Have you ever been alone in a crowded room when I'm here with you?

Have you ever been alone in a crowded room; well I'm here with you...

Ugh, Facebook...

"Top 10 Friends characters.  As voted for by Friends fans on facebook."

There are only 6 main characters.  This poll makes no sense.  I hate Phoebe and even then, I wouldn't rank some random secondary character ahead of her.

A few days ago, I had an interesting experience when I was looking around for a new car.  For those of you who aren't aware, my old vehicle died on the way back to Ontario, then died again when it was here, hence the need for a new car.  The fact that it's a new car as opposed to a used car has its own back story, but anyway, the point is, I was browsing around for a new car.

I was at a Toyota dealership and the salesperson I was talking to was trying rather hard to convince me to buy a vehicle on the spot.  I guess they're paid partly on commission, hence the pushiness.  The problem was I hate anything that is related to and/or resembles pushiness.  Part of it has to do with the fact that I always associate pushiness with sleaziness (and they are, in some ways, related), and I immediately think of "that guy" at a party who tries to convince a girl to sleep with him.  There are actually some frightening parallels between the type of language a car salesman uses in order to convince you to buy a car and the type of language a sleaze bag uses in order to seduce someone.

It's interesting how "I don't want the car" isn't enough for a salesperson.  They want you to spell out exactly what you think is wrong with the car so they can offer counter-arguments in hopes that you'll realize that you were mistaken.  It's not even enough that you tell them "I am considering buying the car, but I want to sleep on it."  Like "that guy" at a party, the salesperson is all too aware, I think, of how sleeping on something allows you to better make a sound judgment.  That's like saying, "Well, you're kind of a douche, but you're an attractive douche who seems like he can be sensitive enough (no doubt when you are playing the acoustic guitar and singing Wonderwall or something)... but maybe I should go home and get some rest and let you know the next morning if we should have sex."  They want to "close the deal" on the spot, if they can.

Much like "that guy" at the party, it's easy to catch salespeople being slippery if you only think to try.  I don't know where the salesperson got the idea that I had my heart set on a particular car I test drove that day - it was a 2012 Toyota Corolla, if you're interested - but near the end of the session, he began talking about how "there weren't many of these cars left" and that if I "waited until Monday, they might all be gone because by god, everyone and their mother wants to buy a 2012 Toyota Corolla." (<-- not his exact words).  I'm not quite sure what this tactic is designed to accomplish.  At any rate, I asked him how many he had left in stock and he goes away for a bit to "check" and upon his return, tells me they only have 2 left.

So I call bullshit on this (in my head).  So when he tells me, for the umpteenth time, that if I wait too long, they might not have that car in stock anymore, I say to him, "That's ok.  I can always get a car somewhere else."  As soon as I say that, he changes his tune and he's like, "Well, we might still have it in stock on Monday."

So I went and bought a Hyundai Elantra instead.

Was the term "mutual friend" often coined in pre-facebook days?  I can't remember it being a thing.  I remember people saying we had friends in common or that we had the same friends, but the phrase "mutual friend" seems to be something that has become commonplace because it's a facebook term.

I don't know - I just used it in my writing and I realized how odd it looked on paper because I had rarely ever seen it in that context.  "Mutual acquaintance," I've seen, as if "mutual" were more of a formal term, and thus, commonly used with "acquaintance," itself, a formalish term.

I'm about 60% through A Ring of Endless light. Hopefully, this trend reverses itself in the final 40% but the further into this book I get, the more I dislike the main character. I'm usually pretty sympathetic towards main characters, even if they aren't meant to be likeable (like Dorian Gray or the entire cast of (500) Days of Summer), but maybe my kryptonite is "characters that perpetuate the idea that being a sleazy douchenozzle can be vindicated as long as you get the sense that they *can be* sensitive and their occasional demonstration (in the full, deliberate sense of the word) of emotional awareness is proof that they are not only misunderstood, but that you are special because these glimpses of sensitivity only occur with you."

Is that a "character type"?  Ugh... how is this even a thing?