There's a guy at my work, lets call him "Ben." Ben is the classic loud mouth of the office that everyone tries to avoid having a conversation with, especially if he happens to be standing next to one of the execs. He'll complain about everything wrong with the company, how management continues to make stupid, irresponsible decisions, and how we, the employees, are getting screwed. Ben, himself, is irresponsible when he opens his mouth. Lets just say he doesn't have a "filter." We both speak an Indian language, and he will take advantage of that. For example, if somebody is standing next to us that he wishes to comment about, he will stop speaking English and talk in the Indian language to me....VERY AUDIBLY and incredibly obvious to the person being commented about. The poor sap would have to be a moron of biblical proportion to not realize he was topic of conversation all of a sudden.
Do you realize how incredibly rude and embarassing that is? It makes ME look like I'm with Mr. Stupid, as though I'm also partaking of his idiocity. I would feel so uncomfortable if I was the poor guy. I already feel uncomfortable having Ben talk to me about the guy in another language, because of how obvious it is. But that's Ben and that's what he does. He makes rude remarks within an earshot of the people he's talking about. When I tell him to "shutup, people can hear you dude, you gotta stop saying shit like that out loud," he responds with "I don't care what they think..." It's a wonder he hasn't gotten beat up, thrown out of our 56th floor window, or run over....YET. A few of us guys just shake our heads after he leaves to go back to his desk. We make light fun of the guy and laugh, doing our daily parody of his heightened lack of cluelessness. Not to mention, he has ABSOLUTELY NO taste in fashion. Not that you have to be a great dresser or have the best clothes. That's not what I'm saying at all. But, green pants with purple dress shirt and red tie deserves some sort of a fine, seriously. But that's beside the point. That's not a big deal...but if you're gonna talk smack for which you deserve to get an ass whoopin for, you better lay low. Dressing like a suped up peacock doesn't exactly show you're laying low, know what I mean?
On to my point...
Sometimes when he's talking to me one on one, he often mentions his wife. The way he talks about his wife, how wonderful she is, how amazing their relationship is, how happy they are, it just gets to me. He's just so bubbly and happy and his face just lights up when he talks about his wife....as if he's...*gulp*...."happy." And I can't help but just feel this overwhelming amount of...not 'jealosy', but rather 'envy'. I think 'jealousy' is more harsh and mean sounding. It implies that I want to take that happiness away from him so I can have it all to myself. No. Instead, I use the term 'envy' because I want to know what to also feel what that marital happiness is like...where all I can do is talk about how wonderful my relationship with my wife is. I want my face to light up everything I even THINK about my wife. Unfortunately, it doesn't. I feel gloomy, sad, angry, frustrated, hurt, regret, you get the idea. Life is funny, isn't it? You can't STAND somebody because of how annoying and how irritating that person is, but you can't stop envying him. What a parodox!
