A short discourse on bullshit

When I lived in New York, I had a roommate/co-worker named April. Now, we had all of the usual problems that people who live and work together have. It didn’t help that she was my boss and I was better at her job than she was (which I proved when she left and I got promoted to her position and proceeded to rock the hell out of it).

Anyone who knows me knows that I could make a full-time job out of reporting from the Friend Zone. April, on the other hand, was clearly a year-round occupant of the Sexualized Territories. She was blond. She had big tits. She got drunk and insecure and wanted to sleep with anyone who looked at her. She never really said anything that made you think. We used to have quite the time going out. We’d head to whatever bar was our current haunt (we had to rotate based on her sleeping-with-the-bartender schedule) and let the sociological experiments begin. Men talked to me. They took her home. (The one exception to this was Mike the Bouncer. April thought Mike was very cute until he and I bonded over mint chocolate chip ice cream and started hooking up, at which point she was able to find at least 903589745749680 things wrong with him. That was fun.)

One night, over a couple of bottles of wine, April (by this point my roommate … we all make bad decisions) and I started talking. She confessed that she was upset by the sort of attention she got. She liked that people thought she was pretty and desirable, but she was frustrated that no one ever thought she was smart, or funny. Why was it that the guys we met called me and not her, she asked. Why did the bartenders like me better? Why did I get invited to parties and to hang out with people who she had made out with?

Now, anyone who’s had a long-term lease in the Friend Zone (I’ve been here so long I actually own property) can tell you that the above examples represent a series of double-edged swords. Sure, John might call and invite me to hang out with his friends, but we won’t be done with the first beer before they start asking about my “hot roommate.” So, I did what no sane person should ever do. I told April that the jealousy was mutual, and that as much as she wanted men to think of her as a friend, I wanted something of what she had. NEVER, under ANY circumstances, should you do this.

April was suddenly relieved of all responsibility for her actions. She never did anything wrong, or uncalled for, or stupid. Anytime I called her out, it was obviously jealousy. Her catchphrase became, “Molly, it’s not my fault that I’m pretty and I really don’t think that it’s fair for you to blame me just because you’re jealous.” WHAT? I’m sorry, but what does that have to do with you leaving your dirty dishes in the sink, or your dog eating my mail, or anything?

The last straw came a couple of months later. April had behaved badly in so many bars that I was embarrassed to be seen with her. So, we stayed away from our “Work Town” and started going out in the town where we lived. We declared this a “safe space.” We agreed not to hook up with the bartenders or patrons (and by “we,” I really mean April). This was the town where I grew up, I told her. I didn’t want bad things to happen here. Enter Peter, an awesomely nice guy and a super-cute bartender. I made the mistake of having a crush on him. I made the bigger mistake of telling April. She “safe spaced” me to death and I agreed that I wouldn’t break our deal. And I didn’t. I admired Peter and began a friendship with him, but I never let on anything more. Guess what happened next.

April hooked up with Peter. 

I was furious. I had been honest with her, had abided by our agreement, had put our friendship first, even though I should have told her months earlier that she was awful and selfish and needed to grow up (she was 29, folks, it was about time). The worst part was that when I called her on her bad behavior, she once again went with the jealousy defense. It wasn’t her fault Peter liked her instead of me and don’t blame her because she’s pretty and blah, blah, blah.

What she did (which I HATED more than ANYTHING else she had pulled) was deny the legitimacy of my anger. She used my comradely admission of mutual jealousy to let her off the hook for any of her bad behavior. 

I’m an apologizer. I apologize for things I shouldn’t and when I don’t think I’m in the wrong. I do my best to say sorry when I behave badly. I write letters, I make phone calls, I send cards, I sing songs. I will do a million and one things to apologize. Even if I think the person to whom I’m apologizing is being silly, or is letting past experiences or other issues color the current situation, I realize that people can be legitimately pissed for myriad reasons and that it’s not my place to tell someone his or her anger is not warranted. I will not justify my bad behavior with mitigating circumstances. I might explain to you why I behaved in such a way, but I’m not going to tell you that you have no right to be pissed because of X, Y, and Z.

I graduated high school in the last millennium, but all that bullshit I thought I’d escaped (didn’t we all think it would be over once Donna Martin graduated?) is alive and well. Don’t tell me I can’t be angry when someone behaves badly. Don’t tell me you want to do something about it if you’re not going to. Don’t call me your friend and take sides against me because it’s convenient. I’m tired of people being unable to look outside themselves and see situations for what they really are.

Yeah, maybe I had a crush on Peter and maybe it pissed me off that he liked April, proving that I was wrong for thinking so highly of him. And maybe I did wish for myself some of the attention that she got. And yes, it bothered me to be the go-between for her and her adoring throng. But mostly, what really got me, was that when she decided to go out, get drunk and hook up with someone, I got stuck without a ride home.

That’s bullshit anyway you look at it.

Trying something new

Six months.
No dating.
None. Not even a little bit.
Rock on.

Confused

I am confused.

I am as confused as someone who is really confused – maybe as confused as someone from Sri Lanka, who speaks no English and is deaf and colorblind and allergic to wheat gluten (Jen-Ho in the house!) would be upon landing at JFK International Airport in New York. First, you have to navigate customs, which is nigh on impossible, unless you know which line is the yellow line. And if they all look vaguely greenish-brown to you (Side question: How do colorblind people know which colors they DO see? I knew a colorblind boy in school and he told me that things which looked purple to me looked brown to him, but how did he KNOW that? Isn’t there just as much chance that everything looked blue to him?), you wouldn’t know which one is the yellow line and I’m pretty sure that those guards have loaded guns and they’re not especially patient or open to having a nice dialogue. (According to at least one person I know, they’re all criminals who dropped out of high school.)

I am as confused as a college freshman who wakes up in a fraternity house the night after a party, with no pants, only one shoe and a half-drunk bottle of Jim Beam. I am as confused as an air traffic controller at Kai Tek; as confused as a medical student on her first day of rounds; as confused as a Canadian trying to ride the NYC Subway for the first time; as confused as a first-time driver in Dupont Circle; as confused as an English student attempting to write a paper on the literary merits of Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Hint: None).

I am more mixed-up than a basket of puppies on a Ferris Wheel.

In the age of digital emotions, I am but a simple analog girl. That is to say, I can only handle one signal at a time and even then, I’m probably going to drop it more than once before it’s all said and done.

So, you know, call me.