I'm usually pretty good at finding short-cuts, but I almost always take the long way.
I am having a hard time right now. With girls. Actually with one girl. I am taking myself out of the competition for power in relationships. I get this from girls more than I would like. Actually, probably all of us girls do. I am not the only one who struggles with this. I don't know why we do this to each other. I am sure there must be a male equivalent, but I think dudes mostly just wrestle or show off their pecs or have belching contests. Girls are sneaky and bitchy and passive-aggressive with comments about appearance and conduct and preference.
These days, at least three times a day I feel frustrated and small and defensive. I don't want to defend stupid things. I don't want to feel bad that I even like stupid things. You can agree with me or not, I don't care. I find myself saying and doing things to tip the scales of power back to me. I don't want to do that.
It's fucking bullshit.
This is what I think: You should try to like everyone. You should treat everyone with courtesy and respect, you could even find something you can both chuckle about. However, as soon as you find yourself trying to look really hard to see something you maybe could like in a person, is perhaps a sign that maybe you should just give in and say that you don't like them. At least you tried for a while. Not everyone is likeable.
So I give up. I have nothing to prove.
3 comments:
okay amy....
...hit me.
You just wrote what is in my head. I wonder if that means we wouldn't get along? :)
Ah! At last!
Agreed - you should give each friendship a try, treat everyone well, etc. But then you must feel free to purge as needed. There isn't time in life for people who make you feel small. If it isn't clicking now, let it fizzle out. You might try the relationship again later when you are both in different places, and then find that it is a great thing.
This might not always be true, though. Sometimes you can see a glimmer of possibility, or recognize that one of you needs something from the other. Sometimes it's worth wading through the crap to find out what is on the other side of a person.
I think it's possible to live in community with people and to learn about and from them without necessarily being friends. This is tricky business!
True - there is something very strange about girls when it comes to this! Not sure what's worse, though...being female and having to deal with this finicky competitive dance, or being male and having to deal with the whole chest-beating and macho one-upmanship?
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