Do You Want to See Something Really Scary?
Sometimes this blog is profound and insightful. Not this entry, sorry. I had an epiphany about 7 years ago. I often go to my academy’s conference – now called the FMX since the American Academy of Family Medicine became embarrassed to be associated to the name “Family Medicine.” I have to go alone since my wife refuses to travel with me by air and I have no friends. So I have been to about a dozen of these conferences – and the one worth mentioning here was about, as said, 7 years ago in Orlando. Not the fun part of Orlando; the conference center part. So I was conferring, going to meetings, feeling sorry for myself and super lonely. So where to go when you feel totally alone and taken for granted? I can tell you where to not go – and that is where I went. An amusement park. I toddled over to Universal Studios Orlando, saw Harry’s world, rode some rides – actually had fun. That night the park closed and for a small fee you could stay for the haunted houses as all this was happening late October. I chose to do so. I walked through several haunted houses – high quality jump scares, good theatrics, the whole bit.
But then it hit me. What is the SINGLE scariest thing in this entire park? Is it the thrill rides? Multi million-dollar roller coasters? Or is it the monsters, the jump scares, the elaborate haunted houses?
Not even close.
I was the single scariest thing. I was a mid-forties white male walking around a Florida amusement park by myself. Serial Killer until proven otherwise. If anyone thinks Criminal Minds or CSI are being racist or sexist when almost 100% of their serial killers are white males – think again. Nearly 100% are. We are scary. I decided that if anyone gave me trouble at that park all I had to do was to ask them what their left hand looked like and mention it would look good in my collection and the toughest gangs would run. We white men may be able to claim Pasteur, Einstein, Newton – but we have to also claim Dahmer, Hitler, Stalin. That recent monster – totally nice-looking kid – not a nice kid. So, as advice, find someone that wants to travel with you, or don’t go to the amusement parks all alone. It combines poignant loneliness with outright creepiness in a way that only another white male could appreciate.
Well, Kenneth, we know you’re not an Incel (Involuntary Celibate) but if you start carrying an AR-15 through Disney World…I think my last AAFP convention was in Dallas in 2000. We used to go with another couple so we could take all the side trips and load up on pens and other Big Pharma gimmicks in tote bags, and occasionally go to a free lecture. I don’t get many mailings from AAFP since I retired so I assume the annual convention is usually in Orlando (not my favorite city or state!) and the Big Pharma freebies are long gone. Man, I’m enjoying NOT going to medical meetings now!
One won’t hear from the AAFP after retirement unless they pay the $900.00 plus exit fee. After paying the yearly fees for 30 something years and really just got a magazine out of it and the FAAFP accolade, I stiffed them the $900.00 and said to go effff off. Most useless professional group out there.
I don’t remember being asked for an exit fee when I retired in 2014. In fact I still receive the AFP journal free because they gave me a “lifetime membership” at no charge (maybe because I’d been a member since 1973??). The Journal is about all I use for my CME for state licensure so I can continue to volunteer one morning a week.
I haven’t been to a conference in years. I think my last one was in New Orleans. I went to get away from the office, have my hospital pay for some much needed vacation and spend some time getting cheap swag in the exhibit hall. I’m not politically active enough, nerdy enough, or brown nosey enough to go to any of the meetings!
Wait. What about all of the female FP docs who are away from their husbands and want to run wild?
You mean you don’t find a Convention Girlfriend and shack up in your hotel room every night after you’ve each called your spouses?
This my sound like a dumb question, but if there isn’t rampant adulterous screwing going on, why the fuck would anyone go to one of those things? And in Orlando, no less?
Regarding your intended point, though: Never mind the white male stuff. I’m not sure why more people don’t feel the appropriate apprehension in the presence of any doctor. I mean, I don’t know about you, but, having never seen you before, I can stick a knife into you with no hesitation or second thoughts whatsoever, all while conducting a casual conversation with you or your family member, and keep up the chat with the family member while you pass out and I catch you, lower the table back, and pick up your legs. I mean, under the wrong (right?) circumstances, every single one of us (well, other than the Internists) could be a stone cold killer.
It’s amazing the amount of good will a little Zithromax will buy, really.
Absolutely correct. I should write a whole entry about this. If empathy is the ability to feel other peoples pain, then the opposite of that is psychopathy. Medical school creates psychopaths, and people with that tendency are drawn into medicine anyway. We don’t feel bad when we stab people. And although I have seen all the shacking up at conferences in the movies, that has not been my experience. The real reason to go to conferences is to get more stress balls and pens from the expo hall.
My wife calls me a sociopath all the time.
I say, Sorry, it’s just who I am, there’s nothing I can do about it.
She wants me to do things like treat her like a person. I tell her, Look, I spend my whole day pretending to be warm and charming to the patients and the nursing staff – I just don’t have the energy for it when I get home. And that’s the truth.
Maybe I didn’t use to be a sociopath, and maybe I always was. No way to really know, and it doesn’t really matter. Doesn’t make me a bad person.
As for the convention, well, then, I’m glad I’ve never gone.
Bottom line: As with our canine friends, if I can’t eat it or screw it (or go fast in it), it doesn’t hold my interest for very long.