The Cynic's Guide To A-Holes

Maybe I’m just watching too much news days, but the way things are going in the world are really bringing out the cynic in me. Hopefully, I have expressed this particular streak of cynicism in a lighthearted and entertaining way. But that, by no means lessens its severity and plague on our society that a whole class of people has become.

I’ve been pretty lucky for most of my life, insofar as I have not had all that much exposure to a-holes.
But this good luck does not, in any way affect my belief that the a-holes on this planet outnumber those who are not a-holes by about 4 to 1.

Nobody starts out as an a-hole. I mean we all start out pretty much the same. We know very little and we learn a lot. But somewhere along the line, the majority of people turn into a-holes.
Maybe they fall in with a crowd of other a-holes and just want to fit in. Maybe their parents are a-holes and they have been groomed to a-holes-ness since an early age. Maybe they get a job where being an a-hole will serve you better than being the only smart person in the place. Maybe they get exposed to too much fundamentalism. Or maybe they’re just too lazy to do the work required to keep themselves out of the a-holes category. It’s an easy trap to fall into.

Being An A-Hole Is Not The Same As Being An Idiot

An a-hole is someone with a full complement of brain cells. An idiot, and it’s really a misnomer, is someone who is a bit deficient in the brain cell allocation area or have their brain cells oddly arranged, so calling them a-holes would be very bigoted and just plain wrong.
No, being an a-hole is very much a lifestyle choice, and these days a decidedly popular one. After all, with so many a-holes around, it’s easy to find people that you have things in common with. Which is why a-holes tend to marry among their own kind.

The Main Categories Of A-Hole

There are quite a few categories of a-hole. Here I have just described the ones that come most quickly to mind. I’m sure you will have a category or two of your own.
1. The Redneck A-Hole: These are people who have generally been brought up by other a-holes. They are usually heavy drinkers and prone to violence at the drop of a hat. They only listen to right wing radio and metal music which keeps them right in the a-hole zone 24/7. Generally, they own guns and have been incarcerated enough to know their way around the prison system, where a great many a-holes cluster.
2. The Pseudo Intellectual A-Hole: Generally have a Bachelor of Arts degree in English or History and work in retail because they can’t get any better sort of job. Have learned enough about the art of conversation to always sound pretentious, but they're not talented enough to be nerds, (who are not a-holes, despite appearances). These are actually the sort of a-holes that non-a-hole people hate them most.
3. The Holier-Than-Thou A-Hole: These are people who wear their religion or their faith on their sleeves. They never actually realize that nobody gives a shit about whatever wacky stuff they believe. They are always trying to convert you to their way of thinking, but they prefer to hang out with other Holier-than-thou a-holes because they have learned through trial and error that the non-a-holes don’t want anything to do with them.
4. The Exceedingly Pedantic A-Hole: This a-hole is always telling people what they should be thinking. They don’t care that you have your own opinion. They are not even really all that interested in changing your mind as long as they can simply pontificate. I have a good friend who has one of these a-holes as a troll.
5. The Desperately Needy A-Hole: These are people who are very conscious of being a-holes and really want people to believe that they aren’t. This is a bit of a self-defeating intellectual stance because the harder they try, the needier they look, and people just write them off as a-holes anyway. Kind of a lose-lose a-hole situation.
6. The High-Functioning Psychotic A-Hole: These people tend to gravitate to politics because they know they can hide out there and have lots of like-minded friends.
7. The Completely Self-Absorbed A-Hole: This particular beast is also known as the Narcissist A-Hole and will do anything to make it all about them. For these particular a-holes, empathy is nothing more than a gene they do not possess. In many cases, they are a subset of 6.
8. The Anything-For-A-Million Likes A-Hole: These people were formerly known as Jackasses and are among the original New Age A-holes. These are people who are willing to let other a-holes photograph or video them doing really stupid and potentially dangerous shit, for the express purpose of posting it on social media, where, of course, many, many other a-holes will watch it and share it. If you go by the numbers these are actually the most popular a-holes in the A-Hole Kingdom.
9. The Famous For Being Famous A-Hole: These people use the power of television and the Internet to attract the attention of people who are mostly fashion victims and train wreck addicts of one kind or another.
They get paid lots of money to do this and the brands who support their efforts can be assured of many malleable bums in seats. They invariably develop overly-expensive fashion lines or record insipid and derivative music.
These people have created an entire industry out of nothing, and in a weird way, you have to admire that. But that does not lessen their a-hole-ness. After all, they are pretty much showing people their entire lives, and IMHO anyone who is willing to sacrifice what little privacy we have left for money really is an a-hole of the first water.
10. The Occasional A-Hole: I include myself in this category because like many of us, I am prone to being an a-hole about certain things.
My occasional a-hole thing is money. I never want to spend a lot of it on the stuff I need, but generally get talked into it by my wife and invariably end up being happy that she did that.

The Numbers Are Alarming

Right now the number of a-holes in the world is staggering. The sheer mass of them and fearless leader/trendsetter a-holes they blindly follow are ruining what used to be a pretty decent place to live.
Hopefully, this guide to a-holes around the world will be a useful tool for you to help you avoid any unnecessary contact and potential contamination.
They say knowledge is power and this knowledge can be your saving grace when it comes to dealing with a-holes which, according to a recent Angus Reid survey, happens at an average frequency of 3.7 times per day.

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