Is It Worth It? An End to the Whole Saga

I cannot believe how complicated and petty this whole thing got.  When I look back on my first date with plateboy, I want to shake my younger self and tell her to just avoid it.  At all costs.  ARGH.

But anyway, I will blog the end of it, then shut the door on the whole sorry tale and learn my lessons for next time.  Although at this point it feels like the lesson is ‘men aren’t worth it’.

So after my last attempt to pick up my stuff ended in pettiness, I was fairly pissed off.  I managed to get hold of plateboy by calling from a private number and he once again pretended he hadn’t received any of my messages and that it was all a misunderstanding, except this time I said no.  I just wanted to organise to get my stuff back.  His phone cut out before anything could be organised and he was uncontactable for the rest of the weekend, and again ignored my messages.

Equal Pay Anyone?

Next time someone says feminism has gone too far, or that it’s no longer relevant, or whatever other bullshit they’re spouting these days, send them here.  Or indeed, next time someone asks me why I’m so bitter for someone so young…

Is it seriously 2009???  This is getting freaking ridiculous.

Don’t Feed the Trolls

In some of my recent researching, I’ve stumbled across www.thefrisky.com and absolutely love it.  Not every single article is perfect, or stands up to feminist scrutiny, however overall it’s pretty damn awesome.

Now, I know it’s usually considered bad form to respond to a poster on a different site, but given the vile contents of these comments, I’m doing it anyway.

On a post about alternatives to intercourse, ‘Bat Leaper’ came out of the murky swamp where all mras and trolls like to spend their days and had this to say:

Who pays?

I’m finding way more conflicts with how I live my life and what I believe as a feminist now that I’m dating.  In a relationship, the compromises are less noticeable*, and seemed to occur less often.  In dating, I’m noticing compromises every single time I go out with, or even just talk to, a guy.  It’s irritating.

A lot of it is stemming from my attempts to be a less difficult and argumentative person in life in general.  I’ve always been highly argumentative, and ‘difficult’ has always been the one word to turn up in any description of me, by friends and foes alike.  So I’m trying to change that and I’ve been biting my tongue more often and attempting to let things slide and not get so worked up over every little thing.  It probably explains a lot about what went down with the plateboy situation.

Anyway, the specific point in this post is in regards to paying on dates.  In general, I hate people paying for me for anything.  It doesn’t matter if it’s a cup of coffee because I’m doing a coffee run for you, or if you’ve lent me $10 until I get to an atm.  If I’ve got the cash on me I won’t let you pay, if I don’t have it on me, I will pay you back the minute I’ve got it.

Privacy

Every job leaves it’s mark on you in some way, shape or form.  If you’re as big a workaholic as some people, it’s inevitable, but I do believe it’s inevitable in any case.  My work history has definitely left it’s mark on me, in much the same way that past relationships do.  There was the three years doing customer service etc in a bookstore, the on and off time working as a web designer, my six months as an office manager, and now almost two years as a debt collector.

A problem for me with being a collections officer – it takes the worst traits of my personality and makes them more pronounced.  I don’t like losing arguments, I am quite forceful, tenacious, prying, assertive, and lacking in compassion to a degree that most people call heartless.  Being in an industry where these traits are all actually positive things is not going to help me become a better person. 

Being Judged

I’ve always been the type of person that other people judge.  I’m loud and noticeable and refuse to do what I’m bloody well told to, so it’s my own fault really.  The upside is, I’ve never really cared what anyone small minded enough to judge me thinks – I don’t have it in me to give a shit.

But that kind of all changed when I entered the dating scene.  And not because of what any potential* may think, but because of what my family and friends and other loved ones do think.  Most people in my life were not around last time I was dating, and the few that were, mostly had no idea what I was getting up to – for good reason!

Nicknames

Regular readers may have noticed my liberal use of nicknames throughout the recent posts.  I’m not talking about the parts where I use a letter to stand in for the rest of the name, or the feminist-inspired Nigel (now Ex-Nigel – EN).  I mean the plateboy, coffeeguy, needyboy etc etc.  This isn’t something I keep to the blog in the interests of protecting privacy, it’s actually how I (and now, all my friends) refer to these people.  There are a few other nicknames such as ’stupidboy’ and ‘lovogirl’ and some more I’ll refrain from repeating due to how identifiable the people are from them.

I mentioned this in passing to someone as a cruel thing we do to these people, and was laughed at because the nicknames aren’t all that cruel.  But that’s not really the point, is it?  When you give someone a nickname, you give them an identity; and this can be done in loving and not so loving ways.  By calling somebody ’stupidboy’ you are automatically reducing everything they say or do to their stupidity.  Any argument I have with stupidboy, he’s automatically in the wrong in the retelling.  I refer to him as ’stupidboy’ and I’ve already set up the framework for you to agree with me and not him.  Plateboy’s entire interaction with me over the month he was part of my life is reduced to the fact that he kept my plate hostage.

Tales from the Frontline 6: Smsing and Coffee

Hello Dear Readers.  This is an exciting post for me.  It’s part 6 of the series, and it’s the first part that does not deal with plateboy at all.*  Yay!   It does in fact deal with needyboy and coffeeguy.  I’m condensing them into one post because I have a long list of draft posts that need to get sorted out.

Differing Perspectives

roughseasinthemed has a post up at Clouds Moving in about Impact v. Intent.  Reading it got me thinking about this post of mine and the resulting mess.  And then I gained another perspective on the whole issue.

Everybody gets taught the ‘two sides to every story’ line.  From the time we’re kids it is drummed into us.  Every schoolyard fight, every misunderstanding between friends, every applicable situation, we get told ‘there are two sides to every story’.  And you know, it’s true, there ARE two sides to every story.  But sometimes they’re exactly the same, whether both sides admit it or not.

Putting the Masks Back On

There is no option of being authentic; the masks are there for a reason, and should be left there.  Occasionally you get tricked into taking them off, and you learn your lesson all over again.

A friend tells you there is nothing you could possibly do to make her sick of you; no act that would make her pull back, shut down, walk away.  And you look into her eyes and you believe her and you let yourself take the mask off for her.  And you depend on her and rely on her and trust her and become closer than you have to most people in a long time.  And three months later she says she needs space and time apart, and she shuts down and pulls back. And the mask is in your hand, useless, not on your face, protecting.