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The person status

Sometimes I like explaining my introvertedness like this: I can’t handle people.  Well duh, you may think.  But what you don’t see is that there is a corollary to that theorem, which is: but I can handle persons, even a lot of persons.  And now you’re all like, huhh???

Yes, it’s true.  I can’t handle people, but I can be around a lot of persons.  But it’s for specific and rather nuanced definitions of “people” and “person.”

Here is a standard definition of “people” as given by Merriam-Webster.

plural :  humans making up a group or assembly or linked by a common interest

And now one for “person.”

human, individual

A person is a human and people refers to a group of these humans.  So how is it that I can stand to be around persons but not people, which would basically be the same thing as persons?

Well, I call attention to the second part of the definition of “person,” being “individual.”  I can stand being around individuals in that they are a separate entities who mean something to me.  But when I refer to people, I don’t really see the group of humans as separate individuals who have significant meaning in my life.  They’re viewed more as a mass or just even as separate humans who don’t have significant meaning in my life.  And since I have so little energy to spend on being in social situations already, I cannot spare much to being around people.  What energy I have will be dedicated to persons in my life and these persons might even be gathered in a large group and you might see me socializing with them.  And it’s solely because I see myself in a gathering of persons and not around people.

That being said, there are still differing levels of personhood for me.  I’d roughly divide them into four different groups and I think I’ll only elaborate on the last one.

  • Honorary person status
  • Person-3 status
  • Person-2 status
  • Person-1 status: There are very few individuals who have this status as there are very few whom I’m willing to be around all the time, even on the worst days of not wanting to talk to anyone and wanting to be by myself.  Those with person-1 status would include my immediate family, the closest of friends, and…Yaris.  Yes, Yaris.  Who is not human.  But I can handle her being around me even on the most introverted of days, probably more so than any actual human person.  She probably helps be get through those days better than any human person.  Horse doesn’t have person-1 status, in case you’re wondering.  He might be…person-3 at best.

Um…I’m a jerk.  Haha.

In which Horse considers a career

I have mentioned before that Yaris has given some thought into developing her career.  It seems like Horse has been doing the same.  Only, his career choices are…different.

It seems like one of his choices is to actually be a horse.  I’m pretty sure he knows that he’s a dog even if I call him Horse.  I’m pretty sure he doesn’t think he’s actually a horse.  But yet…I see him out in the yard grazing a lot of the time.  He doesn’t seem to mind giving things rides on his back.  And he might actually be fooling other people into thinking that he’s a horse.

One time, I was working from home on a gardener day.  They didn’t know I was home.  Yaris went out to greet the gardeners and supervise their work, because she’s bossy.  The gardeners greeted Yaris and then asked her where her horse is.  Then they proceeded to call out “Here Horsie!  Here Horsie!”  They actually asked Yaris several times where her horse was.  Horse was a butt and decided to stay inside and ignore the gardeners.

As far as I can tell, Yaris has never treated Horse like an actual horse so that the gardeners would think Horse is a horse.  Thus I can only conclude when Horse goes out to greet the gardeners, he acts like a horse.  Maybe they end up hitching him to a wheelbarrow and have him pull the grass clippings out to the trash can.  Maybe they feed him oats out of a feed bag.

Other horse-like things Horse does is to be overjoyed when I give him vegetables or fruits.  He seems to really like lettuce.  He also seems to really like basil.  I’m pretty sure he ate one of my basil plants.

So, it seems like Horse wants to actually be a horse for his career.  I think I might need to sit him down and explain to him what exactly a career is and how he can’t actually be a horse.