Provo City Library Crazies

I discovered something this evening when I decided to make the Provo City Library my place of study. That is simply that.....

Libraries attract a bunch o' weirdos!

The Harold B. Lee Library on campus turns into a social club half the time when people go there to "get their groove on"! What kind of person, whether consciously thinking of a place to meet people or not, uses a library as their romantic venue? It's supposed to be a place of study and learning and reading, which means: please no pick-up lines in my general vicinity while I'm studying chemistry! There's something wrong with that scene.

And now I know that it's simply a different breed of weirdo that frequents the city library:

it's the legitimately and psychotically insane kind.

I was just studying for an exam when I decided to lift my eyes from the text to notice a passer-by. It was a squat little lady with a Little Caesar's hat on. Her eyes awkwardly met mine for a fraction of a second and I made the mistake of grinning "hello" before I put my eyes back to the page. She walked straight up to me and started talking with me as if we had already had a first half of a conversation that she was just continuing very normally, as if I had been there all along. The problem was, I wasn't there. It was all in her head. It went something like this:

Schizo: "... and so, I'm doing a lot better."
Me: "Beg your pardon?"
Schizo: "You see, my husband, he screwed me over. And that's why I'm glad he's gone."
[she then trailed off as she walked around the corner, however, only to reappear still talking]
Schizo: [mumbling something like] "...and I never want to do that again."
Me: All I could think to say was "Well, I'm glad you're doing better" (with a rather conversationally ending tone to try to terminate the discussion while I looked resolutely back to my text).

It was very awkward at first, feeling a little, what I call, "conversation-raped." But, I realized very quickly that she had psychological issues and it was easy to understand that I didn't need to understand. Apparently she was dying for someone to vent to. I felt like I did my good deed for the day by lending my listening ear for a minute. Then I continued studying the finite element method.

The end.