Eccentricities
On the phone to a female friend last night, my character was being enthusiastically critiqued. Apparently I'm too odd, too bizarre. As an example of this she quoted a recent text I had sent to a mutual female friend. Rather than asking if our friend "fanc[ied] a film on Sunday?", I had pointed out that "two hours in a dark room watching thousands of static pictures rapidly flit across a screen would be vastly improved by your delightful company. Can I tempt you into coming with?".
Having (perhaps obviously) a vague predilection for childishly toying with language, I saw nothing wrong with this. It was a bit more sparkly than a normal invitation, and allowed me to pay the girl in question a small - and well deserved - compliment, that would otherwise have gone unsaid.
My examiner disagreed, and noted in substantiation that she had known me very well for some years without having been my friend - which implied in turn that in order to deeply understand my character, all that's needed is a series of stories of eccentric behaviour, related back to her by drunken or drugged acquaintances. I was preparing to heartily object to this before deciding, on reflection, that she was probably right - at which point I responded by "baaaah"-ing at her for some time and then quoting some utterly irrelevant Macbeth.
I suppose our friend's expectations help make us what we are. Ho-hum. I'm seeing her for drink next week and am determined now to construct a greeting that takes no less than three minutes to recite and requires that I wear a cravat. She is expecting oddity, after all, and it would be a terrible shame to deprive the poor lass.