Something I suck at...
I was returning from a breakfast with neighbors on this fine Sunday morning when we ran into another of our neighbors at the building's door. What makes this neighbor remarkable is that she is the connection that provided the material for my "This Guy" blogs.
She's really pretty nice, aside from that...but then a gay man's relationships with another gay man have always been more disposable that his relationships with his Fruit Flies so I am sure her experience with This Guy has been completely different than mine.
Anyhoo...on the advice of a friend who I am sure is convinced I never listen to him, I have been trying to look at a person's actions and not their words.
I suck at this skill.
I swear I used to be good at it, though!
I have tried-as an adult-to make my words (outside of my crummy humor) match my actions. Or is it vice versa? Actually, I don't need to ask because most of the time my words and actions fall pretty well into line with one another.
Plus, fuck me, but I am a romantic. Hopeful of the happy ending-not the massage-type, either.
This didn't come into play so strongly back in the days of This Guy-but it was there. It came a few weeks later when BB came on the scene and couldn't open his mouth without proving what a flake he was striving to be.
So, This Guy's friend and my neighbor and I end up riding alone in the elevator for a few floors and she invites me over to her place to watch the season premiere of Dirt-which I have seen online and print ads for and kinda want to see. She says it's just her and the boys.
At which point, I feel conflicted about declining (after I have just expressed my interest) for some bogus reason or telling the truth.
Me, I tell the truth. It's probably not a good idea, I say. Which is close enough to the truth without vilifying her friend.
Which gets me the pitiful "Oh, you're not over him" look.
I take a second swing at it. I'll be damned if I'm getting a pity look for someone who'd be lucky to have me as a boyfriend!
Actually, This Guy gave me the "I'll call you" bit over a month ago and I never heard from him again. I quit expecting him to call, but figured if he'd really wanted to maintain a friendship, he'd have figured out the phone.
She apologizes for her friend-because those are the types of people you want to surround yourself with, the ones who you need to make excuses for-and gets off the elevator at her floor and as I tell her I would've really like to have joined her, she laughs and says "I'll call you!".
That cracked my shit up. That's also why I would want to be her friend-that acerbic wit.
Anyway, I was proud of myself for not degrading myself by allowing myself to get involved in a situation where I am in the presence of someone who, basically, hurt me with a lie. And that's what it is-it may not have been intentional, it may have been that I also suck at speaking "Hint", but this person did not end up being true to his word.
That's a lie. Break it down like in algebra (my sister won't get this part, bless her heart, she took college algebra three times): X=Y and Y=Z, so X=Z. Ergo, "I'll call you"="I won't call you", "I won't call you"="Fuck you, you ugly fuck" or something like that, so "I'll call you"="Fuck you, you ugly fuck" or something like that.
Got it? It's really very simple in the scheme of drinking Seattle water too long.
Again, fuck me, I had a great education, but none of the school's I attended offered "Hint" as a second language course, so frequently I tend to not get the hints people drop-I do much better assuming people say what they mean.
Plus, it's just irritating to need a Rosetta Stone to understand that some fag's words and actions revolve around the fact that he wants you to objectify him and treat him like a common whore.
It's like people go out of their way to treat themselves like they are worthless. Maybe it's just my Catholic rearing, but I was always taught better values about my behavior toward others and about the sacred nature of sex (Ok, we know I don't stick too much to that last part, but I definitely respect the people I sleep with...that has to count for something!)
While I tend to classify all gay Seattlites as typical Cap Hill fags when they indulge this behavior of mutual disrespect, again, I get hell from my friends for being bitter and judging everyone as a group and not an individual. Still, there tends to be a typical end result: people say one thing and don't follow through on it. Flakey? Yes. Is it simply one thing that creates this behavior? Certainly not. Nonetheless, stereotypes exist for a reason and I think it is the responsibility of all people within that group to exist at a higher standard and hold others to that same standard to erase the stereotype.
You owe it to the gay community to not be a flake.
You owe it to the Asian community to not be a bad driver.
You owe it to the Jewish community to not be rich and cheap.
You owe it to the African-American community to not be unemployed and steal things.
You owe it to Southerners to not give your child a hyphenated first name and not drive a car with a Union Jack on the window.
And so on...
BB said something to me that I found interesting (while probably meaning something else entirely). He said he wasn't good at dating. A simple statement and while being able to vouch for that, I had to think when he said it that it's more a factor of simple math to me (what's with me and the math today?). He's 25 and has lived in Seattle for eight years. Having moved here as a gay lad at 17, he has only had the dating experiences I complain about as examples of how to conduct oneself when getting to know and perhaps even date someone. He's learned it well, but having experienced different outcomes in romance in different areas of the country, I have to say that I would hope for more positive experiences for anyone.
So, while I feel like I am returning to the man I was before having my emotional world turned upside down by my ex-the guy who bitched about work weekly for six years, only to get my supportive response of "take some time and find a job where you're appreciated and fulfilled" (paraphrased that bit) and have him come home one day and say, "You know how I've always said I was unhappy at work? Well, I think I'm actually unhappy at home" and-poof-it's over for us without explanation past that. Him, I held accountable for his actions. Specifically, for his words not matching his actions when I rejected his effort to be my friend afterward. Still not friends, and he still doesn't get it-and now it's too late. Four years later, quit trying, pal.
So, for the This Guys and BBs of my life? We won't be friends without some major mea culpas from you. Major. Yeah, you sorta hurt sorta me. Maybe to spare yourself some tough conversations or realizations, but I'm not too keen on being friends with someone who would consider my feelings "collateral damage" in an effort to not have to be the bad guy.
Which is exactly what I told my ex all those years ago.
But do I keep trying? Against common sense and the advice of friends? I do.
Call it the Lottery of Love. If I keep buying tickets, one day I will win, right?
Ok, that was a fairly depressing analogy.
Whenever I write a blog, I am asked to express my current mood from a drop down box and select an activity from another that I am engaged in while writing. Well, aside from the fact that I think writing takes a little bit of focus so I tend to not Read, Watch TV or Play Video Games while doing it (the choices myspace offers on it's blog page), the one activity that has been dividing my attention for this little exercise in therapy I call a blog is not listed in this drop down menu.
I have been watching the guy on the 12th floor of the building next to mine clean his windows-inside and out. He's really rather resourceful at it. Particularly the outside bit having no balcony to use for support. But then again, since he made the same efforts yesterday I would expect him to have a few tricks up his sleeve to improve the process today.
Obsess much?
Go for it, buddy.
Here's the second one...feeling blinded yet?
I totally stole this concept from my ex. The Jettison Project was an idea he had for removing people from the planet-post haste, so to speak. His idea was basically to have a button you could push that would basically open a pinpoint spot in the atmosphere directly over someone, essentially sucking them into space.
Nice, huh?
Even better was my hostile improvement on this idea-The Instant Death Button. No explanation needed, right?
It’s amazing how I feel I have somewhat mellowed since the days I thought TIDB was a good idea. Mellowed to the point where I feel TJP is adequate, yet still hostile enough that I seem to be using a scaled down version of it way too frequently lately.
Seriously, I used to be so easy going. If I had been any more relaxed, I would have slipped into a coma. Now I feel like that grouchy old codger that lived next door to my house in Portland when I was growing up-the one that always yelled at us when our balls would go into his yard. He kept ’em, too. I think it’s his fault I’m gay. He stifled my need as a boy to play with balls, thereby stifling my interest in sports and creating a need to play with balls and men as an adult...yeah, that’s it.
Naturally, I realize I have taken off on a tangent.
So, I was easy going-and where did it get me? Nowhere of note, particularly. Yet these days I find myself being a little less easy going. This has created a lot less tolerance for people who fail to measure up to my meager expectations.
And, honestly, has anyone else noticed how irritable and indignant people get these days to find there are expectations from their friends? I sure have.
They were the first victims of The Jettison Project.
The worst part is that my expectations are so small. Honesty, Integrity, Follow-Through. Hardly difficult objectives to achieve, right?
Yet, here I am...figuratively de-populating the Seattle area.
Fire One:
The other day I had a "text argument" with a friend of mine. I always knew our friendship would come to a ridiculous end...he’s a gay republican. The worst part is that not only did he feel the confidence to say the most heinously rude things to me-which I think he really meant-he later called me and we ended up talking. I was hitting "ignore" but accidentally answered. He was all "We both said things we didn’t mean" and so forth. I told him that I didn’t say anything I didn’t mean, as I was able to stick to making factual statements, even if they were truths about himself he didn’t want to hear, and I had anecdotal info to back them up. He was sounding miserable about fighting with me just before his birthday and said he didn’t want to go into his 40th year fighting with his friend like a three year old. Too bad...you should have thought about that before you started telling me why all my friends don’t like me and trying to make me feel lucky to have a friend like you. He went back to the "I said some things I didn’t mean" mode (meaning he said things that were very likely untrue) and I unsympathetically told him that I can appreciate that but can’t respect myself if I let people treat me like that and then tell them it’s ok by validating that behavior with my friendship.
Fire Two:
Then there’s "This Guy". I ended up having a couple of conversations with some of his friends a couple weeks ago. One of them invited me to her house to watch TV with her and "her boys" and I passed since "This Guy" was going to be there. She gave me this pitying look that suggested I wasn’t over him which I immediately corrected by saying that I didn’t think that "TG" wanted to be my friend since he had told me he would call me six weeks before and then I never heard from him. Suddenly, he calls. Imagine that. The thing about these guys in Seattle is that a great deal of them don’t know how to behave socially. They find a group of friends that accept or tolerate them and stay in that safe environment. I’m not saying that they all do that, just a curiously high percentage of the guys I have met. So, I call "TG" back and fire off one of my rambling emails. But, like many of my rambling essays, there was a point. A very clear one, that no matter what I tried, I just couldn’t nice up. It wasn’t overtly cruel (well, perhaps the part where I suggested his actions were more "typical Seattle fag" than I had expected from him) but it pointedly said that I had gotten a pretty clear message from his actions that he did not want to be my friend. He apparently didn’t disagree, I haven’t heard from him since.
Fire Three:
I need a haircut. Trying to date my barber ended poorly for me when he couldn’t follow through with his statement that "He wanted to actually date me, not just sleep with me". Now I need to find another barber, although I am tempted to go back to the guy at his shop who was cutting my hair before "BB" because he did a rockin’ job with my cowlicks. But that would look punitive, wouldn’t it? Of course, I say it ended poorly for me, but "BB" lost me as a potential boyfriend-which probably doesn’t break him up as much as it should-but also as a damn fine income stream...I tip really well!
Fire Four:
Starbucks on 194th. Despite the presence of a very cute member of the crew, there seems to be no way of saving the only SBUX close to my current employer from being jettisoned. It’s a drive through, but they just can’t get it together enough to get the cars through the window and the coffee in people’s hands fast enough. I was so excited about the drive through option, too. But...after pulling out of the line twice last week, it became clear to me that they’re gonna have to go. Sad.
Sometimes I feel like I need to get control of my latent anger-as in the case of those poor joe’s at SBUX. Other times I feel pretty justified in my desire to be rid of people who’s habits surpass being a nuisance and begin to encroach on what I consider to be the civil rights of others-namely the pursuit of happiness without the constant need to read between the lines of conversation or actions of the people in your life.
The upshot is that I feel a lot better about the people who I continue to call my friends. So I have that going for me...which is nice.
I promise to post a new blog explaining-to a degree-why these blogs were my first myspace imports for my new blog. For tonight, my hangover from this morning is gone-and it is 10:15 at night. You do the math and figure out how it went away! Hehehehe.
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