Am I one of…them?

I’m a bit of a collector. I collect a lot of stuff. Records, comics, DVDs, toys, books. I collect it all. By far, my favorite thing is music. I like buying records. That being said, it should come as no surprise that this morning I woke up bright and early and dragged the girl to the CJTR Garage Sale. I go to these sorts of things because you never know what you’ll find. Maybe that record you’ve been looking for for years will be there, right in front of you, just waiting to be grabbed and taken home with you where you will promptly take it out, throw it on the turntable, sit back and listen then sleeve and throw it in with the rest of your treasured LPs (in alphabetical, chronological order of course). For years I’ve done this. When we went on tour, I would want to go to a record store. When I go on trips, I have to go to a record store. I’m always looking, trying to find that record I’m looking for. In my head, I’ve always thought “This is kind of nerdy. Unhealthy.” but I’ve still always kind of snapped out of that and thought that all of these things that I like are kind of cool. Everyone loves music and movies right? Maybe the comics are kind of lame but everything else, totally normal. I’m a cool guy. I’m interested in interesting things, right? It’s at the gatherings where it really sinks in just how pathetic it and you are. The people that show up to these things are not people I generally would wish to hang out with. I feel zero connection to them. None of these “losers” are my friends. “Look at that old man. What’s he looking for? Probably some old John’s Children record.” Then there’s the conversations behind by some young hippies talking about how “dogs just love life. They experience it in such an open way. Everyone should be that way.” and “I don’t think they even make record needles anymore.” Those ones make me especially sick. Then there are the old men looking for “Living Stereo” LPs and Roy Orbison Monuments “mono”. Working at the record store kind of opened my eyes to these old men. It’s always been kind of amazing to me that all of these “audiophile” guys are old. Logic would seem to dictate that the older you get, the worse your hearing gets but it’s always older men who think that they can hear all the minutiae of every recording ever produced. Anyway, it’s annoying and it makes me uncomfortable because I just get a feeling of disgust when I’m at these things. It seems so lame and fetishistic and weird. I know it’s wrong to look at these people and just get filled with hate. I think it’s the stepping back and going “oh my god, I am one of these people” that does it. It’s not that I hate them, it’s that I’m afraid I’m one of them. It’s not comforting. And this is just the records. I don’t mind the record people as much as I can’t stand the comic people. Those people are just dorks that generally just sweat and stink and have ridiculous conversations about people that don’t exist.( I worked at a comic shop too so this isn’t just some baseless observation. Most are dorks) But we’re at this record sale and the girl is looking at me and laughing and I know she knows everything that’s going through my head as I look around at the others at the sale, and how she knows I’m getting angry and uncomfortable and I’m sure she knows that I’m running all this through my head and wondering how she can even like talking to me since I’m one of these people that are making me uncomfortable and angry. We made it though and it was good and I didn’t feel like a loser after about an hour of asking her “I’m not one of those people right? I mean, I’m kind of cool right?” And I felt ok as we walked home and felt normal again as I looked at the girl and said “can we just make a quick stop? I want to see if I have any comics in my file.”