Kat's Adventures in Dating: Jackasses 2, Electric Boogaloo
Well, now that I am all settled in to Madison and am over my hump year of "being completely insane," I am once again in the dating pool and consequently have a few... stories to tell. I've never exactly been one to suffer fools lightly, as it were, but funnily enough, after running away to San Francisco, stalking rock stars, haring off to New Zealand and Australia, and engaging in a number of activities like flinging myself out of an airplane door and falling screaming 3 miles to Earth, I find it much easier to ignore people being idiots. And when I say "people" in this instance, I specifically mean "men." And because I am blessed enough to know lots of people to encourage me to stand up for myself, and have the resources to educate myself about privilege and sexism, etc., I'm getting better at calling people out on their crap rather than standing by and politely smiling and taking it.
I will put a disclaimer right here that to read a post like this makes it sound like I march around with a spear and shield, shrieking at anyone that I perceive as putting a toe out of line, but I'm not here to post about all the people who are quietly polite & respectful; I will simply state that they ARE there. And also, obviously women are not exempt from acting like buttheads; this post simply happens to be about the dating fail I have recently experienced. And finally, because I work in the service industry, I think that I get exposed to a lot more fuckery than the average lady, simply by virtue of having to smile and be inviting and friendly even to people I would like to fuck right off.
A helpful picture to set the mood.
Right. To the juicy parts.
Dear Gentlemen,
Come closer. No, really. It has recently come to my attention that many of you, even (or perhaps particularly) those of you who seem to know a thing or two about feminism & respecting women, still have lots of things you seem to fail to grasp. So, in pursuit of illuminating the situation, allow me to examine a few rules, now illustrated with recent examples from my personal life.
Thou shalt not attempt to steamroll my experiences and opinions with your personal interpretation of the world.
Dear sir: I had such high hopes for you. You were sitting quietly at my bar and not obnoxiously hitting on me when we first started talking; you did your Ph.D in Seattle, in music no less, and you seemed intelligent, thoughtful, well-read and well-traveled, and in general like someone I'd like to get to know better. It took two months to actually manage to get a drink with you, and to this day I still don't know exactly what happened. Maybe I misjudged you badly during our initial interaction; maybe you had a crazy case of nerves and temporarily turned into your Hulkish alter-ego, Douchebag McJerksalot, but either way, boy, what a disaster that was. I sat in ever-increasing astonishment and irritation as you set about utterly destroying the not-inconsiderable goodwill I had saved up for you.
You showed a blatant disregard for my thoughts and feelings (including, but not limited to: repeatedly asking questions and then interrupting me when I attempted to answer them; making jokes about getting drunk and driving or getting drunk and making out; making disparaging comments about 90% of the country and the people who live within it, including places I have lived and/or filled with people I know and love) and followed it up with professing surprise when I didn't pretend to find you totally hilarious and charming. You told me that I'm tough, and asked why I thought I needed to be so tough all the time (and I admit to finding it funny when I responded with "Why shouldn't I be tough?" and you couldn't think of a damn thing to say), and then repeatedly asserted that I needed to "loosen up" and that "we should be having fun!"
At one point, when I told you (again) that your uninvited jokes and comments about my sex life were unwelcome and unfunny, you declared me a prude. Let me just sit here for a moment and laugh my fucking ass off at that idea, because I haven't quite gotten over it yet. You could not have been further from the mark if you'd fired that shot off from Mars and aimed for Jupiter, but now you'll never know anything about all the erotica I write & read, or all the sex toys I own, or all the ways in which I very much love sex, with and without a partner, because you proved quickly beyond a shadow of a doubt that you don't deserve to know any of those things.
Then---oh, and I enjoyed this part too, at least retroactively---you made the mistake of asking me why I seemed so unhappy. At which point I informed you that your attempts to tell me who I am, how I should feel, and how I should be acting were obnoxious and tiresome. I gave in to your repeated insistence from the beginning of the night to pay for the bill, and left you to two nearly-full beers, because I couldn't be bothered to spend another five minutes of my life in your presence. And while I felt kind of terrible about it at the time, because I had wanted to have a nice night of conversation instead of having to shut down a toxic interaction and you were clearly upset, it's not my fucking fault you were acting like such a troll.
All of this was particularly precious because of the fact that you had insisted at the very beginning of the night that you respect women and treat them the way they should be treated. How kind of you to demonstrate to me what you actually meant by that statement.
In conclusion, you are a mansplaining, condescending douchebag and it's no wonder you're alone. Thank you for demonstrating for all of us how not to treat a woman, or any other living, breathing human being, for that matter.
Thou art not entitled to the positive response you want from me, no matter how badly you desire it.
Dear gentlemen: When I avoid eye contact with you and answer in short, unresponsive monosyllables in response to pointedly invasive questions, it does not mean, "Please follow me out to my car to ask if you can get to know me better." It means, "Leave me the fuck alone, I'm not interested. " If I WAS interested, believe me, you'd have known. I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but putting physical distance between myself and you is actually NOT a coy plea for attention. So forgive me if my sympathy for your butthurt is lacking, somehow.
Furthermore, if you've messaged me on a dating website and I never responded, it may SEEM like a completely brilliant idea to message me again "just in case" I missed your message the first time, but! Sad to say, it's actually going to accomplish exactly the opposite of what you desire. Particularly when you use such inspired lines as "I still can't believe you didn't reply before" or "Aww, no friendly response? Even if dating is off the table, I'd still love to be friends." Guess what, genius; if I was interested in you, or you'd come across as anything other than a douchebag in your first message, I would have messaged you back, and messaging me again to try to change my mind is just going to piss me off, because it's telling me you don't respect my right to decide for myself if I want to talk to you. (I will note in particular that the dude in example number two that I just quoted was using such priceless lines as telling me I have killer hips and that he thought our sexual preferences would line up nicely. This, from a man I've never met before in my life. Yes, sir, please continue to volunteer me for a conversation about my sex life against my will. I just love having my privacy disregarded! It so completes my day!)
This is only one-upped by the men who message me back to ARGUE WITH ME when I attempt to respond nicely to semi-polite messages with a "thank you but I'm not interested." "But we have tons in common!" Really. Okay, I'm convinced. Quick, put a ring on it and knock me up, you've made me see the light. This may come as a dreadful surprise, but I am not, in fact, a magic 8-ball that you can shake over and over until you get the answer you desire. Continuing to harass me will either make me ignore you completely, or turn into She-Hulk and rip you to bits. Possibly both.
Both of these can be neatly summed under the maxim of "Respect others," but clearly "respect" is a tricky concept for some people to grasp.
Further reading on this and related subjects.
+ The Complete Guide to Not Giving A Fuck. Not specifically feminist, but useful and fun nonetheless.
+ I'm Mad At You Because You're An Idiot, Not Because I'm A Woman. Via Jezebel. What it says on the tin.
+ Thirteen-year-old badass on slut-shaming and why it's wrong Video and transcript of video at the link, for those of you who can't or don't like watching videos.
Today's post has been brought to you by the sparkly blue nail polish
jou painted my nails with Thursday night. I hope everyone's weekend has been fruitful. I leave you with this.
I will put a disclaimer right here that to read a post like this makes it sound like I march around with a spear and shield, shrieking at anyone that I perceive as putting a toe out of line, but I'm not here to post about all the people who are quietly polite & respectful; I will simply state that they ARE there. And also, obviously women are not exempt from acting like buttheads; this post simply happens to be about the dating fail I have recently experienced. And finally, because I work in the service industry, I think that I get exposed to a lot more fuckery than the average lady, simply by virtue of having to smile and be inviting and friendly even to people I would like to fuck right off.
A helpful picture to set the mood.
Right. To the juicy parts.
Dear Gentlemen,
Come closer. No, really. It has recently come to my attention that many of you, even (or perhaps particularly) those of you who seem to know a thing or two about feminism & respecting women, still have lots of things you seem to fail to grasp. So, in pursuit of illuminating the situation, allow me to examine a few rules, now illustrated with recent examples from my personal life.
Thou shalt not attempt to steamroll my experiences and opinions with your personal interpretation of the world.
Dear sir: I had such high hopes for you. You were sitting quietly at my bar and not obnoxiously hitting on me when we first started talking; you did your Ph.D in Seattle, in music no less, and you seemed intelligent, thoughtful, well-read and well-traveled, and in general like someone I'd like to get to know better. It took two months to actually manage to get a drink with you, and to this day I still don't know exactly what happened. Maybe I misjudged you badly during our initial interaction; maybe you had a crazy case of nerves and temporarily turned into your Hulkish alter-ego, Douchebag McJerksalot, but either way, boy, what a disaster that was. I sat in ever-increasing astonishment and irritation as you set about utterly destroying the not-inconsiderable goodwill I had saved up for you.
You showed a blatant disregard for my thoughts and feelings (including, but not limited to: repeatedly asking questions and then interrupting me when I attempted to answer them; making jokes about getting drunk and driving or getting drunk and making out; making disparaging comments about 90% of the country and the people who live within it, including places I have lived and/or filled with people I know and love) and followed it up with professing surprise when I didn't pretend to find you totally hilarious and charming. You told me that I'm tough, and asked why I thought I needed to be so tough all the time (and I admit to finding it funny when I responded with "Why shouldn't I be tough?" and you couldn't think of a damn thing to say), and then repeatedly asserted that I needed to "loosen up" and that "we should be having fun!"
At one point, when I told you (again) that your uninvited jokes and comments about my sex life were unwelcome and unfunny, you declared me a prude. Let me just sit here for a moment and laugh my fucking ass off at that idea, because I haven't quite gotten over it yet. You could not have been further from the mark if you'd fired that shot off from Mars and aimed for Jupiter, but now you'll never know anything about all the erotica I write & read, or all the sex toys I own, or all the ways in which I very much love sex, with and without a partner, because you proved quickly beyond a shadow of a doubt that you don't deserve to know any of those things.
Then---oh, and I enjoyed this part too, at least retroactively---you made the mistake of asking me why I seemed so unhappy. At which point I informed you that your attempts to tell me who I am, how I should feel, and how I should be acting were obnoxious and tiresome. I gave in to your repeated insistence from the beginning of the night to pay for the bill, and left you to two nearly-full beers, because I couldn't be bothered to spend another five minutes of my life in your presence. And while I felt kind of terrible about it at the time, because I had wanted to have a nice night of conversation instead of having to shut down a toxic interaction and you were clearly upset, it's not my fucking fault you were acting like such a troll.
All of this was particularly precious because of the fact that you had insisted at the very beginning of the night that you respect women and treat them the way they should be treated. How kind of you to demonstrate to me what you actually meant by that statement.
In conclusion, you are a mansplaining, condescending douchebag and it's no wonder you're alone. Thank you for demonstrating for all of us how not to treat a woman, or any other living, breathing human being, for that matter.
Thou art not entitled to the positive response you want from me, no matter how badly you desire it.
Dear gentlemen: When I avoid eye contact with you and answer in short, unresponsive monosyllables in response to pointedly invasive questions, it does not mean, "Please follow me out to my car to ask if you can get to know me better." It means, "Leave me the fuck alone, I'm not interested. " If I WAS interested, believe me, you'd have known. I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but putting physical distance between myself and you is actually NOT a coy plea for attention. So forgive me if my sympathy for your butthurt is lacking, somehow.
Furthermore, if you've messaged me on a dating website and I never responded, it may SEEM like a completely brilliant idea to message me again "just in case" I missed your message the first time, but! Sad to say, it's actually going to accomplish exactly the opposite of what you desire. Particularly when you use such inspired lines as "I still can't believe you didn't reply before" or "Aww, no friendly response? Even if dating is off the table, I'd still love to be friends." Guess what, genius; if I was interested in you, or you'd come across as anything other than a douchebag in your first message, I would have messaged you back, and messaging me again to try to change my mind is just going to piss me off, because it's telling me you don't respect my right to decide for myself if I want to talk to you. (I will note in particular that the dude in example number two that I just quoted was using such priceless lines as telling me I have killer hips and that he thought our sexual preferences would line up nicely. This, from a man I've never met before in my life. Yes, sir, please continue to volunteer me for a conversation about my sex life against my will. I just love having my privacy disregarded! It so completes my day!)
This is only one-upped by the men who message me back to ARGUE WITH ME when I attempt to respond nicely to semi-polite messages with a "thank you but I'm not interested." "But we have tons in common!" Really. Okay, I'm convinced. Quick, put a ring on it and knock me up, you've made me see the light. This may come as a dreadful surprise, but I am not, in fact, a magic 8-ball that you can shake over and over until you get the answer you desire. Continuing to harass me will either make me ignore you completely, or turn into She-Hulk and rip you to bits. Possibly both.
Both of these can be neatly summed under the maxim of "Respect others," but clearly "respect" is a tricky concept for some people to grasp.
Further reading on this and related subjects.
+ The Complete Guide to Not Giving A Fuck. Not specifically feminist, but useful and fun nonetheless.
+ I'm Mad At You Because You're An Idiot, Not Because I'm A Woman. Via Jezebel. What it says on the tin.
+ Thirteen-year-old badass on slut-shaming and why it's wrong Video and transcript of video at the link, for those of you who can't or don't like watching videos.
Today's post has been brought to you by the sparkly blue nail polish
jou painted my nails with Thursday night. I hope everyone's weekend has been fruitful. I leave you with this.