Tag: [fan organization]

I think I need to have a Conversation

with someone in [fan organization], and I’m kind of dreading it.

Soooo background:

Not quite a year ago, the head of our local chapter of [fan organization] had a big party at her house, for her friends, and her roommate’s friends, and [fan organization] members and their friends. Lots of people, in other words.
This guy, let’s call him P, who is a [fan organization] member, came with his wife and his sister-in-law.
The sister-in-law looks kind of like me. (He insists that she looks remarkably like me; she doesn’t. She’s significantly taller and skinnier, her hair is straighter, her face is narrower. But apparently we have the same mannerisms/body language.)
I remember hearing P say something about how she’s always so quiet, and it’ll do her good to get out of the house and socialize, and yeah she’s probably having fun even if she doesn’t look like it, it’s hard to tell with her.
I’m remembering all this because about a week ago, P mentioned her to me to tell me how much I look and act like her. And comment on how quiet I am. And comment on my posture and how I fidget. And say he’d like to get a picture of the two of us next to each other, to prove it.

Later that night, he asked me multiple times if I was okay, in an oddly intense way, because I took a break to check my phone/play mind-relaxing phone games. Like he couldn’t believe I could want to be there but also want to take a break.

The week before that, he was marvelling over me having a skirt similar to one his wife has. Inoccuous statement, excessive  surprised, curious staring.

A week and a half before that, he was marvelling that I came to an event he hosted. Inoccuous statements, excessive curious staring, like he was trying to figure out what could possibly be going on in my head.

—-

I’m going to say, About your sister-in-law. Yeah, I remember her. I also remember you saying… (the above). And I remember being a little irritated on her behalf, because it really annoys me when people treat me like that– like they’re starting a project to improve me. Do you know what I mean? I’ve had people try to do that a couple of times. So I wanted to ask you: please don’t do that to me. It’s rude. I’ll be social on my own schedule, I don’t need someone to make me do things for my own good.

And hopefully he’ll respond in a reasonable manner.

—-

I don’t know if it’s obvious to other people or not, is the thing.

(I am going to keep it low-key. I am not going to say this to him.)

But he looks at me like I’m a zoo exhibit that just started talking. Like he can’t believe that someone as weird as me can be an actual person he can communicate with, instead of a mute object for him to pass judgment on/guide around. Like I’m so unbelievably exotic and strange, having the audacity to live my life and be in public and talk to people.

The bottom of my objection to his attitude is, he’s not treating me like a full person.

So I don’t know how what I say will come across! I don’t know if this is something that CAN be kept low-key. If I say it in a way that’s more specific to the situation, if I say “Don’t treat me like I’m your pet project”, will people not notice that I could have just said “Don’t treat me like I’m your pet”? It might sound like I’m comically understating things (which I sort of am.) I’m not sure. I’m not sure if the dynamic is visible to anyone else.

I hope that if I keep it to a fairly specific action, it’ll seem like an understandable mistake and a reasonable boundary, and he’ll respond in kind.

But it’s not an understandable mistake, actually.

—-

Laying it out like I did up there, I want to cry. The way he looks at me is DISGUSTING. I shouldn’t have to deal with this.

But I’ve had to deal with similar things plenty of times.

It doesn’t surprise me and I don’t expect to be able to stop it;

or, it’s an inherently subtle and tricky thing to identify;

or, I personally have difficulty translating feelings like this into words with any kind of speed;

anyway, I don’t get to snap at him and call him out and stop this shit in its tracks. Like would be nice. Like you imagine doing when someone is rude to you. You want to be perfect and clearly right and cut them down, and know everyone will support you.

But what I get to do is:

I get to go with my heart in my mouth, and put my case that he’s treating me like he does this other girl, deciding what’ll do me good; and tell him I don’t like that, like it might just be a personal preference; and ask him to not do it in the future.

And HOPE he takes me seriously. Hope he doesn’t laugh. Hope this doesn’t twist into gossip about me totally overreacting to something. And alternatively, hope he doesn’t get angry. Hope he doesn’t say How dare I accuse him of… whatever, he would never, etc., and demand an apology from me.

Hope he doesn’t say Wow, of course, I’m sorry, but then stare at me ten times as hard because the Statue of a Quiet Girl asserted a boundary OMG how fascinating.

Because my experience is, I might be able to get him to back off a little. But you can never actually prove you’re a person to someone who doesn’t see it.

I’m still not over what one of the members of [fan organization] said to Sparkly. (For the record, Sparkly was fine with this and didn’t find it rude.)

I mean, there are polite, respectful ways to say that you find someone attractive. Implying that they’re giving you an erection is not one of them. (“Two thumbs up! No, actually, three thumbs up!”)

He’s Sparkly’s coworker, in a sense, since they’re both part of the administration of the group. He’s married. He has a daughter who’s closer to Sparkly’s age than he is. I do think there are still acceptable ways for him to compliment her on her looks, even given all that, but… that was not one of them.

Oops.

I went to a [fan organization] party last night and stayed longer than I thought I would.  (And spent more time than I thought I would on fixing my uniform before I went.)

It was a lot of fun, though.

I talked to people!  I socialized!

And I was very glad I wore my new shoes.  Talky Important Guy towered over me marginally less than he would have otherwise, which was helpful in not making me feel too overpowered.

I’m sitting in my room avoiding working on my costume.

I have complete confidence in my ability to “eyeball” small measurements instead of actually using a ruler. 

But I totally get that you need to be sure about measurements for important stuff.

And since I don’t know how to say “I have a good eye, I’m confident in this, just trust me” to someone with more experience than I have, without sounding really rude…

I’m waiting until she leaves to sew the insignia on.

On a nicer note, I’ve been wondering lately whether I’m unusually good at this or not.  Sometimes I seem to be much better at it than other people (e.g. my mom, who accidentally bought a six-foot-long board instead of a four-foot board.  She was all “It’s a good thing we didn’t try to get a longer one!  It barely fit in the car!”  and as soon as I saw it I just went, “No, I don’t think that’s four feet.  That looks taller than I am.  Yeah, that’s longer than the spread of my arms– that’s a six-foot board.”)  I also usually have a good sense for whether something will fit into a space.

GUYS I DID A THING

So I was up late last night with Story Girl at the hospital (she’s okay.  The doctor’s verdict was “atypical pneumonia” and she’s got antibiotics and an anti-nausea med now.)  and I had to get up earlyish to drive Sparkly to an appointment, and then I took a nap.  So about 5 PM I checked my email, and found I had a message from one of the more important people in [fan organization] asking me if I could fill in for someone to make up the required number for a committee, and could I call him back this morning?  The “I did a thing” part is, I called him back like he asked me to!  Without delaying more than 15 minutes.  It was a tiny bit awkward, but he’s really nice and it turned out he found someone else.  So everything is cool, and I’m really proud of myself for calling him right away.

(I am also really proud of myself for not freaking out last night at the hospital.  There was a lot of vomiting.  I also want to record a huge thank-you to RDG, who stayed until morning when Sparkly and I left at 4 AM.)

I was looking through photos on Facebook and

So in [fan organization] most of us just dress up as “random person from [fictional universe]”, but there’s one woman who cosplays as the main character, and she is just so beautiful. (She doesn’t really look like the character, apart from being tallish, but that’s okay.) And she has an AMAZING costume complete with actual medals, I have no idea how she got them, but they’re amazing.  I got to hold the case for the fanciest one.  And she’s actually a really nice person. 

So what I’m trying to say is, she is awe- and squee-inspiring.

One of the men in [fan organization] is kind of a ‘splainer.

Not in the classic way.  He didn’t say anything that’s definitely incorrect.  But I told him I majored in chemistry, and he felt the need to make the conversation all about his opinions and ideas about chemistry.  He was all self-deprecating, “This isn’t my field and I’m sure you know much more about it than I do,” but he still talked at me for a good fifteen minutes about how awesome chemistry is, and problems that in his opinion chemistry ought to solve.  I didn’t talk much, because he didn’t really give me anything specific to respond to, and I didn’t want to end up saying “That would be cool, but I don’t think there’s any way to do it” in too rude a way.  And then I told him that I studied Spanish and almost minored in it, so he told me how the restaurant Chichi’s actually means Tits.

It’s kind of subtle, but do you see what I mean?  He kept taking me knowing things– knowing more than he did about a subject, in fact– as a cue to tell me about what he knew, rather than ask me something.

 

P.S.  [Fan organization] is generally pretty awesome, and I’m proud to be a part of it, but I’m not going to tell you what it is because my real name is online associated with some of their stuff.