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blah blah blah about girls and their foolish behavior (myself included)
2001-05-18
4:50 am
sometimes i wonder if i should have been a boy. girls, as a rule, just drive me insane. i've had more close male friends than i have had girl friends for as long as i can remember. i wouldn't go as far as to say that i hate everything feminine, because there are those very rare times when i do something girly and don't mind it. normally, though, i get angry with myself for it. i don't like getting so gender-specific, but unfortunately i do it way too often. it's very easy to say something like all guys are jerks, when of course they're not. on that same note, i could just as easily say all women are stupid, which of course they're not. i've got a brain in my head that functions well most of the time, and i realize that just because one girl acts like an imbecile does not mean that all girls do. it also doesn't mean that the one girl who does show that kind of behavior will do it repeatedly. having said that, i don't want to start get too defensive here. i have a habit of saying something, and then feeling as if i have to justify it. if my purpose is simply to make sure that i'm not misunderstood, that's ok, but at times it's more that i just feel like my feelings have to be valid in order to be permissible. i believe that in itself is quite girly, but i'll talk about that later. so my point is that even though 80-90% of women i meet and interact with drive me up the frigging wall, i don't by any means think that all women suck. i'm a woman, ok? sure i disappoint myself sometimes, but i think that happens to most people at one time or another. if you go around thinking you're perfect and incapable of making mistakes, then bully for you and you obviously shouldn't be bothered by what i think anyway. every time i've had a female boss (with one exception), it's been a nightmare. women superiors tend to be extremely distrustful. when anyone 'under' them in the little corporate world of power shows promise, it's treated as if it's a bad thing. they become jealous or threatened. when they have a duty that is normally performed by them, they don't want anyone else to know how to do it. i assume this is out of fear that someone else might actually do it more efficiently or something. what a load of crap. it's like this inflated sense of self-importance which completely defeats the theory of teamwork. on the other hand, i've very often worked for males who i expected at any moment to walk by and pat me on the head and say something like "look at you, little working girl. so cute!" - but as much as i hate being patronized, that's easier to deal with. at least the males who have treated me with condescension (who granted, often seem genuinely surprised when i do something well) try to reward me for success. better that than fear of someone biting your head off for simply doing your job well. "you're doing it too well, damn you!" sorry, i'll try to be a moron from now on. i have a girl friend who i've known for over 10 years. however, we haven't talked in nearly two years, because she got mad that i didn't call her back quick enough. or she called me 4 times before i finally called her back. something stupid like this. truth is, i don't even know why she's mad because as i said - i haven't talked to her. she's done this kind of thing several times over the course of our friendship. i'm assuming it was something related to phone calls because the last time she was mad at me like this, it was because she had called me several times, and i never called her back. apparently she had been leaving messages with my roommate at the time, but i never got the messages. so i was under the impression that she just hadn't called, which is ok because you know, she has a life and all. so one night i decided to call her and see how things were going only to have her hang up on me. my first thought was that maybe she hung up accidentally, or the phone came unplugged, something. i had no reason to think she was upset and hanging up on me on purpose. however, after calling a few more times, it became apparent that she simply didn't want to talk to me. of course being the person i am, i'm all "WHY does she not want to talk to me?" i called back one more time, asking exactly that before she had the chance to hang up on me - but she didn't give me an answer, she just hung up again. ok, whatever. this whole silly episode was resolved in an even more silly way. at some point i got a call from my mother telling me that i needed to go to her house. i'm thinking someone has died or something, because why else would my mother call and insist that i come over directly? i go there only to find my friend there, crying. apparently when she was repeatedly hanging up on me, her husband (at the time, she's divorced now) was there, telling her she was being stupid. he told her that he didn't think simply having someone not call you back was enough reason to throw away a friendship that had endured so many other, much more intense things. she didn't like being told that that, so she left in her car. evidently she drove around aimlessly for a while and then decided she should go to my mother's house and talk to her about it. i guess my mother also told her she was being stupid, to an extent. basically she just told her that if her feelings were genuinely hurt, she should talk to me about it rather than just staying angry and hurt. the whole thing was just utterly ridiculous to me. i felt like i was in some stupid soap opera. we did talk, however. i told her i'd never got any messages and had just assumed she was busy with her own life, blah blah blah. i have a tendency to get over-emotional myself. it's one of things she and i have in common. the difference between me and her, though, is that i have the ability to understand that often when i'm feeling hurt, it's because of my own issues and not because someone else did anything wrong. say this whole incident was reversed. if i'd called her several times and she hadn't returned my calls yet, i wouldn't immediately jump to the conclusion that she's intentionally not calling me back because she doesn't want to talk to me. we'd not had a disagreement or anything similar going on to put these kind of thoughts in my head, so if they did manage to show up at all - they would be quite fleeting. eventually reason would win out over emotion. i mean this person is supposed to be my friend. if i actually consider this person a friend - the last thing i would suspect them of doing is intentionally hurting my feelings. also, over the years, i've dealt with this whole jealousy thing when one female friend perceives that i'm spending more time with another female friend. i've received too many letters to count concerning this nonsense. "i feel like we're growing apart." "i feel like you cherish so-and-so's friendship more than you cherish mine." "i would have liked to have gone to so-and-so place with you and so-and-so, but you didn't even invite me. do you not like me anymore?" blah blah blah blah blah. i absolutely loathe this. it just makes me want to scream at them. it was one thing to get this kind of note when we were 11, but completely another when we're in our twenties. i'm just not extremely feminine. i don't wear makeup. it's completely rare to see me in a dress. i too often curse like i don't know any other words. i don't have or want any hair styling products (i'm speaking of mousse or curlers or hairspray, not shampoo). i don't have a strong desire to get married. i don't like going clothes shopping. i'm trying to think of other stupid stereotypes that i don't fit into, but who cares anyway. i just don't 'click' with most women i meet. i have some traits that are decidedly girly, but i am a girl, so i deal with it. if it really bothers me, then i try to change my behavior. a long time ago someone gave me that men are from mars, women are from venus book. i didn't really read it, but i did browse through parts of it. i think the book had good intentions and possibly some wisdom, but i just couldn't get past the whole "venusians do this and martians do this." it just seemed so silly and i couldn't bring myself to spend any amount of time with it. anyhow, to this day i only remember one thing from that book. there was a bit talking about the way women want to talk, and the way women think men don't listen. if i call up a girl friend and say something like "my boss is such an asshole," she would normally respond with something like "yeah, mine is too." or "i had a boss like that once." i'm going to get empathy from her, as she's trying to understand where i'm coming from. now, if i said the same statement to my boyfriend or a male friend, the response would be more in the vein of "well then why don't you quit that job?" or "why do you let him get to you? just ignore him." the whole thing hinges on the validity of feelings, which i'm very big on unfortunately. it's not that the male's intention was to invalidate my feelings, it should be obvious that he's only trying to help solve my problem. that in itself is the problem, unfortunately. if i honestly want someone's advice, i will ask for that directly. so the whole empathy thing is important to me at times, and women tend to do it almost instinctually. i don't think empathy is always possible, though. sometimes a person can fully explain why they're feeling a certain way, but i'm still sitting there clueless as to what they're on about. ok i'm going off on another tangent here, but i think about this particular thing a lot. i fear that my various views may completely contradict each other. ok, i don't want to have to define what feminism means to me, and that word certainly seems to mean different things to different people. i can put out simple examples. if i do the same job as a man, and i do it just as well, then i should get the same amount of money. it amazes me that this isn't a given. i certainly believe i should at least have to chance to attempt to do whatever it is he's doing that someone may feel i'm incapable of. and i've alluded to this manner of thinking before, but even if i do try, and fail, that doesn't mean all other females will fail as well. feminism gets associated with hating men. of course i don't hate men. this entire entry should be proof enough. now, for a silly example. if a man holds a door open for me, am i offended? no, and the reason is because i don't think he's holding the door open for me because he thinks i am incapable of opening the door by myself. sure, he could be thinking that, but i'm certainly not going to make that assumption. i'd feel just as nice if a woman held the door open for me. or a child. or a dog. whatever. ok, so i'm not going to talk about feminism anymore. back to what i was originally going to write about. i am so tired of women who parade around with nearly no clothes on, but then say "i'm not really like that" and/or "i'm all about female empowerment." ok, first of all, why do you feel the need to profess that you 'are not really like that'? not really like 'what' exactly? i'm sure they're saying this because they realize that half of the world is going to think they're a tramp, and they want everyone to know that they aren't a tramp. i'm all about not judging a book by it's cover, but i'm human and i screw up and do it pretty often. i hate admitting that, but it's true. even if my impression is "oh that girl is a tramp," a) it certainly doesn't mean that she is, b) i'm not going to discount her as a person because of my assumption, and c) even if she IS a tramp, she can be a tramp if she wants to. if she is a tramp and it really bothers her that people look at her like she's a tramp, then maybe she should reconsider being a tramp altogether. unless you're completely deluded, you must grasp that the fact remains that going around dressing like that is going to garner you quite a bit of attention. probably a large portion of it is going to be of the "you're a tramp" variety. deal with it. it's going to take a lot more than britney spears (or you) tramping around to change the view of society as a whole. even if that alone did work, it's not going to change overnight. so you're still going to have to deal with this for quite a while. more than once while growing up, i had someone assume i'm a lesbian. most likely because of the kinds of things i mentioned earlier. i never cared if people wanted to think that, though. firstly, because it's not true, and secondly and maybe more importantly, why does it even matter? if it makes them happy to go around in their little world thinking i'm a lesbian, i'm not going to try to change their mind. there's nothing wrong with being a lesbian if that's what you feel inside and it brings you joy. bringing the whole homosexual bit up could send me off on a completely different tangent, but i won't go there right now. choice or not, etc. suffice to say there's nothing wrong with being a tramp, either, which is what i'm really talking about. ok, the whole "i'm all about female empowerment" statement. i guess i just hate that one because i don't feel repressed as if i'm not 'allowed' to go around dressing in that fashion. so you're not empowering me to do anything. whether it's right or wrong that people are going to make assumptions about your person based on your clothing, it still happens. there's a million things people can use to create their impression of you which may be incorrect. i figure that the people that matter to me are the people who are going to take the time to get to know me and find out who i really am. here's where i contradict myself. of course i think it's wrong to make snap judgments. i wish i never did it. i wish nobody ever did it. but it happens. that doesn't mean you have to be happy about it, and if it pisses you off and you want to dress trampy, then you go right ahead. nobody is stopping you. it sucks that appearance is so important in the world. it shouldn't be as powerful as it is. i'll use britney as an example since i already mentioned her. i don't believe this girl has much talent, unless you count her ability to wear very little clothes a talent. however, she is very successful in her chosen career - singing - which i don't even think she can do very well. so it's easy to make the assumption that at least part of her popularity and success is due to the fact that she's attractive, in some way, to some people. the same can be said of many actresses who are viewed as attractive, but can't act their way out of a paper bag. hmm, i think about madonna. she's pretty much always been trampy, but she's never irritated me. i guess because she never tried to deny any of the assumptions people made about her. while i never got the impression that she felt like she completely fit all of those assumptions, it was more like she just didn't give a damn. she didn't really seem to care if some people thought she was trampy, or untalented, or whatever. i'm veering off a lot here. i once saw a dominatrix on a tv talk show arguing with the crowd that her chosen profession was not demeaning to women because she had all the power - men were paying her to do this work. ok, but if she has no customers, then what? where is her power without their money? if you sell cookies and the world quits eating cookies, then you have no business. the cookie buyers of the world are for the most part determining your fate. they can live without their cookies, so ultimately it's a matter of choice. i would have had a lot of respect for her if she would have just sat there on the stage and said "i like doing this. i make a living doing it. i don't care if it pisses you off that i do it, because you can think whatever you want and so can i." but no, she had to get all defensive and spout off a bunch of rubbish. just because i (or especially some silly person in a talk show audience) may personally think that her chosen profession is demeaning shouldn't be enough to make her self-confidence falter. wow, this is really long. blah blah blah to me. it's so past bedtime. random movie quote: "we also have this new face cream which neutralizes the free radicals that attack the skin. let me ask you: what's your skin regime?"
"my regime? the regime from which the radicals are trying to get free? are we selling face cream or staging a coup?"
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