Tuesday rant

I noted in my last post that my creepy date of a couple of weeks ago reminded me a lot of RM. He didn't creep me out because I associated him with RM; he creeped me out because he behaved like RM. Creepy is as creepy does. And creepy people audition ambiguous behaviors to see what they can get away with, so if you do call them out on it, they (like RM) fall back on "oh, I'm just clueless and bumbling, I had no idea that would make you uncomfortable."

That said, once you've identified a borderline/ambiguous behavior as part of a more nefarious pattern, you're instantly wary. This is analagous to an important concept in diversity circles: your intentions may be good or neutral, but what you don't know understand is, through the other person's lens, what you're doing is old. Street harassment, or telling a woman to smile (the two are not mutually exclusive), hits a nerve. Asking an Asian or Latina where she's "really" from hits a nerve. Infringing on boundaries not only hits a nerve but sets off a red flag. I've seen this kind of thing before; I know where it's going and I don't like it.



I think I've told you before that one of the reasons WMF increasingly irks the shit out of me is that her behavior invokes that of my mother. She gives me unsolicited advice and lectures me on how much I shouldn't spend on my hair. This casts a pall over her less egregious behavior, because I've started to interpret everything through the filter of "what would mom mean, if this were mom saying it?"

I started to wonder whether I was being to hard on WMF, but I learned the other day that I really was onto something: WMF really does channel my mom. And I mean my mom.

Some background: I'm friends with a number of WMF's friends--I've introduced people to her, she's introduced people to me, and we just both know some of the same people (because we work in the same building). Everyone I know feels about WMF the way I do: she's a good person at heart, but we can only take her in small doses.

WMF had a crisis last week, just before she and I had lunch with a mutual friend. Because I am not WMF, I did what a friend should do: I listened without interruption or judgment. I was thinking judgy things, but I didn't say them. I thought about how I could be justified in saying them, out of karma, because WMF considers herself the bearer of difficult truths. She prides herself on telling you the things no one else will tell you. She told her niece that she was getting fat. But I'm not her, and I was not about to question the circumstances around her crisis. My job at that moment was to listen empathetically. I felt bad about even questioning those circumstances in my head... until the other friend asked about my Peru trip. This led WMF to express a lack of empathy for Camille--my travel companion and another mutual friend--who was devastated at having had her iPod stolen over there. WMF just wasn't feeling it. At which point I no longer felt bad.

I caught up with Camille, who had dinner with WMF the night before. WMF came up.

Camille: She wants to dress you up like a baby-doll. "She'd be so much prettier if she wore make-up. I don't get it--I showed her how to put on make-up, but she just won't do it." No, she won't.

Camille gets me. Camille works part-time in a salon, and gets make-up, but she also gets me, and she gets that make-up is not me.

It's true that WMF once put make-up on me, under the pretenses of my serving as a model for a photography class she was taking. She said I'd look washed out without make-up, so I agreed. I looked and felt ridiculous and couldn't wait to get that shit off my face. I was dating someone at the time, whose reaction upon seeing me was, "that's far too much make-up for you." It's amazing that she thought that she was inspiring me to repeat that experience. I wanted nothing to do with it. It's amazing that she thinks she needs to try to influence me, that I just need to see the light--her light--and then I'll embrace make-up.

My response to "you'd be so much prettier..." is "fuck right off."