So, imagine the scenario: a female friend sees a jacket she would like for her birthday, as a present from you. Being male and not having been there when she saw it, you have three options: go and try to buy the correct one (with the result of almost guaranteed failure), go with her and buy it once she picks it out or give her the cash to buy it. You go for the third option, since she knows what she wants.
Later on in the day, you're talking on the phone and she says she's changed her mind and doesn't really want it any more. You ask why, to which she replies that it's really not practical, just a pretty thing. You ask why again and it turns out she went and blew the money you gave her for the birthday present on girlie stuff (creams, perfumes, shampoos, magazines, nick-knacks and so on). It is an unspoken truth that she will now expect you to fork over more money for her birthday present.
Am I the only one who finds that arrogant, selfish and completely beyond any sort of logical comprehension?
Today's Spam Count: 467
Running Spam Total: 3993
One thing I forgot to mention yesterday was the woman who did the état des lieux (that's checking the apartment, of course): total weirdo.
To begin with, she appeared to be in her thirties but acted like someone over sixty: shuffling walk, mumbling to herself and so on. She also switched randomly between being friendly - albeit with a somewhat bizarre sense of humour - and extremely cold.
Personally, from having seen people in many, many different states of being, I would guess she was either deranged or on drugs.
Can anyone explain why combat trousers are so darned sexy on smart women? Please? Thanks.
This entry is sponsored by images of Amanda Tapping.
What is it with women and being unreliable? I mean, women hate unreliable men, right? They're always whining about how we don't turn up on time, how we don't call, how we can't be trusted, how we whatever else they don't like. So why are women so damned flaky? Is this supposed to be attractive or something? Well, I can tell you that it's not. It's downright damnably annoying.
Yes, I spoke to Amel yesterday and no, I still don't know what her problem is. When I phoned, she was driving home so we didn't talk for long - just a couple of minutes while she was parked, then I said I'd call her back, since it's dangerous (not to mention illegal). Of course, she wasn't there when I phoned back, despite having said she would be. Nor was she there for the rest of the evening. Nor did she call back.
Now, it's not annoying that she obviously has a problem with something. The annoyance is not knowing what that something is: her comment about honesty in a recent message does not worry me, since I'm honest anyway, but it does make me wonder why she asks. As Psycho said, when I mentioned the expression in a conversation at the weekend, there's something she's not telling me.
The good news is that we've finally arranged to meet outside of the supermarket where she works: on Thursday, I shall finally spend some time with her and find out more about her and who she really is. Obviously, I will also try to find out what's going on that is so difficult for her to talk about, but I'm not holding much hope of success on that front. We'll see.
You remember that feeling of foreboding I had a little while ago? I was right.
Psycho phoned this afternoon (not an unexpected occurrence) to say she didn't feel very well. Quite apart from being overwhelmed by a very stressful day, she'd apparently had a bit of a revelation this morning as part of her ongoing head-shrinking¹. She wasn't very sure whether she should tell me, since I've been down recently and according to her, I am seriously concerned by it. After some discussion, I convinced her that she should tell me. I prefer open honesty: at least if she's blunt I can deal with the aftermath, rather than trying to handle something I can't see, understand or even sense.
This 'revelation' was not earth-shattering news for me. Apparently, she's still very much in love with me². I, however, am not in the slightest bit in love with her.
I can almost hear Scary Ross's thoughts: "Ooooh, now this is going to get interesting." *grin*
¹ Since she's a clinical psychologist, she must legally go through an analysis before she can practice and, I believe, be regularly re-evaluated by her peers. That's a full analysis, not just a little therapy. Bummer, huh?
² As you may or may not know, we were together for some five years before I came to France. We broke up about six months after I got here, but have remained best friends since then.
I have just had one of those odd weekends that are both good and bad at the same time. Well, not at precisely the same time: more a sort of consecutive thing, one after the other in a randomly alternating fashion, if you see what I mean. You do? Splendid.
Things started well: I came back from Psycho's place on Friday night to find a message on my answering machine from "Cashier Girlie". She hadn't checked the messages on her mobile all week (or other, similar excuses), but had finally heard my inane jabbering and phoned back. While I was out. Of course. I tried calling her back (it wasn't too late in the evening) and didn't manage to get hold of her, so to speak. Ho hum.
Saturday was a bit more of a nightmare. Psycho's very depressed at the moment, for various reasons, which makes her unbearably demanding and overly narcissistic. So instead of having a nice, quiet morning of vegetation in front of the computer playing Black & White, I had a twice-hourly phone invasion including demands, complaints, anger, annoyance and plenty of whining. Can I do the shopping? Why has she put on weight again? Oh God she's so down. Can I pick up some cigarettes? Can I go over to the busiest bastard of a shop there is on a Saturday morning and pick up some books? Why is life so mean? She has no money. She has no fun. Can I do this? Can I do that? It's all so horrible. Yada yada yada. Ye gods, depressed people are a pain in the arse.
So, after refusing the majority of the requests and dealing with the ones I was willing to handle, I finally settled down for a bit of time to myself. Never gonna happen. The phone invasion continues. Whine, whine, whine. You know, I sometimes wonder if people who complain so much realise how quickly they alienate their friends. I mean, I'm pretty understanding. No, I'm damned understanding, but I'll be buggered if I'm going to continue caring about someone who just goes on and on about how she's such a victim and life is so cruel.
Fuck you. I know life is cruel: I moved country, I got cheated on and dumped by girlfriends, I fought my way out of more debt than you've seen in your life, I put up with being treated like shit by local authorities and landlords because I'm a foreigner here, I struggle to get by every month because I'm paying your rent, food and every-bloody-other-thing while you go out and spend cash as if it were yours. I've been there and lived it and survived it and I still help you out and listen to you, so stop complaining and get the hell on with your life or go away and die somewhere. Just don't expect me to care when you whine about the same crap for the fifty-seventh time today.
Anyway, after much annoyance and very little relaxation, I wandered off to do the food shopping. Crunch-time, since this is where I would see "Cashier Girlie" again - heck, I wasn't going to avoid her! To be honest, I was surprised at how calm I was upon arrival at her checkout: we chatted for a couple of minutes as usual and she was all smiles and so on. Very pleasant indeed. She said she'd phone that evening.
The evening passed slowly, as one would expect: not only because I was starting to get all jittery in anticipation of finally speaking to this woman outside of the supermarket, but also because Psycho was having a massive depression session and being a really heavy downer (if you'll allow me a hippy expression). Time doesn't really fly when you're spending it with someone whose main topics of conversation are unemployment, suicide and Today's Emotional Crisis™.
In the end, the phone call was pretty short and uneventful. She was tired after a day of work and was rather sleepy, so we just chatted for a few minutes. Her response to my suggestion of going for coffee was very neutral ("Perhaps" and "We'll see" figured heavily), but she did detail what days of the week she works, when she's at University and when she's available. I therefore took her reticence as more of a natural defence against macho bone-jumping assholes, of which there is a gamut here in Paris.
Sunday, however, was a different matter. Sunday mornings are always nice: Psycho sleeps late so I get peace and quiet before the emotional harassment starts, plus I leave my Tae-Bo session til around midday. That way, she phones when I'm in the middle of flinging fists and feet (and getting my legs attacked by Pie, who thinks roundhouse kicks are a game where he has to grab my calves in mid-air) and I don't have to answer for a while longer.
A nice hot bath later and I decided to call "Cashier Girlie", as I had said I would the night before. All in all, we spent about an hour and twenty minutes on the phone... apparently we get on really well. We talked about all sorts of things: food (she was preparing her lunch), family, work, studies, living in France, friends, sports and pretty much anything else you would care to mention (except that).
Her name is Amel, by the way. She's Algerian and came to France to continue her studies. Unfortunately, she's on a student visa which is annually renewed. She has a degree in History and is now studying Political Science - this term she's doing English and Feminism courses, amongst others. She's funny, she's smart and she's single. From the way I read things at the moment, she's defensive about the whole 'potential relationship' thing, playing the game of being friends first, finding out about me and getting to know me better before heading that way, but dropping invitations in that direction as she goes. This suits me just fine, I have to say: talking, laughing and getting to know her is great - anything else scares the willies out of me for the moment!
So, there you have it. Much phoning, a lot of talking and a first step in a very pleasant-looking direction. Life's being good to me, apparently, and I'm paying for it with Psycho. That suits me just fine - hell, I'm used to paying dearly with her.
Another two-day period that flies by almost unnoticed. Why are weekends so short? I mean, during the week I look at the time and it's, for example, 2 p.m. When I look again, it's 3:30. At the weekend, I look once and it's Saturday morning. I look again and it's Sunday evening. That's just not fair.
After the spate of agency visits, I intended to bum around for the rest of the weekend. I had a whole load of TV series and things to watch, an excellent game to play˚ and very few obligations to fulfill.
Saturday afternoon, however, is also food-shopping-time. Since Psycho has an anomaly in her back that prevents her from carrying too much, I pick up the heavy shopping for her - bottles of fruit juice, cat litter and tinned food are all on my list. It's a pain in the arse, to be honest, but since I'm usually headed down to her place for a game of Listen To The Depressive™, I figure I might as well do it as add another thing to her list of official whines¹.
My local FranPrix is large: it's a supermarket chain that's well known here and carries just about everything. It's not as huge as an out-of-town place, of course, but for a shop in the middle of a busy area, it's excellent. Since I'm a regular there, I know most of the people now: the lady who sells L'Itinérant², all the cashiers, the guy who runs the place and the chaps who run the obligatory shoe-repair-and-key-cutting stand at the entrance.
At the moment, there's a young lady working there who's very pleasant. She seems smart, is attractive and has a lovely smile. Obviously, I gravitate towards her queue when it comes to check-out, and chat a little as she shoves boxes of cat food at me. She's at university, studying political science, working and just had her mid-term exams. So we're chatting and she mentions that she gets to study a language next term: German, Spanish or English. She thinks she might take English. Obviously, I suggested that, should she have any problems in my native tongue, she would know who to ask.
And that's where things got a little weird. After I had signed the cheque and packaged everything up, she asked me for my phone number. That's never happened to me before.
So, the way I figure it, this is either not what I'm hoping it is³ or Ragnarok is upon us. Prepare yourselves for the end of the world. Exits are to the front and rear. Please follow the floor-lights to the nearest doorway, where a crew member will throw you into the Abyss. Thank you for your cooperation.
˚ Dominions 2, a strategy game. It looks a bit outdated and has a difficult learning curve, but it's massively underrated by far too many people. My friend in Australia very generously bought it for me... thanks, Andy!
¹ Although some would call me a cynic, I am certain that Psycho actually does maintain a list of official whines. Items are added once the list becomes too small for her to complain at least 80% of the time and are only removed once someone else has been manipulated into taking responsibility for - and dealing with - the situation in her stead. Said list, by the way, is as long as both my arms put end to end, with a few (thousand) centimetres added for good measure.
² L'Itinérant is the magazine of the homeless here in Paris. Much like The Big Issue in the UK, it's intended to help provide a little extra income for people and help motivate them back into becoming an active part of society. My local saleslady is Romanian and very pleasant. She has a pretty daughter, too. Not that I notice these things, of course. Nope, not at all.
³ I'm not entirely sure what I'm hoping for. On the one hand, it'd be nice to hang out with someone, to have a smart, attractive young lady around who thinks I'm the cat's pyjamas. On the other hand, it scares the willies out of me and seems incredibly unlikely.
I was speaking to someone yesterday afternoon about why I am still single. Before going any further, I should point out that you will need to accept the following facts:
a. The person in question was actually interested.
b. The person in question was surprised that I have been single for 'so long'.
c. The person in question is human and is not mentally unstable.
d. I probably don't fit in those last two categories.
Now that we've cleared that up, I can continue. So we were discussing why I'm single and I explained (in French, which was a bit of an adventure) that there were several reasons, not least of which was a lack of desire to have my heart stomped on, beaten upon, pounded, pummeled, shredded, torn out, buried for three months in soft peat and sold as firelighters¹. The obvious counter-argument for this one is that not all relationships are like that. Well, duh. I would never have guessed. Unfortunately, we only learn by experience and all of mine have taught me that this is precisely what happens.
After much discussion, I also explained that I never know whether someone is interested or not. Women simply aren't clear about these thing. The other party, being female, countered that they are. This, of course, is utter tosh and nonsense. What she means by "being clear" is the whole girly-girly romantic flirty crap that women believe shows men that they are obviously interested. I had to set matters straight.
Women are not clear. Women are not obvious. Doing the girly-girly romantic flirty crap (heretofore referred to as "the GGRFC") does not show you are interested: since society teaches females that their most powerful tool is their sexuality, flirting is merely second nature and the expression of a desire that could quite simply be anything. The number of times that nice guys believe a girl is interested because of the GGRFC, only to be told that "I just want to be friends" is incalculable.²
"Clear" means asking the guy if he wants to go for a coffee. "Clear" means asking the guy if he wants to go see a film some time. "Clear" does not mean inviting him to go and grab a coffee and see a film "with a whole bunch of us".
Of course, women rarely do this. Society teaches them that the man does that. It's bad to ask, because you're a tart, a slag if you do. Nonsense. Women want equality (and they're damned right to want it!), but until they start asking guys out as much as they are asked, there will be no true equality in this world. The old roles will remain, Hollywood will continue to vomit such romantic tripe as this (where, of course, the bastard turns out to be changeable to 'really nice' and all the truly nice guys are unattractive geeky assholes) and the women who really do deserve equality will suffer continued sexism thanks to their sisters who are too dumb to realise that you can't have it both ways.
Oh... and until then, I'll be single: I want someone who's my social and intellectual equal, not some dreamy-eyed bimbo who can't string two thoughts together and believes Notting Hill was realistic.
¹ And for my first ever footnote, spot the literary reference about firelighters!
² I should also add that "I just want to be friends" can generally be translated into normal English as "I like you lots, but you're nice/reliable/caring and I wouldn't f*@k you in a million years. I want to be abused by a complete bastard, then come and cry on your shoulder about it."
³ Egad. Three footnotes. Notting Hill is, I should add, an enjoyable film, which is surprising as hell, considering Hugh Grant is in it. Unrealistic, of course, but much fun.
The expression "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" popped into my head last night while I was over at Psycho's place. I had made a blatant mistake during a conversation with her that not only proves I was very tired, but also goes to show that I'm sick to death of lying to her in order to protect her fragile sense of self-worth.
First off, the mistake: I don't remember exactly who we were talking about - I believe it was either an actress or a woman I had seen in the local supermarket (probably the former) - and Psycho asked me if she was prettier than her. I refused to lie, which is obviously an extremely bad move, as any male human will tell you.
This is, to be honest, something I have never really understood with women. I mean, I can understand being offended if someone were to say "You're an ugly old cow and I'd rather spend time smashing my head against broken glass while listening to the Spice Girls than look at your putrid fizzog", for example. What I have greater difficulty comprehending is taking offense when someone says something along the lines of "You are not, objectively speaking, the most beautiful creature ever to exist on the face of this Earth (or any other planet, for that matter) since the dawn of time itself".
If someone were to say that a person they had seen were more attractive than me, I would accept it - yes, even from a girlfriend, wife, mistress or other such person with whom I might be in a relationship (unlikely as that idea may seem, of course, Scary Ross). I'm not exactly Brad Pitt, after all (or Johnny Depp or Keanu Reeves or whoever your favourite actor is). I can be objective: OK, so it's not the nicest thing in the entire universe to tell me this truth, but if I ask you, then I expect to hear it. Women, apparently, do not subscribe to this point of view.
So anyway, I ended up in this awful, no-win discussion with Psycho about the relativity and objectivity of beauty. This discussion, of course, is otherwise known as the "You have no hope of getting out alive unless you bow down before me as the Goddess of Beauty" debate.
Well, she lost. So there. Score one for logic, reason and being a stubborn old bugger.
Of course, this started me thinking about the whole beauty thing. I have to admit that I do not recall ever meeting an ugly woman in my life. Every woman, I believe, has something yummy about them: some obviously have a whole load of yummy things (Winona Ryder springs to mind, as does that woman from the supermarket), while others have fewer, but absolutely no one is truly and completely ugly.
In fact, this point of view springs from an old UK TV series called Brush Strokes about a painter who's a total womaniser. It was something he said in an episode to his non-womanising friend and it struck a chord in me as describing the way I think: "every woman has something beautiful about them".
That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it. This could, come to think of it, be because I'm not exactly pretty: sort of a forlorn hope reflected into my view of others. That's just speculation, though...
Some of you may remember me blathering about a young lady called Francesca some time ago. More recently, I'd lost contact with her again, since I believe she has changed jobs since our last email exchanges and I had heard nothing. I'd searched through old emails, to no avail.
Then, suddenly, a week or so ago she contacted me again: she and her man are to pass through Paris this week! Tonight is the night when I shall see her again. We're all going to go off to a restaurant somewhere and catch up with each other again, minus Psycho. I asked if she'd like to come along, but she doesn't want to - she dislikes 'Cesca quite intensely (for obvious reasons) and thinks that my old friend is aggressive and competitive with her. This is not entirely untrue, but it's also part of her humour: she's quite scathing at times.
I am now less concentrated on my work than I should be. Bah.
I had a really weird dream last night, involving a young lady whose name is Francesca. You'll probably need a bit of background to understand why it's weird. This is going to be a very long entry and an unusually personal one. Avoid it if you don't want to read personal mush that's quite out of character for me.
From the age of eleven, I went to a grammar school in the UK. This was one of those old-style establishments, boys only, high quality of teaching and results. If you've read the entry below, you'll also know that I have four older brothers. Between the ages of eleven and sixteen, therefore, I had no female friends or company. This is not a particularly healthy situation for a timid intellectual type, particularly during the horrors of adolescence.
However, after the age of sixteen (the O-level (Ordinary level) exams, at that time, before they revamped the entire system so everyone could pass), we had the choice of heading off to work or staying on at the school to study A-levels (Advanced level). These define entry to University, where I wanted to go, so I stayed on. Bad choices of subject, though: Physics, Economics and Computers. Guess which is the only one of those that really helped in my life! :)
Now, although the school was for boys only, the counterpart (girls only) didn't do certain subjects, so there was a sort of exchange program for the last two years. There were maybe two or three girls in each year, since I stayed at the all-boys school.
When I hit the last year of school, the two girls in the year behind were both librarians, like me. That's not as dull as it sounds, since the main reasons for doing it were to have access to the librarians' room (useful on cold, wet days - we had no common rooms) and the corrugated-cardboard-tube-fights! These were probably the first two girls (nearly women) I had spoken to for more than five minutes since I became aware that girls were different.
One of them, Francesca, was lovely. She was weird as heck, very intelligent, had wonderful eyes, long dark hair, was slightly round... and I had an enormous crush on her. Of course, I was so shy at that time that I didn't dare say very much to her, but we got along OK, as I did with Catherine, the other girl. Francesca and I even had nicknames for each other, which should really have indicated something to me. She was "Trifle" and called me "Gargoyle". We don't need to go into the reasons for either of those, thank you.
All the librarians got along famously together, so we'd meet outside school occasionally. I believe we all still do as best we can, but several of us live long distances away - Catherine is a missionary in Tanzania, one guy lives in Norway, I live in France and so on. I've always stayed in touch with Catherine, since she lived very near my home in the UK (and both our fathers were very religious), and whenever we're both back home with parents we get together and catch up: she's very smart, very cool and we have this sort of proximity of character that makes for a wonderful friendship. She also happens to have a killer sense of humour and we both enjoy laughing and smiling immensely.
Via Catherine, Francesca managed to get my email address a couple of years ago and we started communicating again. It was great to hear from her. She was still hilarious and wonderful. Long-hidden feelings popped up again (no, Scary Ross, that isn't a metaphor...!!). Anyway, to cut a very long story a little shorter, in the course of the communication, I decided to mention that I'd always had a crush on her. Don't worry, it fitted into the conversation nicely - it wasn't a sledgehammer blow or anything. Bizarrely, she also admitted to having had similar feelings for me, but she always thought that I liked Catherine more.
This is, without a doubt, the most intense feeling of a missed opportunity which could have led to something stupendous that I have ever had in my life. That feeling is still with me, years later. She's with someone now, of course, and it's serious. Major bummer. She even visited Paris, with her young man (who, I should add, is lovely - a rare case of two genuinely nice people finding each other). That, of course, just made the old feelings even worse, but I digress. Also incidentally, Psycho didn't like her at all, which amuses me endlessly.
Anyway, I had a dream with her in it last night. Presumably this is deep-seated feelings of somehow wanting a relationship that are surfacing, since the whole thing was centred around her being single and us tentatively edging together in a very shy and (I hate this word) romantic way. There were some really tender scenes (that I won't go into) which left me with a feeling of longing when I woke up this morning.
So now I'm perturbed. I shall no doubt discuss this in a roundabout way with the psychologists I know and try to discover whether it's a set of feelings directed particularly at her or general feelings of relational emptiness embodied by her presence in the dream. Either way, it's a bitch: I really don't want a relationship, since they just make for unnecessary suffering and pain, and she's unavailable anyway (yes, my big psychological problem is centred around women). It was probably all kicked off by the previous blog entry, which included far too many references to relationships.
I need to get this out of my head.
OK, so this is a risky blog to write, in a way. The risk is my comments list filling up with bile from ladies (or other females) who want to vent. Of course, I don't get many visitors, so I'm probably safe, and I'll also point you all to item number 20 on the list of 100 Things About Me. Here goes.
I seem to be running into an increasingly large number of female-run blogging sites that hate men. Of course, this may be due to the way I search, the fact that they're listed off other blogs I visit or just the effect of the moon at this time of the month. It could also be due to the fact that I am awake at 7:40 on a Sunday morning and I don't know why, but I must admit to finding it somewhat depressing.
A bit of background: being a bit of a feminist at heart and an egalitarian, I have never had any problem with the idea that women should be equal to men in every walk of life (except the obvious things like carrying the babies inside them, which we men simply can't do yet!). I hate macho assholes, condescending males, male chauvinists and their genre. I was brought up to respect people as people, not as genders, and have always stuck to that. I've had male and female bosses, male and female underlings (purely people I supervised, not managed), male and female friends and so on.
I have been the object of sexism, losing jobs to females because they were female, and have swallowed it because it was the early 1990's and the push for equality was a good thing - I felt I was doing my part therein. I work daily with women who are more talented than me, and I recognise this. They are my equals, until they prove themselves better or worse. Simple as that.
A bit of web background: I keep running into comments on "grrl" sites, which I normally enjoy reading for their up-front and sometimes amusingly bitchy commentary on life, that say things like "All men are the same!" and "Tell it like it is, grrl! They're all assholes!" and so on. This is just so sexist and out of date that it gets me down. And the worst? "They all just want one thing!" Could someone please tell me what this one thing is that I'm supposed to want, as (presumably) a representative of the rest of the male population? I mean, I'd hate to choose the wrong thing and disappoint all these women when I say "Well, you know how I just want that one thing and all - so where's my DVD writer, bitch?"
And if it's supposed to be sex that is the one thing I want, well - it's been so long since I had sex or even cared about having sex that I've forgotten what it smells like, let alone what it feels like.
How would female readers feel if I were to post a blog about a girlfriend being a total bitch, a total princess who I did everything for and she didn't appreciate it one bit? Or that one of my friends slept with two guys in the same month and was a tart, a ho, a heartless cow? If I had comments added by a bunch of macho assholes that I was "telling it like it is" and that "all ho's are the same"? I would expect to see my site swamped by feminist complaints, and rightly so! Now, I understand that it was trendy for a while to do the reverse-sexism thing, much like the reverse-racism thing had its moment, but please: we're in 2003 now! This time has passed. Move on. Get a grip. Stop blanket-insulting genders, races and whole groups of people because you had a bad experience.
So please, as a caring male who really isn't an asshole and really doesn't want just one thing in life, I'm asking nicely: stop being a bitch because it's trendy. Stop treating males as if we're all the same. Bitch about the individual, by all means, but not all of us. That's just pathetic self-justification via the criticism of others and will earn you contempt, not the trendy praise you seek.
[P.S. Yes, I know that having a 'women' category reduces the effectiveness of this complaint. I have a 'men' category, too. I simply chose that title because this post is intended for a female audience, not because it covers anything gender-specific that could be seen as tarring all women with the same brush. So there. Nyer. *chuckle*]