Rape Goblins

"You're gonna miss everything cool and die angry!"

That is how Patten Oswalt eviscerates an audience member during one of his recorded concerts.


As Patten is telling a story, during a quiet tender moment, this guy makes a loud whooping sound. This really seems to piss off Patten, who goes into a long rant about how this "dumb douchebag" was so uncomfortable with the silence that he had to disrupt the flow of the story.

I love the guy who's terrified at any kind of silence... fuck me for building a moment...I'd hate to see you at a funeral... [funny voice] 'SKYNARD!!!... Sorry, it was like 20 seconds of silence, I thought I was gonna shit my pants, I got real scared...'

Still in the voice of the heckler, Patten goes on to bring up the rape goblins:

"My mom told me that if it's quiet for more than 15 minutes, then goblins would come out the ground and rape you... so I was trying to protect everybody by yelling...I thought I would scream... to scare the rape goblins away...uh, has no one been raped?... Then I think I just saved the whole room..."

Start at the around the 6:00 mark to hear the heckler part.

+++++

The rape goblins are clearly the work of a comic genius, but it's also a great metaphor to use in my own life.

As a single person, I feel like I'm constantly trying to keep my own rape goblins away.


When my life gets too "quiet," when there is too much alone time, I turn mean and antisocial. It's particularly bad on Saturday nights. For some reason, all my life there's been this enormous pressure to do stuff on Saturday nights. It's the one night a week when I'm most likely to feel like a loser if I stay home alone.


So this is why I try to keep a very active social life. Why I play tennis 3-4 times a week, constantly try to make lunch/dinner plans with people, belong to two book clubs, join committees, volunteer, participate in groups, go to events, organize outings, plan vacations. It's not because I necessarily enjoy all of these activities.


I do it to keep the rape goblins away.

So I don't miss everything cool and die angry.