It's a trope when the protagonist names the broad categories of new things as they introduce the audience to their new world. In this case, I'm going to run down the classes of homeless dudes I've met here.
Now note that I'm not personable, so I don't know any of these guys that well yet. I'm writing at least the first dozen RoboHoboHomos on my first Sunday here.
The first is the mumblr. I've only run into one real mumblr at Purgatory Shelter. Another one followed me on the street Friday. He started telling me about how he got into a fight with his old lady. He mentioned she was overseas. Then he mentioned how tough it was for soldiers overseas. Then he started talking about how they're all a bunch of “hoo-ahs,” which was so specific I became sure he was regurgitating stuff wholesale. It was about that time that I remembered that my top walking speed can outpace lots of folks' running speed, so I gunned it and he fell behind.
The guy I met at Purgatory Shelter was a lot the same. The Mumblr said a lot of things I agreed with, but they were all fragments, words without ideas or structure between them. It was a stream of thesis statements that were spat out between these shutters and slurps that I believe are related to some scars on his face. It took me fifteen minutes of trying to get a word in edgewise before I gave up on that and another fifteen to slowly extricate myself from the social situation.
I have a few theories about mumblrs. The first is that they just want to be heard. They want someone to react to them and engage them on a human level, but the fact that they never shut up or really listen to what their companions are saying fucks them over on that. They talk to reach out, but they never listen to be grasped.
The other theory is that they've been living in a world that doesn't value or listen to them for so long, they just get right to the sound byte. There's nothing else there, so the try to put out the most pertinent sound bytes they can just to get people into their sphere. It's like the first one, but it's motivated by getting people to give up money, sympathy, or respect for their wisdom and attitudes. It's like a “God Bless” cardboard sign turned up to 11 and stuck on fast forward, a survival trait evolved to an unwieldy, counter-productive extreme.
The other theory is kind of why I blog. They have all of these ideas and they want to share them, but they have no idea how to build ideas, connect to an audience, or shut the hell up.
There but for the grace of the gods go I.
For now, at least.
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