I am a know-it-all, stuck-up, stuffed shirt windbag, apparently.

I do not try to be.  Really, most of the time, I believe I am being helpful.  The wife has told me, on many occasions, that I come off as condescending.  I, of course, refute this.  But, really, can I know?  I am, after all, looking from the inside, out.  Can any of us know how we appear to others?  I have come to think of myself as a large person.  More recently, I have actually come to revel in such an idea.  I did not always think this was so.  I thought, again perceiving things from my own perspective, that I was average-sized.  I tended to project the world I saw around me upon myself.  Not that I thought I was, say, the size of lostlittlesoul or anything.  More like an average-sized man:  5' 10" to 6' 0" of average, if slightly overweight, build.  I have always wished to see myself through the eyes and self-referential notions of perspective of another.  I am apparently perceived as being very big.  I am, I mean, I know I am.  I am 6' 4" tall and weigh almost 300 lbs. (Metric system and logic be damned!) and am a beefy, barrel-chested sort of guy.  I have a big butt, but I have child-birthin' hips.  I am totally serious.
    But I digress...

I am unintentionally condescending.  I am informed of this by more people than I care to count... well, I am informed that I am condescending to which I invariably respond, "No, I'm not."  They persist and I respond, "I don't intend to be."  I am, apparently, a paver of the worst sort.  Intentions, while pretty, do little in comparison to one's actions.

I am highly opinionated and generally present such thoughts in the same manner in which I do factual knowledge, of which I possess a great amount.  I don't necessarily want to possess a great amount of knowledge, but I have widely varied interests, excellent reading comprehension and the ability to recall things that I have read, sometimes verbatim, years later with nary a thought on the subject during the interim.  What can I say, I like knowing things.  It is my goal in life, after all, to know something about everything or everything about something, whichever comes first.  Both goals are, of course, impossible.  One human mind simply cannot contain that amount of information, and there are a great many things I do not know and a great many more, I'm sure, that I do not know I do not know.  Another digression... I like to refer to such things as a ______ But Pointless.  Short or Long, as the case may be.

Anyhoo, I should not, of course, express my opinion as if it were a provable fact.  I am unsure of how I have developed such a nasty habit, if it is a habit.  Perhaps it is my nature.  That would be far worse, I would think, as nature seems much more difficult to overcome than a habit.  Of course, is there really any difference?  Actions shouting, and all...  Still, I need to learn to pre- or suffix declarative statements with a "I feel...", "I think...", or "It is my opinion that..." when that is what I mean.

I hope those people who I believe know me best realize that I do not intend to talk down to them or do not have the perception that I am casually belittling them.  I am an insensitive prick, yes, but I do care about the feelings of others, on some level.

Yeah, I have the expectation that there are certain things (chocolate, sex, "Reservoir Dogs") that everyone enjoys.  I am utterly appalled when I find that this is not true.  Not fair to anyone, I know.  Everyone has their own taste, I am aware.  Still, who doesn't like chocolate?  I mean, its chocolate!

Admittedly, I am an egocentric narcissist with chauvinistic tendencies, a misanthropic world-view, and a mild sociopathic disorder.  Does this make me a bad person?  Yes, probably it does.  Simultaneously, however, I am a self-sacrificing and generous, doggedly loyal friend absolutely obsessed with a desire to make the world a better place, haunted by humanity's many ills, and am desperately driven to please everyone around me in a pathetic bid to be seen in positive light.  There is a logical reason for this dichotomy of my mind/soul/spirit/whatever:  For a significant portion of my life, I wanted to be evil.  Perhaps it was because I seemed to be cast in that role by the Podunk townsfolk, but, no...  Really, I was seduced by the "pow-ah of the Dark Side".  Look at Luke, and then look at Vader.  Really, who is cooler?  Look at the pedestrian G.I. Joe's compared to the slick armor and killer robots of Cobra.  Compare the goofy antics of Mad Martigan against the grim-visaged and mighty Kael.  I mean, really, if you're a kid who's picked on, daily, by nearly every person with whom you have contact, who would you want to be?  Would you want to save people?  Get the girl?  Be a hero?  Or would you want to choke people to death from across the starship?

One's dark side, personal demon, whatever pretty phraseology one would like to use to describe the bestial, infantile id, can be fed and, if fed, grow.  Sometimes it grows beyond one's capacity to control.

Perhaps I am condescending and perhaps I, or at least a significant part of me, wants to be.  I don't want to be.  But I don't always get what I want.  We usually do, but we is not me.

...  I dunno... if any of this makes sense to you, fair reader, really strikes a familiar chord in you, what can I say?  Sucks to be you, I guess.