One more reason why I need feminism

Let me state first and foremost for the record that I go to Club Abstract simply because I really like to dance. I like the atmosphere there, I like the music, I like a few of the regulars (the others I simply don’t know, but we casually nod to acknowledge each other’s existence). Abstract is my place for catharsis. It’s a place I like to exercise. Yes, I fully acknowledge that going out dancing is an excuse to get some cardio. I don’t just sway and bounce with my feet planted on the ground. I really move. 

So now that I’ve established that the only reason I go there is because I like to dance and because it makes me happy in my “soul”, it should be pointed out that I do not, under any circumstances EVER go there to meet men or to “pick up”. Yes, I recognise that a bar is common place for this activity. There might be a certain underlying expectation that if you are not there “with someone” then you are fair game. I know at least one of you will have a field day with this notion and I look forward to it.

So here we have a (cue self-esteem) fit woman who knows how to move to a rhythm attending an establishment where alcohol is served — and the general notion is that no one wants to leave said bar alone — who has the full intention of leaving this establishment alone. And sometimes I might dance with a small group of strangers because that’s just what the atmosphere creates and a good time is had by all, but I’m still going to leave that place on my own.

I’m no dummy, I know there is a possibility that someone will hit on me. And I won’t lie, sometimes I see a good looking man and acknowledge this fact, but then I go back to dancing because “OMG I love this song” (I say that in my head a lot), and dancing is what I came here to do. So when someone does make an attempt, say dancing up to me or with me I just turn away and keep doing my thing. I take up more space so they can’t get closer. Sometimes they follow me around for a bit until they get the hint. 

The guy I encountered last night and his friend did not get any hints. Thing 1 did the dancing trick, it did not work, and he was any thing but subtle about it. I simply ignored him. While I was sitting out a couple of tunes for a break his friend (Thing 2, I guess) decided to sit next to me and casually chat about the music then mentions his friend who “likes me”. I quite clearly curled my upper lip, made a face and said “yeah, I noticed that.” he laughed like he got it, patted my knee and went back to Thing 1. 

About five minutes later (long enough for a smoke, and then was “close-talking” to me: ew) Thing 2 is back wondering why I’m still not dancing. I said I was waiting for the right song to come up and that was the honest truth. Thing 2 mentions that Thing 1 would like to dance with me and maybe he should get him to come over. Again, clearer this time, I said “no, don’t. Just don’t.” he laughs again and goes back to Thing 1.

A song comes on and I don’t know it but the beat is inspiring and it gets me out of the plain view of Thing 1 and Thing 2. I go back to the dance floor, carefully avoiding where these two were lurking. I find my groove again and it’s even better, very fluid. I pick up a couple of glow sticks and it’s even better. Yes, I think to myself, THIS is what I came here for. Then Thing 2 is standing in front of me and shouts “I see you got your groove back”, and I just scowled and muttered “yes, now get out of it” and turned my back, shooing him away. Not 30 seconds later Thing 1 is back in front me with this big smile wanting to dance. I just stopped moving and stared at him and shook my head. He left. 

Yet another 30 seconds later (this is starting to ruin my groove, but I’ll channel my frustration to get it back, don’t you worry), so right after this Thing 2 is back he slowly circled me, clearly not dancing and looked me up and down with that look that I can’t quite explain to those who haven’t experienced it. Like I was prey. Like I was just a challenge. It’s a look that sort of said. “I like it when they fight back”, and not in a fun consensual kinky way. It was posturing, pure and simple. And I was not going to tolerate it.

Abstract is *my* place. It is my safe place. It is like a home away from home with a much better sound system. I stopped dancing again and gesticulated clearly with words loud enough to be heard over the music told him to simply “Go. Away.” Which of course was met with the expected hands in the air, “I’m just trying to have a little fun and this woman is being mean and irrational by not playing along” expression. More than a few people on the dance floor noticed this exchange.

They finally went away after that, and I was able to resume my groove and it was cathartic and wonderful, happy ending I guess. Maybe I could have been very clear and to the point about it from the start. I could have used my words, but in a place where you can hardly hear yourself think, words are not really an option until you have to shout and gesticulate at people. I think at one point I gave one of them the finger with a glow stick weaved between my fingers. In a place where you can’t be heard, you have to use something else. 

Try as they might, these Two Wild and Crazy Guys (because they were older and clearly out of place so that’s what they reminded me of) did not ruin my evening. In fact they offered me an excuse to be even more assertive and even a little aggressive. That’s not my preferred method of venting, but I’ll take it. 

This is why I need feminism. I’m certain that I don’t need to explain any further to my friends and regular readers exactly why this is a good example of why I need it. 

I wish we didn't have to get angry about this anymore.

I read an article today on the BBC about the shooting in Santa Barbara over the weekend. It was a related article about the social media reaction to the event. I think y'all know how I feel about the incident itself if you've read anything I've written at all. I'm only just barely holding back my ranting, why I don't know. It's been done, I guess, by other equally eloquent bloggers.

There was an image embedded that showed a Tweet with a reply from the kind of person that Mr. Rodger would have agreed with wholeheartedly. The reply itself is what got to me, it really did. I actually felt kind of shaken and sick to my stomach after reading it. And it takes a lot to do this to me.   I can't copy and paste it here, it's just too horrible. Here's a link to it if you really must know. It's the first example in the article.

I lead a happy little life where I've never been physically, sexually assaulted. I don't like the fact that I could say I'm lucky for that fact. I shouldn't feel lucky about that. Never having been raped or beaten, should just be a fact of life for every human being. Luck should have nothing to do with it. Period. End of story. I would feel lucky if something exceptional happened to me like winning the lottery. Not having been raped and/or beaten should not be so exceptional that I should have to feel lucky.

I've used the hashtag #YesAllWomen. It's still completely valid. I can say I've never been overtly, physically or sexually abused by men, but I've certainly been treated or looked upon differently because of my gender. So no, not all women have been abused, but we have all certainly been made aware that there must be something fundamentally wrong with our gender and how each one of us chooses to embody it.

Yes, it's true that not all men are like Mr. Rodger and that Asshat that posted the comment linked above. It would be foolish to think that everyone using that hashtag assumes that all men are boorish, ignorant, sexist and misogynistic arseholes. I know there are men out there who are fully capable of being decent to other human beings regardless of what's between their legs etc. Decent human beings do exist. I swear. I have to believe that there are more out there than just the ones I call friends, it's what gets me through the day.

I've recently encountered the very same entitled attitude that Mr. Rodger used to justify his heinous act. I'm glad that those who've behaved that way towards me were mostly harmless. I assume. I hope. I recognize that I'm able to say this from the safety of my side of the keyboard/screen. If you read my last post you'll know how I feel about men with entitlement issues (they are owed exactly nothing from me and women in general) same goes for the notion of being in the "friend zone". I had a guy tell me he wasn't interested in getting into the "friend zone". Well, you won't be getting into any kind of zone with an attitude like that. I responded to tell him that my friend zone was pretty amazing and it's his loss. And it was the nicest thing I could have possibly said. I just didn't see how unleashing a giant feminist rant about entitlement and my right to choose what sorts of relationships I have with people to be useful. I know a message like wouldn't even get a cursory glance.

I wasn't even going to write about this. It's been done over and over, like I said, by equally eloquent bloggers from all over. But is it not worth it to keep talking about it? To keep it on people's minds? To keep those that need to know aware? "Can't stop the signal, Mal"...

Is it working? Are we making any progress? Sometimes I don't think we are. I can't foresee a wide-scale change in my life time, even now we creep ahead bit by bit. I often forget that I'm part of a marginalized group. The largest umbrella of marginalized people, half the world's population and I forget this because I have it pretty good in life, but I'm still a woman. Which means there's always going to be someone out there who only sees my anatomy, someone who will judge me for the choices I make, or what I wear, how I wear it and what size it is. Someone who will imagine me naked or what a good fuck I'd be. There will always be someone who doesn't think I'm capable of doing certain things because I have a woman's body, or that I'm not smart, genuine, geeky or modest enough. There will always be someone who will think I'm a bitch because I have opinions. There will always be someone who will readily try to shame me for embracing who I am.

It breaks my heart that we have to keep saying it. Over and over. That this is a point we have to keep making because some unbalanced fella isn't getting it. Because tragedies like this keep happening. And it makes me sad that once the hype is over and the hashtag fades into obscurity again, we'll have to start all over. Until it happens again.

Of course I hope it doesn't. And it shouldn't ever happen again, but I'd be lying if I told you it will never happen again. Keep talking about it, keep being who you are, ladies. You don't owe anyone anything. But you owe yourself everything.

Zero Obligation

Holy moly folks, I'm back. For how long? Who knows. I had many different topics come up in my absence, but I never found myself with the time to just sit and write. Not coherently any way. Life kind of gets in the way of ranting and raving about my unpopular opinions. And there's certainly a hell of a lot of crap going on in the world to rant and rave about these days. Today's topic is comparatively tame.

Today we talk about the often difficult to navigate world of online dating. I know. Maybe it's trivial, but bear with me. I think I have some pretty good "thinky thoughts" on this one. If you can't stand another pro-feminism, child free by choice discussion this is probably not the blog post (or blog) you're looking for *jedi hand wave*.

I decided this spring that it was time to get back at the dating thing again. I have no regrets about my last relationship, it was what it was and now it's a great friendship that I plan to keep for as long as possible. I had two accounts, one on OK Cupid (OKC) and one on Plenty of Fish (POF). The OKC account had been dormant since early June of 2013 and I'd hidden the POF account around the same time when I decided that the fella I'd met was someone I wanted to keep around for a while.

This Spring I decided to just quietly "unhide" myself from POF. I'd had some limited success with it since this is where I met Dr. Robot Science (my quaint online nickname to respect his privacy). Even if that relationship didn't last romantically I'd still had more success with POF than OKC. And so it was the first one to have the cobwebs dusted off it.

Within a month I'd managed to arrange three dates and successfully go on two of them. The first one, I initiated, the second was initiated by the other person and the third I initiated again. Date number one was fun, but I didn't see us having much in common. I regret to say he failed a few of the geek litmus tests I'd set for him. Nice guy, just not what I was really looking for. I was honest and polite about declining a second date. It was all very civil.

Date number two seemed to have everything in common with me, it was almost as if we were separated at birth and if it weren't for some bizarre school zoning rules we probably would have gone to the same elementary school. He was extremely polite and very complimentary. Something I'm not used to and honestly felt a little uncomfortable with. Once is nice (haha, oh noes please don't stroke my ego!"), but there was more than one until it made me a little uncomfortable. At first I joked and laughed it off. We never managed to reconnect and we've since lost contact through neglect.

Date number three didn't show up. Date number three seemed engaged and interested and even messaged me the day before to say he was looking forward to it. He didn't show up. I finished my beverage at the cafe and went home after a half hour though it was readily apparent to me that he wasn't going to show up well before that half hour was up. I decided to just enjoy people watching and sipping my drink. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, maybe something happened? An accident? Other plans came up, maybe there was a message that I missed before I left the apartment. Either way I wasn't upset or worried about it. When I came home I found he had disappeared. Like he was never there, account deleted and no record that we'd ever exchanged messages. So I couldn't even send him a note to tell him what a fantastic date I'd had all by myself. This incident wasn't entirely what spurred me to obliterate my POF account (accidentally typed POS which would also be accurate), but it was the nail in the coffin. I've gone back to OKC just recently and I'm still pretty new and shiny there hence the need to re-evaluate how to deal with this sudden popularity.

This is not the worst of my experiences. I had an encounter with a fellow who warned me that posting photos of myself on a dating site was a bad idea and my photos could end up on some pornography website if I was not careful (assumption number one: I'm a naive woman who needs his advice about internet safety). He included a link to a picture of himself on Photobucket. Because having a photo of yourself anywhere else on the internet than a dating site is totally safe... I glanced at the photo and read the profile and decided just to ignore it. A month later I get almost the same message this time "asking/demanding" my email address for us to exchange photos. English was clearly not this person's first language. I responded this time saying I did not wish to provide my email address. I was civil and direct and did not elaborate (and this is a point I'm building to, I promise).

He responded to ask if my response was "code" for no thank you or I'm not interested. He then asked if I knew that I could get a "junk" email for which I didn't have to care about what went to it (assumption number two: I don't know how to use the internet). I realized I could have been more direct, apologized for not being clearer told him he was right about the "code" and wished him good luck. Again, very civil.

Well. Wasn't that just the angry zombie bee from outer space that got in his bonnet? I regret blocking him immediately afterwards only because I could have copied and pasted the response here for social media shaming purposes (user names removed, obviously) but alas, I did not. So here's a summary with counter arguments:

I make decisions too quickly, I didn't even look at his photo and that's not fair.
Assumption number three: Interest, no matter how vague must be equally reciprocated. How dare I use my brain to quickly and effectively eliminate options I'm not interested in pursuing? How dare I be smart enough to make decisions for myself. The nerve, right? Well no. Just because you sent me a message on an online dating site I am NOT obligated to give you a chance. Just like if you'd insisted on buying dinner on a date I'm NOT obligated to have sex with you. Take your entitlement and stuff it.

I was a nice smart girl, but now he sees that I'm only good at writing stories and I'm just another of the loser women on that site.
Assumption number four: All women are liars and only like assholes. Apparently honesty and civility mean nothing. Again, dude needs to check his entitlement issues at the fucking door. Just because I very politely and directly said no to you does not suddenly mean I'm mean and stupid and a loser. It simply means I'm capable of making my own decisions. See note above about my complete lack of obligation to give you a chance if I don't want to. He really did call the women on the site losers, and I can see now why he's probably not had much luck. Speaking of which...

I need more luck than he does.
I'm sorry, but if this is how you handle rejection, you need far more luck than I ever will.

My photos should end up on some sort of pornography site to teach me a lesson.
Assumption number five: women need to be taught a lesson about being comfortable with their public image and shamed about sexual activities. What? I'm too stupid to realize that men like to jerk off to pictures of pretty women? Because I don't know how the internet works? Because I should be punished somehow for rejecting him? I wouldn't be surprised if he copied a photo or two himself to upload to such a site. Okay, here's the thing, random guy: I've been familiar with the internet for a long time now. I know that it doesn't really matter where a photo is located, if a guy (or gal, I'm open minded here) finds my photo *anywhere* on the internet and is turned on by it, he or she might just rub one out. And I don't give a shit. The same thing could happen if the same person saw me on the damn street or a cafe and go home to do the same thing. I am not going to police people's desires, turn-ons and/or need to masturbate. None of my damn business. If I was worried about such a thing, there would be no photos of me on the internet and there's a photo of my bare ass on the internet. Hell, I probably wouldn't use the internet at all if I was really worried about it.

Here's the thing, the point I promised I'd get to. No other experience in my life has taught me as thoroughly as online dating has that I am not obligated to do or say anything I don't feel like doing or saying. Yes, there's a certain expectation that if you've put yourself on an online dating site that you are there to look for people to date or have sex with or maybe even marry if that's your thing. There's a certain expectation that you will also be exposing yourself to people who you do not want to date. But there is no obligation under any circumstances where you must reciprocate communication or go out with just anyone who visits your profile or sends you a message. Or even to respond to their inquiry. No matter how polite or thoughtful it may be. Obviously people who are rude and crude shouldn't expect a response at all. This works both ways and it's turned my whole attitude around on the subject. I send out messages that don't get responses all the time, because — and I can't stress this enough — NO ONE ELSE IS OBLIGATED TO RECIPROCATE EITHER. I have no expectation that the person I'm contacting should respond in kind and want to go on a date with me. And even if we do get that far and they do something to change my mind, I have the right to change my mind. And not feel bad about it and so do they.

One thing that sometimes trips me up is that I feel bad for not reciprocating when I receive a message. Like I've somehow hurt someone's feelings. I've been there. It sucks, but I also get over it pretty quick. And now I have the added perspective of realizing that not only am I not obligated to bend over backwards for strangers I'm not interested in meeting/dating/having sex with, but neither are they.

I still have no issue with being polite and civil and respectful of the people that contact me. I have recently responded eloquently to tell someone I am not interested and gently pointed out that we are not compatible, even though I was NOT OBLIGATED TO. He has two children and would like to have more. I can't think of any other reason why he thought I would be a good woman to contact. He was not rude or crude in his message, and even asked for permission to flirt with me for a while. This is better than some of the messages I get. On the other hand, I know he simply didn't bother to read the profile in any detail and I should probably make the "no baby zone" message clearer, but it almost felt like my choice to not have kids wasn't being taken seriously. When it says I don't want kids, I really don't want them. It's not because I haven't met the right man who will change my mind. I just really don't want kids. No really. Women stopped assuming I'd change my mind a while ago, I don't know about men. But it's simply not going to happen. Period. End of story.

Responding so that I don't hurt people's feelings is a habit I will probably have to break. Since I am consistently contacted by people who have not bothered to take even a second to look at the words in my profile and there are a lot of them. The most important ones describing my preferred age range and the fact that I don't have or want kids. I should be more specific with this, particular aspect since not only am I not interested in making babies, but I'm also not interested in becoming someone's step mom.

I know from a friend's experience that being specific and blunt will not stop anyone I wouldn't touch with at 10-foot pole from contacting me, but at least they couldn't say I didn't warn them. Which is far more than should ever feel obligated to do.

Old habits are hard to break.