Last week, when news hit that the prosecution in the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case had requested that charges be dismissed, I will admit that I was a little upset. Ok, I was a lot upset. There was some swearing on Twitter, and there may have been a phone conversation with a lady friend of mine that included some top-quality f-bombs dropped at the top of my voice. In my cubicle. In the middle of the day.
Hey, I am a passionate person, and I can't be expected to reign in those passions simply because I have a job, ok? A job is not a life.
The gist of why I became so angry at this news is as follows. The prosecutor believed, or the prosecutor believed that the jury would believe, that it was more likely that Strauss-Kahn and a hotel maid had consensual, spontaneous, anonymous, rough sex than that he raped her. It is more believable that upon entering his room, she decided to engage in some BDSM role-play fun than that he forced her. Because no one is denying that sexual contact occurred, or even that said contact was "rough." No one denies that there was semen on her uniform blouse or that she was BLEEDING AND BRUISED when she left the room and went to her colleagues.
But, despite all that, it is still more believable that the plot of a bad porno occurred than that he raped her.
Because porno plots play out ALL THE TIME in real life, guys. All you have to do is find a maid or a female police officer or a secretary or a teacher or a nun or a schoolgirl, and you can totally act out your favorite porn, and it'll be totally consensual whether it is actually consensual or not.
Because we live in a rape culture.
I live in a rape culture. That fact is not deniable any longer. And this has serious implications for my life. I am a woman that enjoys wearing pretty dresses and high heels. Some of these dresses are short. Some of them are low-cut. If I wear these dresses in public, and something happens to me, is it my fault?
Probably, says the culture I live in.
I walk home two miles in my pretty dresses. I walk home through the downtown area of an urban environment. There are all manner of colorful characters that I pass on my walk. Most of them are men. It has been my habit for years to smile and say hello when I walk by anyone, because everyone is a human being and deserves acknowledgement and a little bit of dignity.
But on my walk last week, I found myself looking at my feet. What if my smile is an invitation?
This is the reality of living in a culture that condones rape. This is the reality of living in a culture in which a majority of people find it is easier to believe that the plot of a bad porno took place than that a woman was raped.
This morning I woke up in a bad mood. It happens. One of my most effective coping mechanisms for dealing with the doldrums is to dress up even more than usual. So I wore a party dress to work today. I posted on my Facebook about wearing a party dress to work.
An hour later, I got a text message asking about my panties.
This is the world I have to live in. It makes me sick. And sad. And sick again.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
RESOLVED
I find myself inexplicably sad. Well, not inexplicably. I could probably give you a really good rundown of all the reasons I'm sad today. Most of them are ridiculous. Which is why I'm not going to provide such a rundown. It's really, really silly of me to be sad about the things that are currently making me want to cry.
So, instead, a resolution. I know it's not New Year's. But I have a resolution to make. And really, we ought to start self-improvement campaigns whenever we realize what we need to do, not only at some date chosen for us by an arbitrarily imposed calendar.
Today, for now, for the next five years: I will not be a selfish mess.
I will probably continue to be a mess, because, um, well. Hi. Have you met me? I'm a mess. I am flaky, and pretty unrepentant about it. I deliberately choose to dedicate my brain space to things like that perfect turn of phrase that I constructed while ten-keying four days worth of sales and reports into a spreadsheet. I remember those words instead of the parking ticket I have to pay, or your birthday.
I am hypocritical, because when other people flake on me the way I flake all the time, I am always crushed.
I am crazy. My emotions operate on a series of mountainous hairpin turns, and I will go from sad to happy and back again faster than a ball volleys at the French Open. (Is it the French Open going on right now? Or the US Open? Whatever. I like French tennis with their old-school clay courts.)
But I will try not to be a selfish mess, which means trying really hard not to let my unreasonable expectations get the best of me. It means realizing when my hurt is valid and when it's not, and only sharing when it's valid. And keeping it to myself when it's not. Because it's really pretty selfish to be dumping on people all the time when the problem is actually within yourself. It's really pretty selfish to be demanding other people's time and attention and energy when you don't really have any claim to them. It's really pretty selfish to monopolize someone, anyone, a whole host of someones and anyones and make sure that all that's thought about and cared about is you.
That's pretty selfish.
I am resolved not to do that. Anymore. I have resolved this in the past, and done fairly well at it, but then I got lazy, and sloppy, and here I am, crazier than I ever was. The problem with this kind of attention-seeking crazy is that it's a self-perpetuating cycle. You become absolutely addicted to the attention. You become downright dependent upon knowing someone is always looking, always reading, always caring.
It is no one's job to take care of you. More properly, it is no one's job to take care of me.
And I am resolved not to try and make it anyone's job.
Here's to emotional self-sufficiency. (I'm going to need a lot of whiskey this winter.) (Just kidding.)
So, instead, a resolution. I know it's not New Year's. But I have a resolution to make. And really, we ought to start self-improvement campaigns whenever we realize what we need to do, not only at some date chosen for us by an arbitrarily imposed calendar.
Today, for now, for the next five years: I will not be a selfish mess.
I will probably continue to be a mess, because, um, well. Hi. Have you met me? I'm a mess. I am flaky, and pretty unrepentant about it. I deliberately choose to dedicate my brain space to things like that perfect turn of phrase that I constructed while ten-keying four days worth of sales and reports into a spreadsheet. I remember those words instead of the parking ticket I have to pay, or your birthday.
I am hypocritical, because when other people flake on me the way I flake all the time, I am always crushed.
I am crazy. My emotions operate on a series of mountainous hairpin turns, and I will go from sad to happy and back again faster than a ball volleys at the French Open. (Is it the French Open going on right now? Or the US Open? Whatever. I like French tennis with their old-school clay courts.)
But I will try not to be a selfish mess, which means trying really hard not to let my unreasonable expectations get the best of me. It means realizing when my hurt is valid and when it's not, and only sharing when it's valid. And keeping it to myself when it's not. Because it's really pretty selfish to be dumping on people all the time when the problem is actually within yourself. It's really pretty selfish to be demanding other people's time and attention and energy when you don't really have any claim to them. It's really pretty selfish to monopolize someone, anyone, a whole host of someones and anyones and make sure that all that's thought about and cared about is you.
That's pretty selfish.
I am resolved not to do that. Anymore. I have resolved this in the past, and done fairly well at it, but then I got lazy, and sloppy, and here I am, crazier than I ever was. The problem with this kind of attention-seeking crazy is that it's a self-perpetuating cycle. You become absolutely addicted to the attention. You become downright dependent upon knowing someone is always looking, always reading, always caring.
It is no one's job to take care of you. More properly, it is no one's job to take care of me.
And I am resolved not to try and make it anyone's job.
Here's to emotional self-sufficiency. (I'm going to need a lot of whiskey this winter.) (Just kidding.)
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Oh, Milwaukee, You're Going Wild
I live in Milwaukee. It's a good town, the town I grew up, the town that makes me all nostalgic still, especially in the fall which is fast approaching.
This fall seems like a hard one. I think this fall might be the hardest autumnal season Milwaukee has ever faced. If you read any news, you know that Milwaukee is in trouble. Milwaukee is now ranked as the fourth-poorest city in the nation. It's the second- (or first-) most segregated city in America. And we've seen our share, and more than our share, of violence in recent months.
But what does it all mean? Is my beloved, lovely gem of a city on the slow downward slide to oblivion? What about all the good things about Milwaukee? And there are lots of good things! Just read this awesome Guardian piece about all the great things in Milwaukee! See! We have lots of good things to go with our bad things. We're arty and cool and we don't actually care about being arty and cool, just like hipsters. Milwaukee is totally the cool hipster capitol, where all the cool hipsters are because we're not ironically not caring, we actually don't care, and also we care too much.
It's a Milwaukee thing, I don't expect you to understand.
I live in a lovely part of Milwaukee that's very near a large park (that was actually designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the man responsible for that paragon of urban green space, Central Park in New York City!) and because of our proximity to Lake Park, we have a regular rotation of urban wildlife wandering around the neighborhood. There have always been deer and coyotes in the park, along with possums, raccoons, rabits, squirrels and all those other little furry creatures that make you go "Aww!" on every street.
But this year, we've had a new addition to the neighborhood. Turkeys. Milwaukee now has urban turkeys!
I've spent some time mulling over what it means that turkeys would take residence in my fair city for the first time in the very same year that it would seem that Milwaukee is going down the drain. Turkeys, after all, are the birds that the venerable Thomas Jefferson wanted to be America's national bird. He thought that eagles were lazy poachers of other animals food, which they are, and that a more fitting symbol for the fledgingly America would be the steadfast, hardworking, loyal turkey.
He lost that battle, obviously, but I can't help thinking about him as I ponder this turkey's arrival in Milwaukee. Milwaukee is steadfast and hardworking. We are an industrial town, an old piece of the rust belt trying to make it in this modern era when there's just no industry left. And we're doing a fair job of it! Perhaps the turkey is telling us to just keep on keepin' on. I don't know. But it's something to think about.
Last night, I saw the turkey again. She's getting kind of fat on foraged fruit and garbage, but for the first time, I saw her fly. She flew up into the dying maple tree in the easement between my neighbors' yard and the street. Perhaps she was trying to fly away, to flee Milwaukee and all her problems, or maybe she was merely looking for a place to roost for the winter.
I suppose we won't know until next spring.
This fall seems like a hard one. I think this fall might be the hardest autumnal season Milwaukee has ever faced. If you read any news, you know that Milwaukee is in trouble. Milwaukee is now ranked as the fourth-poorest city in the nation. It's the second- (or first-) most segregated city in America. And we've seen our share, and more than our share, of violence in recent months.
But what does it all mean? Is my beloved, lovely gem of a city on the slow downward slide to oblivion? What about all the good things about Milwaukee? And there are lots of good things! Just read this awesome Guardian piece about all the great things in Milwaukee! See! We have lots of good things to go with our bad things. We're arty and cool and we don't actually care about being arty and cool, just like hipsters. Milwaukee is totally the cool hipster capitol, where all the cool hipsters are because we're not ironically not caring, we actually don't care, and also we care too much.
It's a Milwaukee thing, I don't expect you to understand.
I live in a lovely part of Milwaukee that's very near a large park (that was actually designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the man responsible for that paragon of urban green space, Central Park in New York City!) and because of our proximity to Lake Park, we have a regular rotation of urban wildlife wandering around the neighborhood. There have always been deer and coyotes in the park, along with possums, raccoons, rabits, squirrels and all those other little furry creatures that make you go "Aww!" on every street.
But this year, we've had a new addition to the neighborhood. Turkeys. Milwaukee now has urban turkeys!
I've spent some time mulling over what it means that turkeys would take residence in my fair city for the first time in the very same year that it would seem that Milwaukee is going down the drain. Turkeys, after all, are the birds that the venerable Thomas Jefferson wanted to be America's national bird. He thought that eagles were lazy poachers of other animals food, which they are, and that a more fitting symbol for the fledgingly America would be the steadfast, hardworking, loyal turkey.
He lost that battle, obviously, but I can't help thinking about him as I ponder this turkey's arrival in Milwaukee. Milwaukee is steadfast and hardworking. We are an industrial town, an old piece of the rust belt trying to make it in this modern era when there's just no industry left. And we're doing a fair job of it! Perhaps the turkey is telling us to just keep on keepin' on. I don't know. But it's something to think about.
Last night, I saw the turkey again. She's getting kind of fat on foraged fruit and garbage, but for the first time, I saw her fly. She flew up into the dying maple tree in the easement between my neighbors' yard and the street. Perhaps she was trying to fly away, to flee Milwaukee and all her problems, or maybe she was merely looking for a place to roost for the winter.
I suppose we won't know until next spring.
Monday, August 22, 2011
The Things Not Easily Forgotten
The muscles in your arms. The way they rippled when I put my hand on them, when I rested my fingers just above the crook of your elbow, and also the way they didn't give when I laid my head against them. The weight of them around my waist, resting against my ribs; the way those muscles crushed me, pushed me deeper into my own skin than I've been in a very long time.
The coolness of the skin over those muscles against my cheek.
The way we didn't look each other in the eye. Maybe you tried; maybe I didn't let you, maybe I couldn't do it. But all those hours, and I don't remember the shock of eye contact. Maybe we did, maybe there was no electric tingle, maybe it was all in my head. Maybe I am creating a story of thin air, ether, fumes. But I choose to believe it didn't happen, because it must be shocking when it does. If there is no thrill, there is nothing.
I remember my belief in absolutes.
I remember sounds. Wind in trees. Possums under the porch. Confused urban robins, singing to the streetlamps in the middle of the night because they thought they saw the sun lightening the sky.
Soundless lightning.
Falling asleep. Every step in sinking down to unconscious, pinned snugly in those arms. Deciding to fall asleep. Deciding it was ok not to be entertaining. Deciding to rest. Each of my muscles going soft in a wave from my toes to my forehead. Waking up warm. Doing it again.
The coolness of the skin over those muscles against my cheek.
The way we didn't look each other in the eye. Maybe you tried; maybe I didn't let you, maybe I couldn't do it. But all those hours, and I don't remember the shock of eye contact. Maybe we did, maybe there was no electric tingle, maybe it was all in my head. Maybe I am creating a story of thin air, ether, fumes. But I choose to believe it didn't happen, because it must be shocking when it does. If there is no thrill, there is nothing.
I remember my belief in absolutes.
I remember sounds. Wind in trees. Possums under the porch. Confused urban robins, singing to the streetlamps in the middle of the night because they thought they saw the sun lightening the sky.
Soundless lightning.
Falling asleep. Every step in sinking down to unconscious, pinned snugly in those arms. Deciding to fall asleep. Deciding it was ok not to be entertaining. Deciding to rest. Each of my muscles going soft in a wave from my toes to my forehead. Waking up warm. Doing it again.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
I Will Never Be A (Paid) Writer
This is a sad realization for me. Actually, it's a downright heart-shattering, soul-crushing revelation, but I guess it's time to face facts. I won't cry forever, I promise, just for the next ten years.
And the facts are, I will probably never get paid for anything I write. And no one will ever read it, apart from you few, dear, darling readers. (I love you. Don't ever leave me. No really: DON'T. Please.)
See, generally short-form publishing falls into two broad categories these days. Ponderous and heavily-researched tracts, and essays of emotional vulnerability humored up with liberal doses flippancy.
I don't have the discipline for research. Honestly. I just don't. I had a good run in college, and I'm sure that if you managed to find a professor that remembered me at all, they'd remember my stellar research papers because I always had interesting theses and I can actually construct a proper sentence and every once in a while I was able to make dry, dull, academia not make you want to slit your wrists through the judicious use of peppy adjectives and anecdotes.
(I am still pretty proud of some of the papers I wrote in college. "America shouldn't seek global hegemony because it is MORALLY INCONSISTENT WITH AMERICA'S VALUES" is one of my best works EVER.)
But, my papers would never be described as well-researched or well-annotated. I did the bare minimum in that regard, because I just don't like research.
Also, I never graduated college, so the idea that anyone would pay me to write academia is pretty funny.
On the other end of the spectrum, there is perhaps more promise! I mean, I do personal essays like no one's business. I can write about my life forever because I am just that narcissistic, and also because I have fully bought into the maxim that you must "write what you know" and really the only thing I know is my life. Everything else is mere theoretical knowledge, and that's not really knowledge so much as conjecture, since theory is grounded in naught but conjecture.
But then there's that "funny" requirement that is increasingly being satisfied by a display of flippancy that I just don't have. I'm not flippant. I am not ironic. I am intensely, terribly, vulnerably EARNEST. I'm like a puppy that just wants to be loved. (But I don't pee on the floor. I have a toddler that refuses to get potty-trained to handle that for me.)
I'm not funny. And I'm especially not funny when I'm displaying vulnerability because the last thing I want is for people to LAUGH at my EXISTENTIAL PAIN. Seriously. Who wants to have someone laugh in their face when they're crying? (On the inside, guys. I don't cry in front of people. I'm British that way.)
SO... that's that. No more dreams of a daily byline on Thought Catalog or hellogiggles. No more wistful longings that Salon would hire me to take over Broadsheet since Tracy Clark-Flory went back to being a full-time sex writer. (Added bonus of the Salon daydream: the idea that Alex Pareene would become my bestie. That man is ACTUALLY FUNNY, and about politics no less. Also, he smokes. It would be so great to have a bestie that smokes so I didn't feel so guilty about my still-occasional habit.)
I mean, I can keep plugging away on this collection of short stories that's clogging up my hard drive (and I WILL) and sketching out the outline of a novel, but no one's going to publish it unless my name already means something and my name will never mean anything because I'm a bad researcher and I'm not funny.
Life's a bitch.
(xo!)
And the facts are, I will probably never get paid for anything I write. And no one will ever read it, apart from you few, dear, darling readers. (I love you. Don't ever leave me. No really: DON'T. Please.)
See, generally short-form publishing falls into two broad categories these days. Ponderous and heavily-researched tracts, and essays of emotional vulnerability humored up with liberal doses flippancy.
I don't have the discipline for research. Honestly. I just don't. I had a good run in college, and I'm sure that if you managed to find a professor that remembered me at all, they'd remember my stellar research papers because I always had interesting theses and I can actually construct a proper sentence and every once in a while I was able to make dry, dull, academia not make you want to slit your wrists through the judicious use of peppy adjectives and anecdotes.
(I am still pretty proud of some of the papers I wrote in college. "America shouldn't seek global hegemony because it is MORALLY INCONSISTENT WITH AMERICA'S VALUES" is one of my best works EVER.)
But, my papers would never be described as well-researched or well-annotated. I did the bare minimum in that regard, because I just don't like research.
Also, I never graduated college, so the idea that anyone would pay me to write academia is pretty funny.
On the other end of the spectrum, there is perhaps more promise! I mean, I do personal essays like no one's business. I can write about my life forever because I am just that narcissistic, and also because I have fully bought into the maxim that you must "write what you know" and really the only thing I know is my life. Everything else is mere theoretical knowledge, and that's not really knowledge so much as conjecture, since theory is grounded in naught but conjecture.
But then there's that "funny" requirement that is increasingly being satisfied by a display of flippancy that I just don't have. I'm not flippant. I am not ironic. I am intensely, terribly, vulnerably EARNEST. I'm like a puppy that just wants to be loved. (But I don't pee on the floor. I have a toddler that refuses to get potty-trained to handle that for me.)
I'm not funny. And I'm especially not funny when I'm displaying vulnerability because the last thing I want is for people to LAUGH at my EXISTENTIAL PAIN. Seriously. Who wants to have someone laugh in their face when they're crying? (On the inside, guys. I don't cry in front of people. I'm British that way.)
SO... that's that. No more dreams of a daily byline on Thought Catalog or hellogiggles. No more wistful longings that Salon would hire me to take over Broadsheet since Tracy Clark-Flory went back to being a full-time sex writer. (Added bonus of the Salon daydream: the idea that Alex Pareene would become my bestie. That man is ACTUALLY FUNNY, and about politics no less. Also, he smokes. It would be so great to have a bestie that smokes so I didn't feel so guilty about my still-occasional habit.)
I mean, I can keep plugging away on this collection of short stories that's clogging up my hard drive (and I WILL) and sketching out the outline of a novel, but no one's going to publish it unless my name already means something and my name will never mean anything because I'm a bad researcher and I'm not funny.
Life's a bitch.
(xo!)
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Oh, you wily paternalistic commentators, you.
An unspecified length of time back (I'm terrible with time, honestly) I read a piece by Fox News' resident male-centrist Dr. Keith Ablow that set forth the premise that men should have veto power over an abortion.
He makes all kinds of qualifications to the kind of men that should be able to exercise this power right up front (reasonable expectation that they are the father, desire and ability to care for the child when it is born) which (as an acquaintance pointed out) is pretty much reason to stop reading right there.
Why?, one might ask.
Well, because the law is a blunt instrument and morality is as delicate as a butterflies wings. Bludgeoning with law is not the answer to any problem as nuanced as abortion. As soon as you start making those kinds of qualifications, the ability of the law to deal with the reality of any situation completely breaks down. "A reasonable expectation that that he is the father"? Really? Wasn't there a study done that says something like 25% of children in this country are being raised by men who think they are the fathers and aren't? Maybe it was only 20%. But it was a pretty high number. What if a man thinks he's the father absolutely during the first trimester and then finds out he's not? Is he still going to take responsibility for the child on delivery? Is he still as into the idea of caring for this thing that he hasn't actually been a part of creating?
(I've never fully understood paternal societies for precisely this reason: it's really difficult to be absolutely sure who the father of a child is. It is far, far easier to know for sure who the mother is.)
The law deals in absolutes. The law does not have the capacity to encompass the nuance that any moral question carries. The law does not have the delicacy to distinguish between a man for whom reasonable expectation is enough, and knowing absolutely is necessary. But both of these men could make a claim in Ablow's world.
And let's just get right down to it: people are shitty. Men are shitty, women are shitty. We all do terrible things to each other, with the express purpose of inflicting pain. When someone hurts us, we want to hurt them back. Sometimes, we just want to hurt someone for no particular reason. Pregnancy and children have been the means to control women by amoral men for, quite literally, centuries upon centuries. We have, as a society, been moving away from that circumstance for more than fifty years. You're really advocating once again codifying male dominion over women in law? Are you going to ask that women be required to vote as their husbands or fathers wish them to, next? Maybe they shouldn't leave their homes unless properly chaperoned by a male relative, just so they stay safe.
But I'm getting a little hyperbolic there. Forgive me. Hysterics won't help anyone. (And yes, "hysteria" is an incredibly mysogynistic notion. I'm one of those crazy bitches.)
People are shitty, and we hurt each other a lot. That's not ideal, but is fact. And there is no area of human life where we have the ability to hurt each other intimately and personally than in sexuality. And while I am incredibly glad that we no longer keep young women under lock and key or stone them for becoming pregnant without first getting married or punish sexual experimentation to the degree we used to, I must admit that I have become concerned that the penduluum's swung a bit too far the other way. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it. And black-out drinking and a different fuck every night is not something that anyone should be doing. You really should know someone before you sleep with them. At least know them well enough to know whether basic ideas match up and should something unexpected occur you'll be able to work it out between the two of you. And probably you'll both end up hurting some, but it's going to hurt when your life is thrown into chaos, and that's not necessarily anyone's fault. That's just the circumstance of being alive. What you have to do is not hurt each other any more than that.
Ablow notes (and I have no idea where he's getting this from) that "no one" asks fathers how they feel leading up to and following an abortion.
Uh, what? I'm pretty sure that's not the case. As I've written about previously, I have had two unexpected pregnancies, and currently have one child. And I'm pretty sure I (and a whole lot of other people) asked both those men how they were feeling. In at least one case (the case of the abortion), I'm pretty sure more people asked him what he wanted than asked me what I wanted, and subsequently asked him how he was doing than asked me how I was doing. For the record, I went against his wishes in that case. And it was still the best decision I've ever made, despite the psychological turmoil it caused me and continues to cause me.
Which brings me to the doozy in Ablow's commentary on this matter.
First of all, we absolutely do know the psychological and also social consequences for women forced to carry babies they don't want. It's called: read some history or take a trip to India or the Middle East, you fucking moron. Willful ignorance is possibly the worst trait anyone can ever display.
Second of all, let me let you in on a little secret. Life causes psychological pain. No, really. There is pretty much nothing that you can do to avoid being hurt in your life. There is pretty much nothing you can do that will ensure that you never struggle within yourself, that your sense of right never gets put up against your sense of duty, that what is practically possible will always fall in line with your ideal world. The world is an imperfect, messy place and we are all imperfect messy people, and living causes psychological pain and suffering. I know you're a psychiatrist and your job is to eliminate this pain and suffering for people, but you realize that if such suffering could be alleviated through the use of law and society, you wouldn't have a job, right?
The world is not perfect. You will hurt, regardless of your gender.
And perhaps this is unendurably female-centric of me, but I firmly believe that given the fact that life will hurt you one way or another, on this particular issue, the final decision should always rest with that person that will have to actually grow a child in her body and carry it around for 40 weeks. When the technology exists to implant a fetus in a man, with a womb and all so he can carry it around himself, then he'll have standing to veto an abortion. But the fact of the matter is that pregnancy is fucking traumatic even for women that are happy about it and want their children. You get fat, and slow, and dumb. And I mean that: you get dumber during pregnancy. Blood redirects from your brain to your uterus and without the blood flow and the oxygen it provides, you do not think as well. It's a hard thing to live with, having your body change without your will or consent, having your very thoughts change without your will or consent. Forcing a woman to endure that against her will is far more psychologically damaging than most of the other things that hurt us in our lives.
The law is not the forum for regulating moral questions. Morality is a thing of self-regulation, and the limits you place on yourself are always the ones that are going to hold strongest. You act in the ways that will win you the approbation of the people that you look up to the most. I'm very sorry, Dr. Ablow, that more people don't look up to you so you have to write this tripe to satisfy your power-hungry ego, but that doesn't mean the law ought to follow your example. The law shouldn't follow my example, either. The law should be written such that people can follow the examples that they wish to, and if you want more people to think and feel like you do that's your prerogative, but you have to earn their approbation. You don't get to use the law to beat them into submission to your ideas.
He makes all kinds of qualifications to the kind of men that should be able to exercise this power right up front (reasonable expectation that they are the father, desire and ability to care for the child when it is born) which (as an acquaintance pointed out) is pretty much reason to stop reading right there.
Why?, one might ask.
Well, because the law is a blunt instrument and morality is as delicate as a butterflies wings. Bludgeoning with law is not the answer to any problem as nuanced as abortion. As soon as you start making those kinds of qualifications, the ability of the law to deal with the reality of any situation completely breaks down. "A reasonable expectation that that he is the father"? Really? Wasn't there a study done that says something like 25% of children in this country are being raised by men who think they are the fathers and aren't? Maybe it was only 20%. But it was a pretty high number. What if a man thinks he's the father absolutely during the first trimester and then finds out he's not? Is he still going to take responsibility for the child on delivery? Is he still as into the idea of caring for this thing that he hasn't actually been a part of creating?
(I've never fully understood paternal societies for precisely this reason: it's really difficult to be absolutely sure who the father of a child is. It is far, far easier to know for sure who the mother is.)
The law deals in absolutes. The law does not have the capacity to encompass the nuance that any moral question carries. The law does not have the delicacy to distinguish between a man for whom reasonable expectation is enough, and knowing absolutely is necessary. But both of these men could make a claim in Ablow's world.
And let's just get right down to it: people are shitty. Men are shitty, women are shitty. We all do terrible things to each other, with the express purpose of inflicting pain. When someone hurts us, we want to hurt them back. Sometimes, we just want to hurt someone for no particular reason. Pregnancy and children have been the means to control women by amoral men for, quite literally, centuries upon centuries. We have, as a society, been moving away from that circumstance for more than fifty years. You're really advocating once again codifying male dominion over women in law? Are you going to ask that women be required to vote as their husbands or fathers wish them to, next? Maybe they shouldn't leave their homes unless properly chaperoned by a male relative, just so they stay safe.
But I'm getting a little hyperbolic there. Forgive me. Hysterics won't help anyone. (And yes, "hysteria" is an incredibly mysogynistic notion. I'm one of those crazy bitches.)
People are shitty, and we hurt each other a lot. That's not ideal, but is fact. And there is no area of human life where we have the ability to hurt each other intimately and personally than in sexuality. And while I am incredibly glad that we no longer keep young women under lock and key or stone them for becoming pregnant without first getting married or punish sexual experimentation to the degree we used to, I must admit that I have become concerned that the penduluum's swung a bit too far the other way. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it. And black-out drinking and a different fuck every night is not something that anyone should be doing. You really should know someone before you sleep with them. At least know them well enough to know whether basic ideas match up and should something unexpected occur you'll be able to work it out between the two of you. And probably you'll both end up hurting some, but it's going to hurt when your life is thrown into chaos, and that's not necessarily anyone's fault. That's just the circumstance of being alive. What you have to do is not hurt each other any more than that.
Ablow notes (and I have no idea where he's getting this from) that "no one" asks fathers how they feel leading up to and following an abortion.
Uh, what? I'm pretty sure that's not the case. As I've written about previously, I have had two unexpected pregnancies, and currently have one child. And I'm pretty sure I (and a whole lot of other people) asked both those men how they were feeling. In at least one case (the case of the abortion), I'm pretty sure more people asked him what he wanted than asked me what I wanted, and subsequently asked him how he was doing than asked me how I was doing. For the record, I went against his wishes in that case. And it was still the best decision I've ever made, despite the psychological turmoil it caused me and continues to cause me.
Which brings me to the doozy in Ablow's commentary on this matter.
I understand that adopting social policy that gives fathers the right to veto abortions would lead to presently unknown psychological consequences for women forced to carry babies to term. But I don’t know that those consequences are greater than those suffered by men forced to end the lives of their unborn children.
First of all, we absolutely do know the psychological and also social consequences for women forced to carry babies they don't want. It's called: read some history or take a trip to India or the Middle East, you fucking moron. Willful ignorance is possibly the worst trait anyone can ever display.
Second of all, let me let you in on a little secret. Life causes psychological pain. No, really. There is pretty much nothing that you can do to avoid being hurt in your life. There is pretty much nothing you can do that will ensure that you never struggle within yourself, that your sense of right never gets put up against your sense of duty, that what is practically possible will always fall in line with your ideal world. The world is an imperfect, messy place and we are all imperfect messy people, and living causes psychological pain and suffering. I know you're a psychiatrist and your job is to eliminate this pain and suffering for people, but you realize that if such suffering could be alleviated through the use of law and society, you wouldn't have a job, right?
The world is not perfect. You will hurt, regardless of your gender.
And perhaps this is unendurably female-centric of me, but I firmly believe that given the fact that life will hurt you one way or another, on this particular issue, the final decision should always rest with that person that will have to actually grow a child in her body and carry it around for 40 weeks. When the technology exists to implant a fetus in a man, with a womb and all so he can carry it around himself, then he'll have standing to veto an abortion. But the fact of the matter is that pregnancy is fucking traumatic even for women that are happy about it and want their children. You get fat, and slow, and dumb. And I mean that: you get dumber during pregnancy. Blood redirects from your brain to your uterus and without the blood flow and the oxygen it provides, you do not think as well. It's a hard thing to live with, having your body change without your will or consent, having your very thoughts change without your will or consent. Forcing a woman to endure that against her will is far more psychologically damaging than most of the other things that hurt us in our lives.
The law is not the forum for regulating moral questions. Morality is a thing of self-regulation, and the limits you place on yourself are always the ones that are going to hold strongest. You act in the ways that will win you the approbation of the people that you look up to the most. I'm very sorry, Dr. Ablow, that more people don't look up to you so you have to write this tripe to satisfy your power-hungry ego, but that doesn't mean the law ought to follow your example. The law shouldn't follow my example, either. The law should be written such that people can follow the examples that they wish to, and if you want more people to think and feel like you do that's your prerogative, but you have to earn their approbation. You don't get to use the law to beat them into submission to your ideas.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
On Loneliness
Everyone gets lonely. Everyone. I don't care how introverted or even downright misanthropic you are, at some point, you will get lonely. You will long for the sympathetic touch of another person. You will want someone to listen to you, and understand.
This is the basic problem with being single: the loneliness. Loneliness leads people to do some pretty dumb shit. I should know; I do most of it. Because I suffer from one of the more acute cases of lonely-ass known to man. I am always lonely. It's a permanent condition. There is always something going on in some part of my brain that would like to be shared, and there is never anyone to share it with.
Mostly, I deal with this by blogging. And overusing social media to epic proportions. (I've more or less got my facebook feed under control, but Twitter still occasionally ends up looking like an emo kid threw up all over it. I can't help it. It's a sickness.)
Sometimes I send drunken emails to my friends in the middle of the night.
Sometimes I compose drunken emails to loves past and then don't send them in the middle of the night. This is occasionally funny the next morning, but more often than not it's cringe-inducing. I can get really intense when I'm drunk. It's terribly inappropriate.
A side issue in all this is that I have very British sensibilities. By which I mean, very World War II-era British sensibilities. I'm an endurer. I find actually asking for things to be unspeakably vulgar. Ditto on talking about sex, or feelings. I prefer silence to most things. I think life would be way less complicated if you didn't kiss anyone unless you thought you could probably marry them. Also if people would stick out there commitments just a little better. Also if people could still fall in love through absence.
(I've often wondered if Jim didn't abandon me because he thought he was getting an American girl, and instead I turned out to be just like all the girls on his side of the pond after all. Loss of exoticism and all that.)
I also have the British terror of vulnerability. I don't cry in front of people. Ever. And when other people cry in front of me, I am usually uncomfortable. I would love to be one of those people that can offer just the right amount of sympathy and comfort and make people feel better, but the reality is that as much as I want to help, I am usually too awkward to actually do so. I'm a bungler. And I'm horrid at asking for things.
Being of such staid and constrained philosophies in the modern American world is HARD. I mean, for fucks' sake. It's ridiculous how hard it is to live under these archaic ideas of decorum when everyone around you is hooking up and confessionally blogging about their sexploits and talking about feelings all the damn time. It's a constant feeling of letting your friends down because you can't commiserate. It's living in a permanent state of offense and horror at the world around you.
And it's an unending series of heartbreaks. You get to the point where you start being bitchy to people that might like you just to forestall what you absolutely know must be coming. That's a terrible excuse for being mean to someone, but it's true.
(So hey, if I'm mean to you, it probably means I like you. Just FYI.)
A lot of this grows from this outdated notion that confuses physical arousal with romantic love. I absolutely am one of the few people left in the world that are burdened to labor under this inability to separate the two. When I kiss someone, I fall in love with them. When I'm attracted to someone, I confuse it with being in love.
I thought that I should go celibate for awhile, until I figure out how to separate physical reactions from emotional ones, but I get lonely. I'm not very good at being alone, despite having been single for more of my adult life than I've been in relationshps. Abd most of those relationships have been bad, because it takes to little to attach me and I am so very eager to please that... well, you do the math.
So. Where was I going? I forget.
Loneliness. Loneliness is the crux of just about every problem I face. Terrible affliction.
This is the basic problem with being single: the loneliness. Loneliness leads people to do some pretty dumb shit. I should know; I do most of it. Because I suffer from one of the more acute cases of lonely-ass known to man. I am always lonely. It's a permanent condition. There is always something going on in some part of my brain that would like to be shared, and there is never anyone to share it with.
Mostly, I deal with this by blogging. And overusing social media to epic proportions. (I've more or less got my facebook feed under control, but Twitter still occasionally ends up looking like an emo kid threw up all over it. I can't help it. It's a sickness.)
Sometimes I send drunken emails to my friends in the middle of the night.
Sometimes I compose drunken emails to loves past and then don't send them in the middle of the night. This is occasionally funny the next morning, but more often than not it's cringe-inducing. I can get really intense when I'm drunk. It's terribly inappropriate.
A side issue in all this is that I have very British sensibilities. By which I mean, very World War II-era British sensibilities. I'm an endurer. I find actually asking for things to be unspeakably vulgar. Ditto on talking about sex, or feelings. I prefer silence to most things. I think life would be way less complicated if you didn't kiss anyone unless you thought you could probably marry them. Also if people would stick out there commitments just a little better. Also if people could still fall in love through absence.
(I've often wondered if Jim didn't abandon me because he thought he was getting an American girl, and instead I turned out to be just like all the girls on his side of the pond after all. Loss of exoticism and all that.)
I also have the British terror of vulnerability. I don't cry in front of people. Ever. And when other people cry in front of me, I am usually uncomfortable. I would love to be one of those people that can offer just the right amount of sympathy and comfort and make people feel better, but the reality is that as much as I want to help, I am usually too awkward to actually do so. I'm a bungler. And I'm horrid at asking for things.
Being of such staid and constrained philosophies in the modern American world is HARD. I mean, for fucks' sake. It's ridiculous how hard it is to live under these archaic ideas of decorum when everyone around you is hooking up and confessionally blogging about their sexploits and talking about feelings all the damn time. It's a constant feeling of letting your friends down because you can't commiserate. It's living in a permanent state of offense and horror at the world around you.
And it's an unending series of heartbreaks. You get to the point where you start being bitchy to people that might like you just to forestall what you absolutely know must be coming. That's a terrible excuse for being mean to someone, but it's true.
(So hey, if I'm mean to you, it probably means I like you. Just FYI.)
A lot of this grows from this outdated notion that confuses physical arousal with romantic love. I absolutely am one of the few people left in the world that are burdened to labor under this inability to separate the two. When I kiss someone, I fall in love with them. When I'm attracted to someone, I confuse it with being in love.
I thought that I should go celibate for awhile, until I figure out how to separate physical reactions from emotional ones, but I get lonely. I'm not very good at being alone, despite having been single for more of my adult life than I've been in relationshps. Abd most of those relationships have been bad, because it takes to little to attach me and I am so very eager to please that... well, you do the math.
So. Where was I going? I forget.
Loneliness. Loneliness is the crux of just about every problem I face. Terrible affliction.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Fear and Life, Courage and Compassion
Dear Every Human Being Everywhere (But Particularly Human Beings That Reside In and Around Milwaukee, Wisconsin),
I understand that it's natural to be scared of scary things. Fear is a completely normal response to things that are scary. Uncertainty. Violence. The possibility of death or dismemberment. Fear is biology's way of keeping us out of harm's way.
But we don't always give in to fear, do we? People do brave things all the time. People face down other people threatening them. People jump off of bridges and out of airplanes. People go to war.
We are more than capable of over-riding our natural fearfulness.
So let's all do that, ok? Let's let go of being afraid, and add a very small smidgeon of basic compassion, and let's stop talking about carrying guns and possibly shooting other people in crowded public spaces. Let's stop calling other human beings "animals."
There's a great deal of racial tension in my beloved city. This I know. It is known. I've known since I was just a wee tot, often the only white girl in my classes at a public school. So yes, let's all stop pretending that it's not there. It is. And it can be ugly. It is human nature to be hostile to that which is different from you. That cuts across pretty much every demographic line we in the modern age can come up with. Race, age, gender, income, education level, whatever: if whoever you're looking at is different from you in some way, your initial reaction will be one of fearfulness and hostility.
Don't bother arguing with me about that. It's true.
Now the good news! We can tame those impulses. All of us. We have the capacity to conquer our fear and see that different, weird "other" as another human being. All it takes is a little courage and a little compassion. People perform this emotional alchemy EVERY DAY because, hey, guess what? NO ONE IN THE WHOLE WORLD IS EXACTLY THE SAME AS YOU.
Of course, the more percieved danger there is, the harder it is to practice the courage necessary to overcome the first impulse toward hostility. The more percieved strangeness there is, the more difficult it is to realize that the person you are looking at is, in fact, a person.
So when incidents like the one after the fireworks last month in Riverwest, or the one last night at State Fair, occur, they are generally seized upon by cowardly people as an excuse not to excercise that courage that is required of anyone that's going to function in society.
Similarly, the perpetrators of these actions have declared themselves too cowardly and without compassion to bother viewing the people they hurt as people like themselves.
But hey. EVERYONE. THIS IS IMPORTANT.
We're all human beings.
I know that we all have vastly different ways of looking at the world. I know that our experiences of the world and how it works and what we've learned from it are really, really disparate.
But we're all people. We can agree on that, right? So let's start by cutting out the nasty name-calling and the use of words like "animals" and "swine" when we're discussing this? We really should be discussing it, because there is a lot of racial and class-based tension in this city, but we need to discuss it constructively. And that's just not helpful. It's really not.
And hey, people beating other people up? Those are people you're hurting. They hurt and cry and bleed like you. They have problems, too. Making them hurt and cry and bleed is not going to solve your problems. It's not going to make the schools in Milwaukee better and it's not going to make your [parental unit] care about you. It's not going to get you a job. I PROMISE. So you might want to think of another route to accomplishing some of those goals.
Hell, you might want to set a few goals. Really. You can do that. I have absolute faith in your ability to look at your life and set yourself some goals. Why do I have that faith? Because I know you're human beings. You know it, too. So act like it.
Likewise, one-liners about how concealed-carry will solve all our problems is not helpful. Guns don't solve problems. They kill people.
I'm going to say that again, a little slower.
Guns don't solve problems. They kill people.
The subtext here is that killing people doesn't solve problems. Which is absolutely, positively 100% true. Killing people is a cowards way out. Killing people sweeps a problem under a rug, or sticks it into a hole in the ground. A really big, deep, dark hole. But that's not a solution, it's a burial. It doesn't do anything to address the fundamental things that allowed a problem to grow in the first place, and so there's always the chance that some other person or set of people will come along and have the same set of issues and then there will be no template for resolving them other than putting someone in the ground, and that's not a solution because it might happen again.
To solve a problem, you need to make it go away forever, not just for a little while.
So this is for EVERYONE: Shooting people isn't a solution. Beating people up isn't a solution. And fear is not a solution.
Being afraid is a natural response. I get that. Being afraid of the "other" out there is what we're hardwired to do. But we are none of us animals, and we can all of us exercise a little courage. And a smidgeon of compassion.
Going through life afraid and alone is no way to live. For anyone.
With sincere hopes,
Ryan
I understand that it's natural to be scared of scary things. Fear is a completely normal response to things that are scary. Uncertainty. Violence. The possibility of death or dismemberment. Fear is biology's way of keeping us out of harm's way.
But we don't always give in to fear, do we? People do brave things all the time. People face down other people threatening them. People jump off of bridges and out of airplanes. People go to war.
We are more than capable of over-riding our natural fearfulness.
So let's all do that, ok? Let's let go of being afraid, and add a very small smidgeon of basic compassion, and let's stop talking about carrying guns and possibly shooting other people in crowded public spaces. Let's stop calling other human beings "animals."
There's a great deal of racial tension in my beloved city. This I know. It is known. I've known since I was just a wee tot, often the only white girl in my classes at a public school. So yes, let's all stop pretending that it's not there. It is. And it can be ugly. It is human nature to be hostile to that which is different from you. That cuts across pretty much every demographic line we in the modern age can come up with. Race, age, gender, income, education level, whatever: if whoever you're looking at is different from you in some way, your initial reaction will be one of fearfulness and hostility.
Don't bother arguing with me about that. It's true.
Now the good news! We can tame those impulses. All of us. We have the capacity to conquer our fear and see that different, weird "other" as another human being. All it takes is a little courage and a little compassion. People perform this emotional alchemy EVERY DAY because, hey, guess what? NO ONE IN THE WHOLE WORLD IS EXACTLY THE SAME AS YOU.
Of course, the more percieved danger there is, the harder it is to practice the courage necessary to overcome the first impulse toward hostility. The more percieved strangeness there is, the more difficult it is to realize that the person you are looking at is, in fact, a person.
So when incidents like the one after the fireworks last month in Riverwest, or the one last night at State Fair, occur, they are generally seized upon by cowardly people as an excuse not to excercise that courage that is required of anyone that's going to function in society.
Similarly, the perpetrators of these actions have declared themselves too cowardly and without compassion to bother viewing the people they hurt as people like themselves.
But hey. EVERYONE. THIS IS IMPORTANT.
We're all human beings.
I know that we all have vastly different ways of looking at the world. I know that our experiences of the world and how it works and what we've learned from it are really, really disparate.
But we're all people. We can agree on that, right? So let's start by cutting out the nasty name-calling and the use of words like "animals" and "swine" when we're discussing this? We really should be discussing it, because there is a lot of racial and class-based tension in this city, but we need to discuss it constructively. And that's just not helpful. It's really not.
And hey, people beating other people up? Those are people you're hurting. They hurt and cry and bleed like you. They have problems, too. Making them hurt and cry and bleed is not going to solve your problems. It's not going to make the schools in Milwaukee better and it's not going to make your [parental unit] care about you. It's not going to get you a job. I PROMISE. So you might want to think of another route to accomplishing some of those goals.
Hell, you might want to set a few goals. Really. You can do that. I have absolute faith in your ability to look at your life and set yourself some goals. Why do I have that faith? Because I know you're human beings. You know it, too. So act like it.
Likewise, one-liners about how concealed-carry will solve all our problems is not helpful. Guns don't solve problems. They kill people.
I'm going to say that again, a little slower.
Guns don't solve problems. They kill people.
The subtext here is that killing people doesn't solve problems. Which is absolutely, positively 100% true. Killing people is a cowards way out. Killing people sweeps a problem under a rug, or sticks it into a hole in the ground. A really big, deep, dark hole. But that's not a solution, it's a burial. It doesn't do anything to address the fundamental things that allowed a problem to grow in the first place, and so there's always the chance that some other person or set of people will come along and have the same set of issues and then there will be no template for resolving them other than putting someone in the ground, and that's not a solution because it might happen again.
To solve a problem, you need to make it go away forever, not just for a little while.
So this is for EVERYONE: Shooting people isn't a solution. Beating people up isn't a solution. And fear is not a solution.
Being afraid is a natural response. I get that. Being afraid of the "other" out there is what we're hardwired to do. But we are none of us animals, and we can all of us exercise a little courage. And a smidgeon of compassion.
Going through life afraid and alone is no way to live. For anyone.
With sincere hopes,
Ryan
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Adventures in Internet Dating Sites
I have a profile on OKCupid. (Really. Stop laughing. Ok, keep laughing, it's pretty funny. But can you at least keep it to belly laughs and giggles, and dispense with the snickering? Snickering makes me feel judged. Thanks.)
In the year or so I've been using this only-slightly-less-cess-ridden-than-Craigs-List pool of humanity, I have met in person exactly one man. He (read: his dick) was not right for me. Really, really not right for me. Wow. Nice guy, honestly. Just not for me.
Anyway, I've had the usual barrage of online dating adventures: the polyamorous guys that are sort of sweetly earnest about wanting to maintain multiple relationships, the completely illiterate bros who refer to me as "shorty" and/or "gurl" and like to ask if I like to give head, the intensely earnest single father's who gravitate toward me because I already have a kid and then ask me why I don't talk about her at all, because obviously a child is the CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE and is the only thing a parent should ever talk about.
(Side rant: I actually had one of these guys tell me I was a bad mother when I calmly tried to explain to him that being an unhappy, boring person by giving up every part of my life to a three-year-old would be a terrible thing for her. He honestly didn't get it. What in the flipping hell is wrong with people these days?)
Oh, and then there was the guy who is, by his own admission, about three hundred pounds over weight and always cranky because he's in "chronic pain" but felt that introducing himself by telling me that he's better than me was a good idea. No, I'm not joking. This happened.
Lately, I've been exchanging rather pleasant, intellectual messages with an English major-turned-Army enlistee. The nature of our communiques being what it is, I sometimes spend several hours in between doing minimal amounts of work while I sit at my desk and get paid composing responses. He's really rather intelligent, and I enjoy a good verbal jousting match more than most people. We almost maybe kind of sort of worked out the nature of evil last week.
Anyway, this requires me to be logged into the OKC site for (on occasion) hours on end. Since the site design is horrificly bad, there seems to be no way to consistently turn off the built-in chat function. Every time I think I'm safe, it randomly turns itself back on (sometimes when I haven't even clicked anything).
How do I know it has turned itself back on? I get an instant message.
Some of these are too mundane and/or vulgar to even be funny, but every once in awhile I hit comic (and secret internal mean-streak gratifying) gold.
Like the other day. I got hit up by this guy. Who knows how much of what he was telling me was the truth. Being a somewhat reticent person, I have a hard time believing people that just out with all sorts of really bizarre and personal details of their lives to another person without any provocation, warning or prompting.
So this guy. He's been with one woman his whole life. She's now refusing to sleep with him anymore, so he's trolling OKC looking for no-strings-attached sex so that he can get his jollies. But he loves this woman. Oh, and they're both in their mid-20s. So, it's not like it's weird that she's refusing to sleep with him or anything. In the course of this convesration (which, I'll confess, I dragged out for some considerable amount of time because this guy was amusing) I gave him relationship advice, told him about the time I was the other woman, and apparently made him so horny with my dry, intellectual treatment of his problems that he had to go rub one out in the bathroom.
What. The. Hell.
Why are people so goddamn NUTS?
But these are all pretty standard for the wild and woolly world of looking for love in the internets, right?
Please tell me yes. I really don't want to have to face the reality that I'm just a freak magnet.
(Side note two: My paranoid-android self took over for about half this conversation because some of those questions were just too pointed for my taste and I still think maybe it was someone I know or know of that was trying to get me to admit something or otherwise embarrass myself.)
(I'm crazy, too. xoxo!)
In the year or so I've been using this only-slightly-less-cess-ridden-than-Craigs-List pool of humanity, I have met in person exactly one man. He (read: his dick) was not right for me. Really, really not right for me. Wow. Nice guy, honestly. Just not for me.
Anyway, I've had the usual barrage of online dating adventures: the polyamorous guys that are sort of sweetly earnest about wanting to maintain multiple relationships, the completely illiterate bros who refer to me as "shorty" and/or "gurl" and like to ask if I like to give head, the intensely earnest single father's who gravitate toward me because I already have a kid and then ask me why I don't talk about her at all, because obviously a child is the CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE and is the only thing a parent should ever talk about.
(Side rant: I actually had one of these guys tell me I was a bad mother when I calmly tried to explain to him that being an unhappy, boring person by giving up every part of my life to a three-year-old would be a terrible thing for her. He honestly didn't get it. What in the flipping hell is wrong with people these days?)
Oh, and then there was the guy who is, by his own admission, about three hundred pounds over weight and always cranky because he's in "chronic pain" but felt that introducing himself by telling me that he's better than me was a good idea. No, I'm not joking. This happened.
Lately, I've been exchanging rather pleasant, intellectual messages with an English major-turned-Army enlistee. The nature of our communiques being what it is, I sometimes spend several hours in between doing minimal amounts of work while I sit at my desk and get paid composing responses. He's really rather intelligent, and I enjoy a good verbal jousting match more than most people. We almost maybe kind of sort of worked out the nature of evil last week.
Anyway, this requires me to be logged into the OKC site for (on occasion) hours on end. Since the site design is horrificly bad, there seems to be no way to consistently turn off the built-in chat function. Every time I think I'm safe, it randomly turns itself back on (sometimes when I haven't even clicked anything).
How do I know it has turned itself back on? I get an instant message.
Some of these are too mundane and/or vulgar to even be funny, but every once in awhile I hit comic (and secret internal mean-streak gratifying) gold.
Like the other day. I got hit up by this guy. Who knows how much of what he was telling me was the truth. Being a somewhat reticent person, I have a hard time believing people that just out with all sorts of really bizarre and personal details of their lives to another person without any provocation, warning or prompting.
So this guy. He's been with one woman his whole life. She's now refusing to sleep with him anymore, so he's trolling OKC looking for no-strings-attached sex so that he can get his jollies. But he loves this woman. Oh, and they're both in their mid-20s. So, it's not like it's weird that she's refusing to sleep with him or anything. In the course of this convesration (which, I'll confess, I dragged out for some considerable amount of time because this guy was amusing) I gave him relationship advice, told him about the time I was the other woman, and apparently made him so horny with my dry, intellectual treatment of his problems that he had to go rub one out in the bathroom.
What. The. Hell.
Why are people so goddamn NUTS?
But these are all pretty standard for the wild and woolly world of looking for love in the internets, right?
Please tell me yes. I really don't want to have to face the reality that I'm just a freak magnet.
(Side note two: My paranoid-android self took over for about half this conversation because some of those questions were just too pointed for my taste and I still think maybe it was someone I know or know of that was trying to get me to admit something or otherwise embarrass myself.)
(I'm crazy, too. xoxo!)
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