The Rep I've Kept

Every once in a while, someone says something which sheds light on the reputation that I possess. I'm always grateful for this, because no amount of deliberately wheedling, begging and interrogating can extract any such information from even my best friends. They seem to think it's weird that I'd want to know what I'm like from their point of view, or at least they don't know how to answer when they are thinking about it. In any case, there was a couple of weeks ago a nugget that I came upon in casual conversation, and it was very suggestive of what my areas of expertise are in the eyes of my peers.

A particular movie came up: 'Cannonball Run'. I mentioned at hearing the name that I hadn't seen it. This is less unusual than it might have been if we were talking in 1985. In the year 2011, a relatively slender segment of the population has seen that film, featuring though it does the once highly esteemed Burt Reynolds and a host of likewise erstwhile stars. Even so, utterance of the fact that I personally had not seen it met with great surprise. This was very revealing, and I was reminded that I apparently have a much broader range of film viewing under my belt than most people I know. I say this not because I conclusively know it, but only by such evidence as I have just related.

I think that if there's any reason why this is true, it must be traceable to the time in my life when I had no network of friends to speak of. Most nights that might have been spent out or with friends were spent in with a movie or out at the theater alone. In this way I can imagine having seen more movies than other people. The thing is that as I myself have chosen most of the movies I've seen, there are gaps in my viewing history when compared to any list of essentials. There may be fewer gaps since I did go to film school, but there are considerable gaps anyway. I may have seem a lot of old and obscure stuff, and I may do my best to watch as much contemporary stuff as I can, but there are things I haven't seen that are more stunning than 'Cannonball Run' if you can believe it. 'Goodfellas' is an example of that.

I'm working on it, but there's just so much time I can spare. That is the real issue. I think that I may be losing ground to my peers, who are at least as busy as I am if not more, but who do at last regard watching movies in such volume as I have acceptable for the first time I'm aware of. It was something that socially awkward did, along with online dating and the like. Now it's basically all right, and I don't know that I like that. I may have once bemoaned being different, but I've grown to value it more and more over time. Maybe it's not a good idea to change things about yourself, since eventually either your attitude or that of society will. Isn't that something?