Sanitizers And Sanity

For those who don't know (almost everyone), I recently had abdominal surgery and I'm now on chemotherapy. But that's not the point. What I want to talk about today is the fact that I'm immunosuppressed, but even more specifically, to discuss one of the few fortunate results of that state.

Important background information is that I'm basically an anti-social individual, and I tend to sit in the corner during social events. I don't especially care for people. Why should I? They're a lot like me and are really only interested in themselves. So my preference is to stay away from them as much as possible. When I can avoid a social event, I'm quick to do so. The real problem arises when I can't. People are suspicious of crotchety folk like me who have no interest in all the wonderful things they have to say about themselves. I'm even reluctant to get into a good political fight, since they're not interested in my opinion anyway if it diverges from theirs. I make a rule to never get into an argument with anyone who disagrees with me. (Except, sometimes, my wife.) It makes me boring, but improves the chances that they'll let me alone.

Meeting people is even worse. It begins with a handshake. In ancient times this represented a transfer of power from the gods to man, or possibly the proof that neither hand held a weapon. Whatever. It's subsequently come to symbolize a bunch of other disagreeable ideas – meeting someone, agreeing on something (usually with the other hand behind the back and its fingers crossed), and a general display of friendship as the most common of these. It's little more than a physical cliché.

But that's not the worst of it. Kissing on the cheeks, often both of them, has become the method of choice for greeting someone (often someone believed to be a friend) and, horror of horrors, hugging has taken hold. Somehow, in recent years, it's become fashionable to hug everyone you meet – even those who are all but strangers. Women used to do this, and that led to women hugging men. Now it isn't uncommon for men to hug men. It's bizarre, but it's commonplace. I never bought it, but there have been times when I haven't been able to avoid an unsolicited squeeze. And that brings me back to the original subject.

One of the things I noted when I was hospitalized was the plethora of machines dispensing hand sanitizer. And the staff used them regularly – ritually. And in the discharge package that they gave me there was a bottle of hand sanitizer as well. I'm a setup for infection, and it makes sense to take precautions. So I bought some additional sanitizer for the house as well as smaller bottles to carry around with me. And I don't hesitate to tell others of my condition, showing off the bottle when necessary.

Consequently people are learning not to come too close to me, and that's a big help in eliminating any social contact. Not everyone knows yet, but soon they will, and that will allow me to slink off into my corner every time there is any sort of social event. It will even provide me with an excuse to miss many of them. I wish there were a less hazardous way of achieving anti-socialism than this (I'll discuss my anti-Socialist philosophy at another time) but lemons and lemonade and all that sort of thing. At least this silver lining allows me to conduct my life in a sane manner.