Greetings from Jacksonville, Florida

I'm visiting my dad and stepmom in Florida this week, and it's definitely a little weird (in a metaphysical sense) that I can wake up in a comfy bed in New Jersey and fall asleep in a similarly comfy bed in a completely different state, nearly a thousand miles south.

One thing that I've managed to get through my impossibly thick skull is, I know a lot about New Jersey. I know that it has a lot of two-town combinations with nearly or exactly the same name (e.g., Belmar::Bellmawr; Morristown::Moorestown; Union::Union; Washington::Washington). I know that there's an invisible NYC/Philadelphia boundary somewhere in Mercer County that neatly divides people who root for the Giants or Jets and people who root for the Eggles. To this end, there are two New Jerseys -- the one that aligns with NYC, and the one that aligns with Philadelphia. So, it's OK that there is duplicity in how NJ towns are named. Further, I know that jughandles are an effacious method to control traffic, and I know that 85 degrees is fucking HOT.

Fundamentally, I think that New Jersey makes sense. I might not like how it makes sense, but I know that it does make sense. And all of this gets thrown on its side when I land, 90 minutes later, in Florida.

Florida is a place where everybody talks a little funny and moves a little too slow. There are 1,394 permutations of the Florida license plate. There are no jughandles in Florida, and 85 degrees is a chilly November day. Many people down here care a lot about values, but have no clue how to define them (e.g., when my girlfriend visits with me - which is not the case on this trip - we are forced to sleep in separate bedrooms. This is a paradox in so many ways, I care not to get into them).

Everybody in Florida is polite and starts conversations with strangers, which strikes me as a little odd because I have autism. A typical exchange between a Floridian and myself goes something like this:

Unnecessarily pleasant, 60-ish Florida woman with box-top haircut not unlike "Kid" from Kid 'n' Play: "Wow gee whiz, it surrrre is rainin' buckets out there."

Fred, already unsure how to proceed: "Yeah... yeah, it's definitely raining heavily out there."

Woman: "Why, you remind me of someone. Are you a student over at Flagler University?"

Fred's brain: "No, I went/go to places with actual academic standards, in parts of the country where residents have brains."
Fred verbally: "No, I can't say that I did, sorry."

Woman: "Why, I must say, God must be pourin' buckets on us this evenin'!"

Fred's brain: "JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, ISN'T SILENCE BETTER THAN THIS?! You're just saying the same thing, over and over, but subtlely different, just to make small talk!"
Fred verbally: "It's amazing, but I guess we just need the rain."

And so on, and so forth.

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You see, the thing is, I like being treated like I don't exist in public situations. It's easier that way - it spares me the trouble of pretending to like people that I don't like. I'm completely, 100% comfortable with pretending that the people around me don't exist in public situations, and I'd be hard-pressed to name people I know who actually enjoy random small-talk. It's pointless, it really is, and I think it makes sense that we don't start talking to lots of people when we're in a large group.

You want to know why? Because it's fucking annoying when someone tries to talk to everybody in a large group. People who do this are attention whores who should have been loved more by their parents as children. They're making up for the fact that Grandpa used to touch them funny, and it pisses me off.

After being alive for 25 goddamned years, I think this is where New Jersey finally gets it right. It's not that people from NJ are fundamentally douchebags, it's just that we have our own way of dealing with being around too many people at once. This isn't a method that other people can understand, and they henceforth interpret our behavior as douchebaggery.

In reality, what NJ people are doing is perfectly sensible. When surrounded by a giant crowd of sometimes smelly, sometimes loud, often annoying people all the time, it can be a little disconcerting (to say the least) to recognize the completeness of the situation. When you're surrounded by too many people, it makes sense to be a little autistic... and this is why people think that people from NJ are douchebags.

But anyway, fuck them. What, like they're any better? Stay classy.