because when i said i was dreading the other participants because i just knew they'd be an army of utter tossbags, you all said, 'now erica, stop being such a grumpy cynical tart, they could all be lovely.'. knowing that it was absolutely possible that you were all right, at least about me being a tart, i kept an open mind. i hoped for the best. i smiled in a friendly way for at least the first two days. and this is what i got:
The Intense One: some of you know of this one already. this is the one who emailed me as soon as we found out we'd been accepted to suggest that we all make friends before locking ourselves in the confines of a german university for six weeks with no hope of escape. when i dodged her advances, she emailed me again because one of the others (oh we'll get to her) had accepted her offer of friendship (more about birds of a feather to come) and she didn't want me to miss out on the 'meeting fun-ness'. I knew this one was trouble from the start, and none of you bastards believed me. she's a law student, she's the president of the debating society, she has a plate (which she wears ALL DAY) and a speech defect, which would make it difficult to listen to her even if she said interesting things, but as all she does is spew boring, inane, self-involved CRAP, being in the same room as her is similar to being in the same room as a bandsaw going to town on a sheet of corrugated iron. as if the auditory experience of this person isn't enough, she's also positively unfortunate looking. now, i'm not generally one to judge people on the basis of appearances, i really am generally a better person that that. this girl, however, brings out the awful, superficial tart in me - she not only got
The Weak One - this is the other brisbane inhabitant. we were both contacted by The Intense One as soon as we received word that the DAAD would fund our desire to visit Sausageland. One of us did the perfectly normal adult thing and ignored the email and got on with her life (that was me, by the way). The Weak One, not having the social acumen to spot a nutjob from 4.5km, was email-bullied into having coffee with ms. intensity, and so earned her name. she is small, plain, lives at home and has, at this point in time, absolutely the most horrendous nasal-ocker aussie voice in all of germany (unless kevin bloody wilson is in town). she us utterly weak, utterly uninteresting, and genuinely believes that the fact we come from the same country (nay, the same CITY, even!) makes us automatically friends. I don't know how to explain to her in simple enough terms for her to understand that in fact, the fact that she comes from australia makes it immeasurably less likely that i would want anything to do with her. she's in my class. we made an extremely uninteresting presentation on australia together.
The Plain One - this one also comes from australia but, luckily, not from brisbane. she comes from melbourne, so annabel gets to keep her (eheee!). i have looked at sheets of cardboard that were more interesting than her, i have had conversations with cans of beans that were more interesting than a chat with her, and i have scars around my eyes from trying to scratch out my own eyeballs out of sheer frustration on the few occasions that i spent more than 3 minutes in her presence. she was another one of these same-country-equals-common-ground (NO IT FRACKING DOESN'T!!!) fools and followed annabel and i around like a lost puppy (though not as cute), convinced that we were a pack of crazy, raucous, fun-having girls, when in fact annabel and i are crazy, raucous, fun-having girls and she is an idiot.
The Barely Noticeable One - she's actually quite pretty, but wears the same jumper and jeans to uni every day, and worse, to the opera, and never says anything. ever. i imagine she has a beautiful personality hiding in there somewhere.
The Innocent One - does not swear (we taught him to converse like a trooper), does not drink (we took him out for cocktails), almost certainly lives with his right-wing-christian-fundamentalist parents, never says anything interesting, ever. latched on to A and i because he thought we were cool renegades. we may have damaged him for life.
The Miserable Bitches - we are very good-looking. also deeply unhappy. you can tell this by looking at our sour miserable faces, you need know no more. go away now, you bore us. and your jeans were not handsewn by a famous designer known personally to one or both of your parents.
The Pretty One - This girl has such a pretty smile. really. did i mention she has a pretty smile? wow, what a pretty smile. This smile, held together by a most unbecoming plate by the way, is the only thing this girl has in all the world. she bestows it willingly on all who would gaze on her visage with a self-righteous insincerity that makes scarlett johanssen look as genuine as mother theresa. she stands in front of things, any old things really, and poses, one leg always oddly placed, for photos. she jumps into group photos to improve the overall picture with her dazzling (no-doubt artificially whitened) teeth. Actually, that's horrible of me - i shouldn't make it sound like she has only the smile to offer. she also has perfect hair. when she's not smiling beatifically at all us poor unfortunate ordinary-looking souls, she is checking each individual hair, i'm not even joking, for split ends. this is a process that takes hours every day, but that works just fine because she has to endure hours of classes every day, and if not the endless fascination provided by looking at her own hair, what would she do with all that time? Pretty, what would you do with a brain if you had one?
The Mind-Bogglingly Irritating One - I-AM-CUTE-AND-LOUD-DID-I-MENTION-I'M-CUTE-I-AM-WHAT-PEOPLE-ARE-TALKING-ABOUT-WHEN-THEY-SAY-TOO-MUCH-POSITIVE-REINFORCEMENT-WOULD-YOU-LIKE-TO-TAKE-A-PHOTO-OF-ME-SO-MY-CUTENESS-CAN-BE-PRESERVED-FOR-AS-LONG-AS-THE-DIGITAL-AGE-LASTS-TAKE-A-PHOTO-OF-MEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! also i will ask ridiculous stupid questions, all the time, but you won't mind because i'm ADORABLE!!!
The Cute One - i actually feel sorry for this one, her teeth are 56 kinds of messed up and no-one told her. she loves a good photos and every time she smiles i want to eat my own hair so it blocks up my intestinal passage and slowly kills me. she's made screechy-cute-we-are-still-in-primary-school friends with The Mind-Boggingly-Irritating-One too, much to the displeasure of all who can hear their stomach-churningly inane exchanges of stupidity and hot air ('conversations' seemed a little generous), and the neighbourhood dogs, who can hear their greeting for one another - yeeeeeeee!!! trevor calls them the teletubbies because they actually never say anything intelligible (much less intelligent) and their every noise is high-pitched.
you see, it turns out that this conception that everyone has of me as a nice person is horribly flawed - i'm only nice when i'm around nice people and we can all relax and feed off each other's nicey-nice-ness. when i'm around idiots, i'm a horrible, duplicitious, judgemental BITCH. and i like it.
