How Strong is Your Nutter Magnet?
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In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
Friedrich Nietzsche
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There was a time when if I was out and about in London pubs, sitting often waiting for others, that people would come and join me. They would attempt to engage me in conversation. Being fairly open minded those conversations could cover a lot of ground. I sometimes found myself as confidant, therapist or a simple nodding dog. People have used me for confessional. I put this down to my incarnation as a Christian warrior priest around 800 years ago.
“Bless me father…”
I can be a very good listener which creates a sound vacuum into which people may speak freely. I am not anxious to give my two pennyworth. Many people cried in my office and I had a box of tissues for their tears. Many told me things that they had never told another soul, which I being introverted, kept to myself. Unburdened they forgot, I remembered.
You could say that there was a time when I attracted nutters when out socialising. I had a strong nutter magnet. As a barman you can hear some pretty rum stories and when they found out I was “brainy” my opinion was sometimes sought. Travelling home on a night bus at 4AM after a shift in the central London nightclubs, people would seek to sit next or near to me on the top deck. Still in my dickie bow and black and whites they assumed I was safe and sober.
It occurred to me yesterday that the reason my nutter magnet was strong is because like attracts like. The insane can find their own kind. The nutter field emanates into the aether and the other loonies are drawn to it.
The only way to avoid being attracted by it is to take precautions. Luckily I am now largely quarantined and self-isolating so you are unlikely to draw me to you. There is an inverse square law to the strength of the nutter field. It is unlikely that I will ever be drawn into your orbit or sit next to you at a table in a pub beer garden. I won’t draw you to me; our circles will not intersect.
Many people who have a strong nutter magnet are not technically insane according to all the common metrics. Nevertheless they can somehow attract nutters too. The self-diagnosed sane may have hidden potential.
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How strong is you nutter magnet?
Do you attract nutters who insist on trying to talk with you?
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