So, what was Romney thinking when he insulted the London Olympics preparations?

[xiphias]

As much as I dislike Romney, I'm starting to feel my schadenfreude tip into a mixture of bemusement and pity at his whole experience in London these past couple days. And I'm trying to figure out WHAT he was thinking.

And here's what I've come up with as a hypothesis:

Okay, remember back in school when you had that guy who was really socially awkward but who WANTED to be accepted, so he TRIED to pretend like he liked the same things as everyone else, but it was obvious that he was just trying, and fundamentally didn't actually UNDERSTAND what everyone else was doing?

In my case, I WAS that guy, but still. I assume that most of you either knew him, or were him. Or her, I suppose. I only noticed it among guys, but that may be simply confirmation bias. I'm sticking with the male pronoun because that's where I personally saw it most.

So, yeah. That guy who kept coming up to you, and trying to join into your conversation, but fundamentally missing the point.

That's Romney.

He WANTS to be popular. So he does whatever it is the people around him do, to try to be accepted by them. And he goes to London, and hears all the Brits bitching about how screwed up the Olympics are, and how everything's going to be a mess, and nobody on the Olympic committee has the slightest bloody idea what they're doing.

And he goes, "Oh, okay. That's what people are saying. So I want people to like me, so I'll say that, too."

So he says that.

Which fundamentally missed the point -- missed a BUNCH of the points -- e.g., "British people bitch about things that they like," and "nobody beats up my little brother except me."

Honestly, I think that you can fit almost all the events we know of in Romney's life into the narrative of, "I want people to like me, so I'll do whatever it is that they're doing, too."

Comments

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Apparently, in WWII, there were some issues with co-ordination between American and UK troops, when calling for backup.

Americans didn't understand that, if a Brit called in calmly stating that "me and my boys might be having a spot of bother here," it meant that over half the soldiers were dead, the rest were injured, they were low on ammunition, and their position was about to be overrun.

[pogodragon.livejournal.com]

Well one would not want to make a fuss would one?

[embryomystic.livejournal.com]

That's so... perfectly illustrative of the difference between Americans and English people.