How do you define yourself? what do you do to stand out? What do you do to conform?
Everyone has things they do that they would say defines them, but we never really think about how what we don’t do can be just as important when defining ourselves. In “Standard Loneliness Package” the main character, and/or narrator, is one who leans to the notion of less is more, and in this case, the less his personality shows opens him up for more meanings to be derived from his lack of personality. Why does Charles Yu make the main character in “Standard Loneliness Package” void of personality? I believe that the narrator lacks personality and individuality, so that anyone can relate to him and connect with what he goes through in this story.
The narrator is never given a name and I feel as if that enhances the feeling of him being a nobody, but also makes him anybody. We can drop our own names in to the story and compare what he goes through to jobs we’ve had that made us feel as if what we were doing was pointless and that employees don’t matter, only business. “Pain is an illusion, I know, and so is time, I know, I know. I know. The shift manager never stops reminding us” (Yu). First, we have this reminder from his manager, completely disregarding his pain, because they weren’t actually the people it was happening to and therefore it is an illusion, but as we see later the effect it has on their mental health is very real. “Our services aren’t cheap. As the shift manager is always reminding us” (Yu). Secondly, this reminder showing us that this is a service for the wealthy and that the customers don’t care about you, so why does it even matter if the narrator is named or described if no one cares who he is.
The narrator’s exhausting blandness, is he himself even aware he is bland? I think he is very aware of his own blandness as evident in his interactions with Kirthi, he asks her yes or no questions and tells her things she already knows and doesn’t know what else to say to keep conversation going with her. He mentally beats himself up for these moments where he feels dumb for not being able to converse with her. “The second time we talk, we are also by the water fountain, and I try to make a joke, one of those we have to stop meeting like this things. I probably saw it on TV and it just came out. Stupid. She doesn’t laugh, but she doesn’t frown, either” (Yu). He resorts to dumb jokes from TV that Kirthi isn’t amused by and thinks what he did is stupid. These interactions show that he knows he is bland, and that he doesn’t know how to get her interested in having a conversation with him, but despite the failed attempts he continues to try.
The narrator lacks emotional response, feels absent in his own life, and is numb to what his surroundings have become. He doesn’t care much for his own life and couldn’t care less in trying to improve it, he would rather pass stores waiting to see if a new life would eventually pop up that he could save up and buy. He doesn’t even care much if the new life is only marginally better than the one he currently possesses. “It wasn’t my life, technically. Not yet. It was the life I wanted, the life I’ve been saving for. Not a DreamLife®, not top of the line, but a starter model, a good one. Standard Possibility. Normal Volatility. A dark-haired, soulful wife. 0.35 kids, no actuals—certainties are too expensive—but some potential kids, a solid thirty-five percent chance of having one or more. Normal life expectancy, average health, median aggregate amount of happiness. I test-drove it once, and it felt good, it felt right. It fit just fine” (Yu). He is perfectly content with the averageness of the new life and all that he desires is something average not good, not greatness.
The narrator can also be quite negative despite thinking he is a nice individual. He has a bleak outlook on his life which to an extent is understandable, with how he is living, but again nothing done to improve his situation. “I pass her in the hall again, and again she doesn’t look at me. No surprise there. Women never look at me. I am not handsome or tall. But I am nice.
I think it is actually that which causes the not-looking at me. The niceness, I mean, not the lack of handsomeness or tallness. They can see the niceness and it is the kind of niceness that, in a man, you instinctively ignore. What good is a nice man? No good to women. No good to other men” (Yu). No one who is truly nice would have this outlook on why people ignore them, only someone who doesn’t have a deep understanding of themselves. Someone who understood themselves would dig deeper in himself and see that if he was really nice, and as we’ve seen that isn’t the whole story, that there may be areas in which they could improve in other aspects of their own life and realize that there is a benefit to having nice people around and that the problem is coming from another source within himself.
As a person who cares very much about the future and what our lives become. This story caught my attention as one of the more interesting stories we’ve read. It clashes with my beliefs growing up and what I’ve learned. There is complete disregard for other humans, no one cares what they are making other people go through as long as it’s making their own lives easier. “I cry, and also, I really cry. Meaning, not just as my client, but I start crying, too. Sometimes it happens. I don’t know why, exactly” (Yu). No sympathy is shown by anyone in this world. The characters who have these procedures done completely turn the other cheek at what they are doing to loved ones and what is happening to the people feeling their emotions, all so they don’t sit through something that should be important to them and feel ten minutes of an emotion they are no longer used to.