It reminds me of the feeling I get sometimes that I’m slightly behind myself, watching what I’m doing as I’m doing it.
zbicyclist, most of my dreams are like that! I had one dream where I realizedI was behind myself, and suddenly was behind the myself that was behind myself, and the 2nd myself was actually a floating camera.
Dreams are weird.
And what extreme of emotion does Barney have, in order to be beside himself here… smugness?
Boredom.
It could simply be a slow day and taking an idiom literally could seem a decent joke.
One of the uses of the phrase “I am beside myself” would be the case when you are physically in a position next to yourself.
But I’m not sure I accept the premise that “I am beside myself” isn’t used much now. Or if it isn’t its simply that all such idioms are used less for various reasons (are we more literal? less literate? more modern? who knows…. but I doubt it has anything to do with the phrase or its origins and…..)
…Oh, Olivier has it exactly. Barney is so bored he wants to leave the conversation…..
I don’t think expressions like ‘beside oneself’ are that common these days, when we see so many alternative expressions that would have to be considered ‘less literate'(‘I can’t even, I’m shook, I m losing my ****’, etc.)
Comics I Don't Understand 
Because that way, his soul can social-distance: i.e., sit safely at the end of the bench rather than next to Clyde, within Barney’s body.
Ecstasy!
It reminds me of the feeling I get sometimes that I’m slightly behind myself, watching what I’m doing as I’m doing it.
zbicyclist, most of my dreams are like that! I had one dream where I realizedI was behind myself, and suddenly was behind the myself that was behind myself, and the 2nd myself was actually a floating camera.
Dreams are weird.
And what extreme of emotion does Barney have, in order to be beside himself here… smugness?
Boredom.
It could simply be a slow day and taking an idiom literally could seem a decent joke.
One of the uses of the phrase “I am beside myself” would be the case when you are physically in a position next to yourself.
But I’m not sure I accept the premise that “I am beside myself” isn’t used much now. Or if it isn’t its simply that all such idioms are used less for various reasons (are we more literal? less literate? more modern? who knows…. but I doubt it has anything to do with the phrase or its origins and…..)
…Oh, Olivier has it exactly. Barney is so bored he wants to leave the conversation…..
I don’t think expressions like ‘beside oneself’ are that common these days, when we see so many alternative expressions that would have to be considered ‘less literate'(‘I can’t even, I’m shook, I m losing my ****’, etc.)