My companion hiking this week was a very gracious, attractive, and intelligent woman who is very loyal to and excited about her boyfriend. This matters because she told me how happy she is that she brought a boyfriend with her when she came to Las Vegas and didn't have to try to find one while here. We started discussing this after the third couple we saw attempting to take a selfie to whom I offered my services instead. This city is rife with people for whom the selfie is the ultimate symbol of their view of the world. Far too many of them seem to be ripe with the belief that the world revolves around them and that all others are just supporting cast in the grand theater of mortality in which only they have the starring role. Everything revolves around, points towards, and exists to advance them, and if it doesn't they seem to think that ought to be the case. From transportation to looks to their behavior, Vegans are often shallow, self-centered, and vapid. They are all about self and selfies. Pageantry matters more than principle.
In transportation, Vegans act as if they are the only people who ought be in transit. You can drive along on the road and watch someone in the far right lane cut across every other lane of travel without an indicator and turn left suddenly, frequently flipping everyone they inconvenience the bird. People step into flowing traffic from any place along the road whatsoever, and the medians are frequently filled with people looking to jaywalk. One night by the grocery store, I watched a fellow jaywalking stop in front of the car who honked at him and yell expletives. Well, if I were a policeman, I would have written him a ticket. People run in front of you, slide in front of you, drive by you when they know the lane's closed ahead and then demand you let them in. They are the only people in a hurry, the only people doing something important, the only people exempt from the rules.
In dating, it's all about the show. This young gal recounted to me how, when she first came to Vegas to work for the NPS she supplemented her income by working the World Series of Poker. She described her coworkers as willing and eager to reveal any and all of "Victoria's Secrets" they possessed in order to get tips. I know a woman who a few years back decided she didn't like me after all because I didn't earn enough money, and many of them reject me for my Saturn. Plastic surgery is the rule here, making many a woman from a "4" to a "9" overnight, but it's all fake. It's all done in order to make a sale, seal the deal, get free drinks, gain whatever leverage. I can never be sure I'm meeting the real person because they make their living telling tourists what they want to hear. You need to look right, live in the right part of town, have the right title, and have the right wage. It's all about elevating themselves, and people seem to care very little for what they bring to your life, only what you bring to theirs.
By and large, in Vegas, you get by based on your heritage, or in other words, it's all about the clan. Every election, Representative Dina Titus reminds us that she is a native to make sure the GOBNet knows she's got the right blood. Essentially, people get titles, money, jobs, and spouses as if Vegas was run by a monarchy. They unit the clans, make sure that their children marry into the "right" families like in arranged marriages elsewhere, and it really is about who you know or more importantly who your ancestors were. Even living here 30 years won't help. It doesn't help me that I have family in Boulder City and that I graduated from High School here. I am not part of the MyFaves, and so I never will be unless I marry into one of those families, and they work very hard to keep certain people such as myself out of their hierarchy, which suits me just fine.
Both my female companion and I realized that most of our friends if not all are people who are not originally from Vegas because they are more normal. Her boyfriend is a "good Minnesota boy", and my hiking buddy is from Baltimore. My late friend was from New Jersey, and I can't think of any close acquaintances even who were born or raised here a plurality of their years. Unfortunately, the only women willing to seriously date me are natives who ultimately decide that I'm unfit because I'm not like them. While the rest of the world touts diversity and complementary organization as a way to strengthen things, Vegans seem interested only in what validates self. They are obsessed with looking their best, having the best, and being with the best rather than being good people. I cannot tell you how many of them tell me "you're a great guy, but..." If you don't validate their worth, you are a nonessential character in the play of their life. They are the only important actor; you support them or they write you out of the story. Of self, for self, and about self, it's frustrating to live in Vegas. It's almost impossible for normal people to date, to excel, or to even sometimes live here. I mean, I've met people like this in other places I lived, but then we had some normal people there too.
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