When I last left her, SG had flaked out on me yet again, and I had sworn off talking to her. It lasted until November, when I walked literally right into her at the library around midnight. Being the idiotic, nice guy I am, I told her I would walk her to her care for safety's sake. Even though she greeted me like a junior high girl, I still kept a level head and made it to the vehicle. She was wayyy closer than me, and it was cold, so I asked for a ride to my car (okaaaayyyy, maybe it wasn't a purely practical motivation).
Most colleges don't have classes on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and mine is no exception. This was a Monday night, and I had small talked her and found out she was going home for the holidays. As we drive she says, "So what are you doing now?"
"Right now?"
"Ya, like right now."
"I had planned on going home and going to sleep."
"That's it? You're just going to go home and go to sleep?"
"As far as I know. Why? Is there something I should be staying up for?"
"No. I just, you know, am wondering."
I got out of her vehicle after an awkward silence and went home, only to discover my favorite pocket knife had fallen from my pocket in her car. I'm not a hillbilly or a terrorist, but knives are always good and handy things to carry around. This particular one had been my high school friend's before he died, so it meant a little more to me. I called her and texted to get it back. Eventually, after some very suggestive (on her part) and weird (her again) exchanges, she told me when I could zip by her house to get it before she went home for Christmas. And yes, it did take that long.
I walk in, and she pulls me by the hand to her bedroom, where the knife awaits on her pillow. All hilarious jokes aside (she and I have a safe word already agreed upon, it's rhubarb, no shiz), she doesn't just hand me the knife at the door, doesn't just bring it to me in the kitchen. She and I sit on the bed, get to talking, get to moving around, and wind up in what I would label a close position. No kissing has happened, nothing blatant, nothing directed. Just lying on the bed and in contact with each other, but not snuggling or cuddling.
We are having a nice time talking and just spinning it, but she hops up and jets out of the room. To this point, she had been trying to take her clothes off ("This shirt smells like my work, should I take it off?") trying to take my clothes off ("Do you have any scars on your chest?") and take her clothes off again ("Umm, SG, your pants are halfway down your bum." "Does it bother you?" "No, but I thought I'd let you know" "I like that you're looking").
Why did she get up? I thought maybe she was thirsty, maybe she needed to change shirts or whatever. She comes back into the room and says, "I'm going to have to kick you out of here soon, I have to work." Work was 4 hours away still, but I knew what was up. She was pissed I had stayed hands-off, so she was doing a take-away. Judge my interest, regain the power, and all that.
"I'll make that easy and won't fight ya. I'll leave without security."
I walked out, got to my car, and decided to go ROMCOM on her and go back inside and throw the feelings out there.
What ensued can best be described as her suddenly developing amnesia or denial, talking to me like I am a child, and her maybe being slightly idiotic. I asked her to tell me the story of our interactions, as she saw them, and then I would do the same. This exercise didn't work, so it eventually came to a point where I told her why I kept coming around: she's off the wall, unique, and unpredictable, which I want to know more about.
She said she thought we were too different. When I asked what she knew about me to make that determination, she couldn't give a satisfactory answer. When I asked whether she wanted to know me, she said it was a bad time.
And the crux, for the win, Alec: "SG, you obviously want to have sex with me, and I'm not ready for that until I get to know you. Do you even want to get to know me at all?"
"It's a bad time"
"So you don't but are too afraid to say it."
"............"
That was the end of it. Which explains some more of her erratic behavior.
A week later, I got a text from her: "I'm eating rhubarb pie, wondering how I could have gotten you to say it."
I think I already did.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Douche and Fag
People operate effectively with heuristics. Note I said effectively, not correctly or justly. Schemas, scripts, rules of thumb, whatever you want to call it, people use them. I know how unfortunate it is when someone receives different treatment based on this method of determination. If you belong to any class of person, especially a class that is a minority, you have been subject to heuristic.
When you meet someone, you are assessing them immediately. You ask them what they do, you learn their origin, you use their surface characteristics to know their interior. Their rolex or nasty case of gingivitis allows you to group them, to put them in the correct box for processing. You judge them based on very limited information, combined with previous knowledge of persons you've known, to arrive at your bias.
I'm tall, white, college-educated, middle class, male. This would be the power class, as most people see it. But I get treated differently because of it, without anyone knowing me beyond that. That's a prejudice. When someone sees a guy with spiked hair, sunglasses, ed hardy shirt, and ripped as hell, and calls them a douche (or a prick), that's a prejudice. In college, he was probably a frat boy, the one who has "bros" and "hos", and in high school he was popular, maybe a jock even, etc. He belonged to the power group, and received labels and predeterminations as a result.
Don't confuse this for sympathy, many of them are pricks, although I think they don't deserve judgment or different treatment before getting to know them. They receive a label and title to make the interactions faster. Some people might say seeing a guy like the one described would lead to immediate avoidance maneuvers.
No one deserves a pejorative and hateful label based on something out of their control. If you're a guy, you don't deserve to be called a prick just for existing. If you're a woman, you don't deserve to be called a bitch. If you're part of an ethnic group, you don't deserve to be assigned a racial slur for shits and grins. If you're homosexual, you don't deserve to be called an ugly name.
If you are a guy who thinks he owns the world and treats everyone like shit because of it, you deserve to be called a prick (or a douche, or whatever label you want). If you are a girl who wants dinner purchased for her, nags too much, and believes you're the sexiest thing in a 100 mile radius, you deserve to be called a bitch (or nag, or the dreaded C word). If you are a black guy who calls me "white boy" while we play basketball and act like a Michael Bay portrayal of the African-American male, you deserve to be called a racial epithet. If you are a dude who is offensively gay (and by offensively, I mean using your sexuality to terrorize everyone and become a martyr to everything everywhere beyond the reasonable person standard) you deserve to be called a fag.
The words are used to describe and label a person falling into a certain class of behavior. Like the douchebag in the ed hardy shirt, people will be categorized faster, more economically thanks to their actions. Being gay or black or a woman doesn't give you a free pass from heuristics and prejudice: act like one, and you can be called that. Don't act offended that I called you a stupid bitch.
There are things I am and take part in which make me a minority as well. Most people take part in things which classify them as minority. My plight doesn't compare to the oppressed classes I have mentioned, and I take part in these things by choice, and I always will have the privilege of being a white male and etc and so forth. Most people find themselves in the minority in some way, judged either as different or the same from the person in question.
This is how we operate, the scripts ease our world.
When you meet someone, you are assessing them immediately. You ask them what they do, you learn their origin, you use their surface characteristics to know their interior. Their rolex or nasty case of gingivitis allows you to group them, to put them in the correct box for processing. You judge them based on very limited information, combined with previous knowledge of persons you've known, to arrive at your bias.
I'm tall, white, college-educated, middle class, male. This would be the power class, as most people see it. But I get treated differently because of it, without anyone knowing me beyond that. That's a prejudice. When someone sees a guy with spiked hair, sunglasses, ed hardy shirt, and ripped as hell, and calls them a douche (or a prick), that's a prejudice. In college, he was probably a frat boy, the one who has "bros" and "hos", and in high school he was popular, maybe a jock even, etc. He belonged to the power group, and received labels and predeterminations as a result.
Don't confuse this for sympathy, many of them are pricks, although I think they don't deserve judgment or different treatment before getting to know them. They receive a label and title to make the interactions faster. Some people might say seeing a guy like the one described would lead to immediate avoidance maneuvers.
No one deserves a pejorative and hateful label based on something out of their control. If you're a guy, you don't deserve to be called a prick just for existing. If you're a woman, you don't deserve to be called a bitch. If you're part of an ethnic group, you don't deserve to be assigned a racial slur for shits and grins. If you're homosexual, you don't deserve to be called an ugly name.
If you are a guy who thinks he owns the world and treats everyone like shit because of it, you deserve to be called a prick (or a douche, or whatever label you want). If you are a girl who wants dinner purchased for her, nags too much, and believes you're the sexiest thing in a 100 mile radius, you deserve to be called a bitch (or nag, or the dreaded C word). If you are a black guy who calls me "white boy" while we play basketball and act like a Michael Bay portrayal of the African-American male, you deserve to be called a racial epithet. If you are a dude who is offensively gay (and by offensively, I mean using your sexuality to terrorize everyone and become a martyr to everything everywhere beyond the reasonable person standard) you deserve to be called a fag.
The words are used to describe and label a person falling into a certain class of behavior. Like the douchebag in the ed hardy shirt, people will be categorized faster, more economically thanks to their actions. Being gay or black or a woman doesn't give you a free pass from heuristics and prejudice: act like one, and you can be called that. Don't act offended that I called you a stupid bitch.
There are things I am and take part in which make me a minority as well. Most people take part in things which classify them as minority. My plight doesn't compare to the oppressed classes I have mentioned, and I take part in these things by choice, and I always will have the privilege of being a white male and etc and so forth. Most people find themselves in the minority in some way, judged either as different or the same from the person in question.
This is how we operate, the scripts ease our world.
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