Yes, you, the curly-headed gentleman wearing the tweed jacket that makes you look like a creepy Teacher’s Assistant in an episode of Law & Order. Your intolerance is palpable, and wholly unnecessary. I felt the disquiet the moment I walked in; and even if I hadn’t then, I would have after the reaction I got from a woman whom I politely asked about the availability of her neighboring stool. Judging solely from the scowl she provided me, you would have thought I asked for a full report on her sexual history. And if I hadn’t received the message then, I would have gotten it from the bartender who pretended not to notice me on three straight passes.  Now, I have you, fixing me with a cold glare, not of intimidation, but mistrust. I humbly invite you to take the stool next to me, and discharge whatever lopsided ideology is boiling up beneath those ludicrous sideburns of yours.

What’s the worst you can do? Call me a frat boy? Tell me I’m a mindless slave to the mainstream? Accuse me of displaying some exaggerated projection of a modern alpha male?   You’ll undoubtedly miss the irony in your indictment, little knowing that the last time I received a welcome this stiff, I was in frat house. My shaggy hair and high tops induced the same twisted sneers there that my clean shave and collared shirt are causing here. You’ve condemned me on a glance, in such a rush to separate yourself from my perceived superficiality, that you’ve become guilty of the very hypocrisy you claim to detest.

My instincts would say that you dislike me because my image projects an unfavorably stereotypical persona; but I think it’s more than that. I think you’re nervous. You’re nervous that I may be more, that I may not fit so neatly into your presupposed little package. You want me to pretend to be something I’m not, so you can feel secure in your individuality. You need the rest of us to look alike, so that you can tell yourself apart. You need to be ostracized so you can be justified in your self-pity. But, if I’m well-kept, creative, insightful, self-aware and smart, then your entire image is meaningless. You’ve spent so much time and effort trying not to be me, that you forgot to be you, and have instead become a caricature:  an abstract recreation of what the rest of us aren’t. You’re a clown:  a condescending, melancholy clown with nothing better to do than contradict anything and everything that challenges your individuality.

So, as much as I would enjoy seeing your face sour into a beautiful cocktail of anger and confusion, I must strongly recommend that you resist the urge to walk over here. I don’t think you’ll enjoy the result.