What Not to Say to a Misanthrope

I'll be the first one to raise my hand and admit that goths are the likeliest to be anti-social and misanthropic. This can be for any variety of reasons, but the most popular is because the majority of humans are raging morons that can't think beyond their own selfish wants. This is definitely not to say that we're unfriendly, we try and reserve judgement until after a few sentences come out of your mouth. After all, it would be pretty hypocritical if we judged everyone right off the bat.

Nonetheless, we are still anti-social and we can be misanthropes. And being a misanthrope myself, there's a few phrases and questions that I've heard repeatedly throughout the years. These are things that you either a) shouldn't say to someone who's anti-social/misanthropic or b) sound really stupid and only serve to reinforce our view that humans are idiots. And we'll start off with

1) "If you don't like people you're in the wrong business."
This is easily the one I've heard the most, and it only gets more and more aggravating every time I hear it. Any time you mention a dislike of people in the work place (especially if you work in retail or food service) this is everyone's first reaction. Would someone please explain to me why this is something people are compelled to tell me? Do they really think I'm so dense that I don't realize that being in the workforce will expose me to multitudes of people? Or maybe they're trying to be clever? Newsflash! It's not clever, or funny, or entertaining in any way.

2) "You only hate people because you're afraid of them." 
Uh, excuse me, what? People openly avoid me because I'm creepy and I'm afraid of them? Where is the logic in this? Is it coming from the "you fear what you don't understand" thing? If it is I would like to add to it a big fat "HELL NO." For me, my hatred of people stems from the fact that I know too much about human nature from constant observation. Facebook alone is a hive of human nature at its best and worst, and there's far more of the worst than there is of the best. If there's anything that I'm afraid of it's the constant displays of stupidity, which has become a commodity that people seem to be clamoring to own.

3) "Have you tried not hating people?" 
The next time you meet someone who's a total jackass, try and not hate them. This is like trying to tell someone to love a racist or someone who's homophobic. Only fellow jackasses can love someone who is a jackass, and even then it proves difficult because jackasses tend to clash with each other even more than non-jackasses do.

4) "You'll never have any friends." 
I have two very tight-knit circles of friends, most of whom are fellow misanthropes, and they are more like family to me than my own family. And this doesn't even qualify for people who are perfectly fine with being on their own. No one wants to hear that they're capable of being alone because being alone has become the world's most crippling fear. If you don't want to find your soul-mate or be around friends on weekends, there has to be something wrong with you. You're depressed, you're paranoid, you're a shut-in, you're this, you're that, blah blah blah blah blah.

5) "It isn't healthy." 
Neither is going around every day acting like the world is made out of sunshine and unicorn farts and that everyone is a bright little ball of star dust. I knew someone before that would send me a picture of a helmet every time I put a frustrated or angry or depressed post on Facebook. The final time he did it was right after my grandmother died. No questions, just a helmet to say "Life's tough, get a helmet."  His reasoning? "You can't let everything in life stop you short." Yeah, this coming from someone who's solution to every problem was to stare down the bottom of a bong. I have nothing against potheads, but I do have issues against people who think that you should just plow through every problem headfirst no matter how difficult or emotionally scarring. Very few people have the ability to be helpful in a difficult situation. One of the glorious parts of being a misanthrope is you're able to find the ones who are with a lot more ease. And when someone isn't helpful or is actually toxic, it's that much easier to cut the cords and burn the bridges.

So on the off chance that you are not a misanthrope and run into one in the near future, do everyone a favor and steer clear of these questions and statements. You're not doing humanity any favors in trying to "convert" and misanthrope and "make them see the light."