Twenty Thirpeen: The Year of the Dickhead

I was in Peru once. I was on the bus, heading to the start of the Inca trail on my first international adventure as a young adult. I was like, so antipodean. In complete awe of my surrounding, hurtling through the Andes, I caught glimpses of what it would be like to live in these small remote communities. I spied a woman tending to her caged guinea pigs. I watched children playing happily in dusty front yards. And then I saw the most picture perfect man, a bundle of firewood hoisted onto his muscular back, the quintessential Andean beanie perched on his head. He looked up and our eyes met. I put my hand up to wave, wanting just one fleeting moment of contact. He stared at me, and then his expression twisted to one of pure hatred and simultaneously he gave me the finger and poked out his tongue at me.

What. A. Dickhead.

As a naïve nineteen year old, I assumed this was an isolated incident, that dickheads of this calibre were confined to the remote wilds, thousands of kilometres from where I live. Seven years later this is not the case. 2013 was undoubtedly The Year of the Dickhead. Read on for the crème de la peen; my list of the top five dickheads of the year.

5. Tailgaters.

Tailgating to me is an entirely confusing pursuit. In one hand you don’t trust the person-in-front-of-you’s judgment of what is an appropriate speed. Conversely, you put all your trust in them – assuming they won’t suddenly slam on their brakes and cause you a whole bunch of damage, all of which is entirely your fault. Also, to all of those who don’t wave when I have slowed down to let you in: you stink more than a bag full of assholes and I there is a special place in hell for you.

4. Social media superstars.

In order of dickheadedness.

Selfies. Especially if your mouth is a little bit open.

Statuses that begin with “To the guy on the bus/girl in the gym/my aching hand” or “that awkward moment when”.

Engagement announcements that reference Beyonce’s Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It), contain some sort of poorly cobbled together collage or a use a variation of the sentence “she said yes!!!” Just ONCE I would love to see an engagement announcement that alludes to the Japanese horror film The Ring or references Johnny Cash’s Burning Ring of Fire. Alternately, I'd be intrigued to see a “she said no” announcement.

Those of you who will happily write terrible things on the wall of a company you feel has wronged you but would NEVER actually say anything remotely similar in person. All I can imagine when you do this is Ali G giving the police the finger from behind the car door. You truly are a badass mofo.

Posts which alternate between dizzying highs and horrifying lows. In an age when everything on our social media profiles is so carefully vetted that who we are on Facebook and Instagram has become basically an avatar instead of a reflection of reality, I’ve noticed a disturbing amount of people who can’t decide whether their life is aaaaamazing and enviable or if they are a complete victim. Is your life shit? Is it not? Pick one, stick to it and don’t post both a status about how you want to die and have already purchased the garden hose and started your car’s engine in the tightly shut up garage and then instagram an image of the delicious chocolate pie you had during your mid-week day off.

3. Latecomers.

Back in the day I would meet my friends at the water clock in Hornsby. You would ring them on the house phone and arrange a time. And by gum, you would be there at that time, because you had no alternative. There was no iMessage with which to bail last minute, there wasn’t even a mobile phone number to ring and verbally inform you of your friend’s impending lateness. You couldn’t insty or snapchat or keek them to warn of your impending lateness, you were just THERE ON TIME - a foreign concept to many of you. I still have this delightful little penis badge that my girlfriends made me wear at my hen’s night, from now on if you are late to meet me I am going to make you wear it for the duration of our time together as a signifier that you, my friend, are a dickhead.

2. People with problems.

Actually, people with problem. The funnest friends ever are those who have the same problem every day of the year. It can be a boy. Or a job. Or you are sad at the declining usage of fax machines. But if you go on about it every time I see you, I will not want to see you any more. Same goes for people who label themselves survivors when all you have “survived” is an upper-middle class upbringing and someone dumping you once. Poor you L Top honours in this category goes to a friend of mine who called me on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Years’ Eve last year so I could talk her down off the ledge about the same thing for an hour or so each day. She recently chided me for not having checked up on how her life was lately. She also laughingly told me she’d never read my blog. Hehehe. It is funny when my friend doesn’t care what happens in my life but needs me to be intensely invested in hers. Hehehe.

1. Jennifer Lawrence

JLaw is a cunt.

There you have it, the top five Vas Deferns Faces of the year. And I look forward to the annoying, inane and selfish shit you will all undoubtedly do in 2014.