So, I’m on holiday with my boyfriend in Mecklenburg-Vorpommen, the most beautiful Bundesland in Germany. He’s reading The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson, I’m reading Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James on his Kindle. Yep, he’s so into The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson that he is actually letting me use his Kindle in a desperate attempt to distract me for long enough for him to finish the book.
“I’m bored,” I say. “They haven’t had sex yet. Are they gonna have sex soon? I thought he was gonna at least feel her up in the lift.”
My boyfriend looks up. “I think you might be a psychopath,” he says, nonchalantly.
I look at him, 150 percent outraged.
“I am not a psychopath,” I say. “Why do you think I’m a psychopath?”
“Well, you’re very prone to bouts of boredom,” he says. “It’s one of the signs.”
“Well, I’m already three percent through the book and they haven’t had sex yet. I think anyone would be prone to boredom under those circumstances. Anyway, I’m sure I’m not a psychopath. I’m just a sociopath.”
My boyfriend looks at me, mildly interested. “And what do you think the difference is?” he asks. “Between a psychopath and a sociopath, I mean.”
“Isn’t a sociopath just a psychopath who hasn’t killed anybody yet?”
“According to Jon Ronson, most psychologists used the words interchangeably.”
“Oh. Well, I’m not a sociopath, then. I tell you what I really am. I’m really susceptible to joining a cult.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, especially in Germany. You know how cold the Germans are, the only people who talk to you on the street are cult-members trying to get you to join their cult. And they just smell my desperate loneliness. They sniff it on me. They come up to me all the time: would you like to go for coffee, do you feel like walking together for a bit down this road? We could walk the 20 metres to the S-Bahn station together. And then I say yes, and then they try to get me to join their cult. And the thing is, I’m always a tiny bit tempted – especially when I walk past the Scientologists. A tiny bit, you know? I just look at that stress test and I just know. If I joined them, I wouldn’t have any problems. They’d solve all my problems. I don’t do it, but I want to. I ache to do it. I’d love to join a cult. I really would. But don’t worry, I’m not going to.”
“Yeah, if I joined a cult, I’d join Scientology, too,” says my boyfriend. “Just to find out all the mad shit they believe in. Just to check for myself how bat-shit insane they all are.”
“I wouldn’t like to join one where I had to set fire to myself or anything,” I say.
“No,” says my boyfriend. “That would be really annoying.”
He turns back to Jon Ronson and I turn back to Fifty Shades of Grey and I must admit, after they start shagging, I’m not prone to bouts of boredom anymore. I’m more prone to bouts of horniness. I read on, in silence, and every now and again I go to the toilet to check that I haven’t actually started my period, but am actually just leaking with joy and lust and desire and other dirty emotions like that.
