I hate people.

Every now and then I get completely and thoroughly annoyed with the general population. I've always maintained that there is more good in the world than bad. Unfortunately, evil is a whole lot louder than anything else, so people tend to notice it first.

I try to be nice to people. I smile to strangers on the street. I talk to random people at the Dunkin' Donuts. Various roommates throughout the years have always been amazed that I'm always going on dates with new people. "How do you do it?" they ask. Simple. I talk to strangers. I'm also naive enough to think that when a man talks to me, he's just being friendly and is not necessarily interested in anything more. I'm not gorgeous or hot or sexy. I know that all too well. But I'll talk to nearly anyone, which apparently is a sign of romantic or sexual interest. I am the Queen of First Dates. A first date is generally as far as someone gets with me before they start to annoy me to tears.

What's worse are the random people who I have emailing me. Sometimes instead of giving my phone number to a stranger, I will give him one of my myriad email addresses. He will write me, and I will have no recollection of who he is. So a strange sort of correspondence will ensue, in which I will (1) remember who he is; and (2) be so irritated by his poor grammar or meritless ideas that I will never agree to see him again. Sometimes I'll be awake at 4 a.m. and wholly unable to fall asleep, in which case I'll wander onto various websites and talk to strangers. Nothing generally comes of these short-lived correspondences. Indeed, they usually fizzle out within ten minutes of initial contact. (Don't believe me? Just ask Mike. I wouldn't meet him for three months because I didn't like the grammar he used in instant messenger.)

I become disenchanted.

Right now, I'm in another one of my bouts of disenchanted "I hate people" periods. I realize that when I am in this mindset, I become vicious. One of the curses of being smart is having the ability to be vile and mean. Dumb people are not so good at being mean because they don't know how to be cutting and biting and deeply hurtful. It's a cross I must bear at times. I have the uncanny ability to immediately identify the most devestatingly hurtful thing that can be said or done to a person. I rarely ever go that far, though it's been known to happen. When an ex-boyfriend referred to me as "venemous," he wasn't kidding.