.