The society of John

If there’s something you ought to have understood until now about our beloved and hated John Doe, it’s the fact that he pretty much doesn’t give a fuck about the perks and advantages of having a busy and exciting social life. Yup, the truth is, John is what you might call a lonely rider. He doesn’t like to go with the flow, and the flow mainly consists of people, so he doesn’t like to go with the people, or better yet he doesn’t like to go where the people are.

Truth be told, who could blame him? Honestly, you can’t say he doesn’t have a point. People suck, everybody knows that, and everybody feels that more often than they would like to deceive themselves into thinking they do. John is just one of the rare cases of beings that are willing to accept and embrace the lack of perspective that social interaction has to offer. He is much happier with his choices in life, and he chose to go with his own flow and listen to his own advice, good or bad, rather than taking other people’s words into consideration. It’s a much healthier lifestyle, but the sad part is, when everything goes terribly wrong, and trust me when I say it will, John Doe has only himself to blame. He can’t lift the weight of bad decisions from his shoulders and throw it on somebody else’s, so he just throws it into the world with a simple “Life’s a bitch”, or a plain “shit happens”, and he means it with all his heart.

The thing is, when you first meet John, or his projection into the real world, you might think he’s shy. And in some way, he is, not shy, more like a bit socially awkward. He doesn’t really know how to act out around people he doesn’t know, so he prefers to not act out at all. But beyond John’s awkwardness, there lies the real source of his apparent shyness. He is, in the full meaning of it, antisocial. He hates people, not as individuals, but as generalized beings. He hates the concept of “people”, because with John Doe, almost everything is about concepts and abstract matters. He is happy in his own little world, he loves its imperfections, its many broken pieces, way more than he will ever be able to love the real world. It’s somehow logical, if you think about it. John Doe is a selfish prick, amongst others, so it’s natural for him to love his own little world, the reality that he created, and hate the one that’s forced down his throat with every day that passes. He shouldn’t be blamed for that. John is like a piece of the puzzle that doesn’t fit, but as far as he sees it, the puzzle is the one that’s wrong, so he cuts out his own models and creates a perfect fit into an imperfect mold.

But there’s one thing that’s missing from his beautiful distorted world. A think he finds very hard to admit to, a think that’s been kept out of sight for a long time now. He even thought he forgot about it. But he was oh so very wrong. There is a hidden place inside his heart, a small, dark corner that’s been locked a long time ago, and was thought to be forgotten. It didn’t perish tough. It’s still there, it’s a craving, greater than any other. He never thought he would miss anything, but the impossible happened. The craving is starting to surface, and there’s not much anyone can do about it. John misses, he misses the one that got away, the one and only, Jane Doe.