Saturday rambles

I went out last night with a few friends, all guys and all physicists (my physicist organizes these outings and introduced me to his grad school friends a while back). Sometimes more people (other coworkers of mine and his) join, but this time it was just the four of us. It was interesting to be among guys discussing relationship issues (specifically the issues of the only single one). I'd been in the presence of other men discussing relationships, but less mature men--back when I carpooled with a bunch of pups who were right out of college. That was eye-opening, but less interesting. These were sober (well, not physically), adult men interpreting things that I usually hear women interpret ("why hasn't she texted?"). I guess we're really not that different.

I showed the guys the Douchiest Text Ever (I took a screenshot because it was that amazing), and they agreed. They wanted me to get back in touch with this guy so they could get together with him and discuss physics. Tell him that the giveaway--that he didn't know what he was talking about--was that no one finds that shit "fun." And also, no one says "chaos/string." Those are two very separate things. Even I knew that.

I summarized the story of the horrible date, and two of them didn't understand why I didn't just walk away in the middle of it. I thought about it, but I didn't want to be rude, and also, there's always, in a woman's head, the awareness that a dude can turn dangerous.

***
I told you that I had a "bitches get stuff done" ramble/rant brewing... and I still haven't quite made it coherent, but I'll see if I can tie all these indirectly related things together.

For better or for worse, I will invoke RM. One of the reasons that it so galled me when RM referred to my "meal plan," was that he was speaking from a very entitled cluelessness. For those of you unfamiliar with RM's antics or at least this antic of his: he was convinced that I followed a strict dietary regimen, even after I explained to him that I was just planning out what I was going to eat for the week. For example, he once asked me if I wanted to get dinner with him, and I declined, mostly because I couldn't stand him but also because--this is true--I'd just bought and cooked a bunch of food, and needed to eat that instead of buying more food. RM wasn't convinced; he'd seen me make lists of what I would have for lunch and dinner on a given day, and his warped mind translated this into an eating plan that had to be adhered to at all costs. To me, it was the necessary planning underlying the act of purchasing and cooking one's food. To him, it was a pathology. And his warped mind was prone to this way of thinking because the man never cooked his own food. At home, he had a wife. Not at home, he had per diem. He bought things at restaurants and ate them. I was not on per diem, and I didn't have a personal chef. I did (still do) have a mortgage. I bought food, cooked it, and portioned it out for the week (still do). See also: bitches get stuff done.

There was an article in the Times years ago--probably 4 years ago--about divorcees in the NYC metro area. One had been left by her husband because she spent too much time dealing with the PTA and other school-related things for their kids. Kids that he presumably took part in creating and in whose future he was presumably invested. But his wife was spending too much time on the gruntwork associated with that future. This is the inverse of "bitches get stuff done."

I am not saying to get stuff done, you have to be a bitch (though sometimes it helps). I am saying that to get stuff done, you have to be organized and motivated. In our society, some people refer to this derisively as 'type A.' And many of the people who turn their noses up at the people doing the things from which they benefit, do so because they have no concept of the work that goes into making it happen.

Mom once badgered me about spending too much time on cooking--which I was doing because she'd bought a bunch of food that would have gone bad had I not cooked it. This is actually a bad example, because the time spent cooking was beyond the point; mom felt the need to badger me about something or other, and cooking was right there. Criticism is her favorite hobby, and whatever I happened to be doing at the time was just the topic of opportunity.


Jason's ex-bf didn't seem to understand what we were doing every time we had to make decisions about the trip; he opted out of all that stuff and made the occasional comment to indicate that we were taking things too seriously. But how the f* else do you plan a three-week trip to four countries, for a fraction of what you would pay for an organized tour? Bitches get stuff done.