Rebuffing the Rebuttal

I've been keeping my little collection of essays, rants and stories almost two years. In those two years, the only negative response has been from "Hostess" of the story that started it all. It all began when I thought on my way home from Minnesota that she probably thought of me as being roughly as vile as a professional kitten puncher. When I thought of the phrase "professional kitten puncher", I knew I had to find a way to share it with the world. I shared not only the phrase, but the story of the weekend that spawned it. She got pissed. People, it seems, often object to the way others perceive them, especially when that perception is particularly unflattering.

For my part, when I become aware of a perception of me that doesn't mesh with my own self-image, I go through something of a four step process:

Step One: Surprise...sometimes.

Step Two: Try to understand what I'm doing that could create such a perception.

Step Three: Decide if I really give a shit. If yes, proceed to step four.

Step Four: Make adjustments for the sake of bettering myself.

For many others, I find that really it's a two-step process. For them, the steps are as follows:

Step One: Get pissed

Step Two: Yell at the person for their perception with the ultimate goal of making them apologize for violating your self-image.

The subconscious psychology behind this process is as clever as it is dysfunctional. It operates on the premise that if you can guilt trip them into apologizing, then they have indirectly forfeited their claim to being right. Thus, you get to avoid going through the emotional effort and cognitive dissonance of changing, regardless of whether they were right in the first place.

"Ok Beav," you say, "you were a psych major. We get it. Where are you going with this?" Well, for the second time in history, the critics have spoken. My surprise factor equals zero, because I knew as soon I set out to write my latest entry that there would be responses from both the girls mentioned.

I awoke today to an IM from the second girl mentioned in my most recent entry. God love her, she was mature and levelheaded and offered an explanation, an apology, and even a scenario of how she could have done things better. She said she hoped I wasn't still mad, even though I can guarantee she already knew I wasn't. I forgave her. While it was frustrating at the time, I'm not going to hold a grudge. We can now both consider the matter closed and continue to be friends. In the future, I'm sure we'll joke about it. This is the type of thing guys mean when they describe a girl as "cool as fuck." I also discovered, however, that I had some feedback under the "comments" section of my blog page...

Anonymous said...

You know I always had the notion that you were an ass, but now you've expressly made it clear.

The first story you get mad because she thinks with her nether regions says she wants to have sex, without thinking. You're so fucking sex driven that you act all pissy as if she agreed to hand you a million dollars and took it back - wtf? It's just sex. She spoke too soon, you asked if she was sure, (which by the way was the right thing to do) and she this time used her brain. You don't like to get teased; no one does, but it wasn't blantant teasing. It was thinking it over. So she shouldn't have spoke too soon, but why would you put so much stock in to that? Why do mostly all your blog entries deal with you getting laid or lack thereof and your self-worth macho-ness revolving around it? The second story the girl was all wrong. Things should have been implicitly said so no mix ups. But getting as angry as you demonstrated is so fucking stupid. You're so wrapped up in getting laid or not. Empty shit. "not such a bad guy" that was a shock to you?

When I read shit like this, a big grin makes its way across my face. Thank you, no, it wasn't a shock. I've encountered thousands of different females in my lifetime, and I've hooked up with less than 0.1% of them. I'm actually quite used to it. All guys are.

I'd give everyone two guesses of who probably wrote that, but that would be insulting the intelligence of the average reader. What the hell, let's believe for fun that it actually was just somebody else who was not a character in the story and just read the entry, and decided to up and sympathize with girl number one. That having been established, let me add a term to our psych lesson. That term is self fulfilling prophecy.

A self fulfilling prophecy is a declaration or scenario that by its nature goes on to ensure its own validity. My favorite example is the fight that we've all either had or seen another couple have. It starts with the girl uttering those fateful words, "Are you mad at me?" The guy then responds (with complete honesty) that he is not mad. The girl then proceeds to not take his word for it and badger him about being mad. Eventually the badgering itself along with the lack of willingness on her part to believe him makes him mad. Once he expresses his newly generated anger the girl says something along the lines of, "See? You are mad! I knew it!"

Also an example is taking the attitude of "I can't do this" about something and then purposely half-assing or just flat out failing basically for the sake of being right. You have fulfilled your own prophecy. The term is also often applied in the context of putting labels on people.

In my case, it has been prophesied that I am an ass. Oh yeah? Well, if you want to cast me in that role, I'm more than capable of playing it...

I have to laugh when I'm lambasted by people who lack a leg to stand on. The main criticism I endure in this "comment" is that my life revolves around sex. The justification given for this is that "mostly all" of my entries are about sex. Poor grammar of that accusation aside, I have written a total of 49 entries. 12 of them involve my sexual identity and/or goings-on as a major theme. That's about 24.48%. If you get a 24.48% on an exam, you did not get "mostly all" of the questions right. In fact, you're not even close to passing your class...and it's probably a math class.

Be that as it may, let's say for the sake of argument that a 12 of my 49 stories being about sex is an unusually high number. Why is 1/4 of my life pure, uncut sex? Why am I such a nymphomaniac? Why do I spend 6 hours of every day trying to get my rocks off? Quite simply, I don't. 1/4 of my stories are about sex, but my body of work does not represent the entirety of my body of living. I only write the stories and essays that I think people might actually want to read.

Don't hold your breath for the blog about the time I unloaded the dishwasher, the story of my night spent playing computer games or an in-depth analysis of what it means to take the dog for a walk. Nobody cares. We all have at least a handful of friends (probably on myspace) who write "blogs" that consist purely of the trite shit they did with their day and a little emoticon to represent their mood. It reads something like, "Today I went to lunch with joanie we went to arbys and i had one of their deli wraps cuz it's lo fat. i thout it would be bad but it was soooo good!! i saw the cuuuuutest dress at this store. i was like joanie isn't that the cutest dress. she was like ya. i wanted it but i didn't get it :'( "

I read literary abominations like this and I think, "Today I read your 'blog.' After I had stumbled through the misspellings, incorrect grammar, punctuation that was either lacking or inappropriate to the sentence type, and total absence of compelling content, I wanted to stab you repeatedly through the hand so that you can't type ever again! You owe me back five minutes of my life." When I first set out to create a blog, I made a promise to myself and to anyone who would ever care enough to read it that I wouldn't waste my time or theirs by writing about boring crap. I write about things that are funny or ridiculous, or otherwise worth reading. I write about sex, fights, relationship drama and major turning points in my life. People care about that stuff. Don't believe me? Break down the typical plot of any successful TV comedy or drama.

Hence, when a life event of mine falls into one of those "interesting" categories, I might write it down. I don't spend all my time being zany or chasing ass. If that's what people want to believe...hey, whatever floats your boat. If it's easy for you believe that about me, then odds are I don't trust you enough to have ever shown you how I really am behind the overconfident facade in the first place. Everyone has his defense mechanisms to prevent people from taking advantage of him. This blog contains a fantastic catalogue of mine. People with a strong sexual identity are intimidating to a lot of other people. Being intimidating is useful.

That's point one. Point two amuses me on levels that I frequently forget I have. "...you act all pissy as if she agreed to hand you a million dollars and took it back - wtf? She spoke too soon, you asked if she was sure, (which by the way was the right thing to do) and she this time used her brain. You don't like to get teased; no one does, but it wasn't blantant teasing."

I don't know where to begin with this statement. Let's not even address the insinuation that this was million dollar pussy. No such thing. Given a choice between money and sex, the amount needed to sway me would probably be in the low hundreds. Moving along, though...how is that not blatant teasing? Last I checked, teasing was leading somebody to believe that you want a piece and then not following through. All the elements seem to be there, so which part of the equation am I forgetting? I guess it's not as ridiculously comical as the time she once told me that if it snowed outside she'd have sex with me, but at least that time each of us was mostly sure she was kidding.

The last argument I consider worth addressing takes a big home-run swing at the point of the whole story and strikes out.

"You're so wrapped up in getting laid or not."

I didn't give a shit about the sex in the first, middle, or last place. Was I willing? Sure, but frankly my interest in the matter was inversely proportionate to my total number of other options. She, meanwhile, couldn't keep her mouth shut about how badly she thought I wanted to fuck her. The point of the story was never that I didn't get laid, it was that there was a widely agreed upon violation of hookup etiquette. I even did research and gathered multiple opinions from multiple females who in theory could or should be sympathetic this girl's cause. They were not sympathetic. Not a one. In the world of hooking up, clarity and promise keeping are absolute musts. Unfortunately tact tends to put a ceiling on clarity beyond a certain point, so the promises become implicit, but people still know how the script is supposed to play out. Spur-of-the-moment mind changing is a violation of the implicit promise, and is punishable by unfavorable reaction from the other involved party.

Regardless of whether you're willing or unwilling to have sex with a person, you know that before any clothes ever come off. There is no such thing as thinking with your "nether regions" for a limited period of time, because we all know who is really in charge. Either your brain runs the show or your genitals do. If you claim that the balance of power ever shifts, you're lying to yourself. You're either ok with fucking or you're not. There's nothing wrong with either option, but when you fail to be honest with yourself and others about it, problems ensue.

If I choose to start messing around with somebody, I'm not doing it with the idea that we're only just going to kinda mess around a little bit. If I'm not into her, then I'm not into her. If I'm into her then I'm willing to be, pardon the pun, into her. I refuse to believe that anyone legitimately endorses a "decide-on-the-fly" philosophy, and I'm sure as hell not going to tell her I want to do something and then decide I no longer feel that way scant seconds later.

Long story a little shorter than it could be, there is one bottom line to the whole scenario:

1) The journey of hooking up is one-way. You either go or you don't. If you decide you want to stop and turn around, don't be surprised if the rest of the people along on that one-way trip are irritated. To draw another parallel, if you go into a restaurant even though you're not hungry, order something because you think it looks good for a second and then don't eat it, they still get to charge you for the food. That's how it fucking works, because it's a restaurant. Hookups have rules, too and they're well established. If you don't like them and won't follow them then don't hook up. Hold out for a relationship. Failing that, shut the hell up. Failing that, make sure to gather your facts so that you're not setting yourself up to look like a moron when you choose to be so *courageously*, anonymously outspoken.

Chivalry Be Damned, I'm Not Taking This Shit

3/25/06
2:00 PM

I am talking to the other members of my improv comedy troupe about the concept of making implicit promises to an audience. The upshot of the speech is not to establish too many "problems" in a scene or reference too many other events because then the audience wants to see the event or witness the resolution of the problem onstage. If we don't do that, we've broken our implicit promise to the audience. People don't like it when you break promises, implicit or explicit.

Weeks Ago, Late at Night

I'm in bed with a girl, and we’re kissing. Usually it's not like this between us, but sometimes it kinda is. Tonight it definitely is. Things are transitioning somewhere between the "making out" and "foreplay" stages. Certain items of clothing are missing. Breathing is heavy, pulses and blood alcohol levels are high. She looks me in the eyes...

"I want this."

I look back at her with tangible surprise, because it's never like this. By I want "this" she means sex, which has been a much discussed topic between us and has seemed like an inevitability, but which also to this point has proven remarkably evitable indeed.

"Yeah?"

She looks back at me. I can see her start to really think about it.

5 seconds pass.

She shakes her head "no."

Despite the fact that the male in me cannot fathom going from wanting to get laid to not wanting to get laid without an orgasm in between, I react understandingly. I take it lying down...literally. Actually, I'm not surprised. This is not the first time things have gotten sexual between us only to come to a screeching halt. Now she just wants me to hold her. She has no idea how the male brain works, obviously.

I settle in and go to sleep, but somewhere in the back of my mind my inner monologue is absolutely furious at me. I can almost hear it screaming, "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!? WHO DOES THAT?!? WHAT A GIRL THING TO DO!!!! Let me get this straight, she just said she wanted to have sex, and then not 10 seconds later said that she didn't?!? Are you Goddamn kidding me?!? You're a sick fuck, lady. You're a sick fuck and I think that actually you did that just to see if you could get a rise out of me, *pardon the pun*. Fuck this. This is ridiculous. If you don't want to then fine, but don't fucking say you want to then! This is bullshit, do you hear me? You, guy, need to do something about this. I don't know what, but something must be done, do you hear me?!? Don't go to sleep! HEY! YOU FUCKING LISTEN TO ME FOR ONCE!!!!"

I go to sleep, and we cuddle. Just before I drift off my inner monologue says, "You're a shadow of what you used to be. I hope you know that. You're past your peak, buddy, and you're plummeting down the sexual hill. You wouldn't have put up with this at 20."

I get home the next day and the girls are in the kitchen making lunch. I seek out their female opinion on the subject of what happened the night prior. After they get the story, I am informed that this, in fact, is not a "girl thing to do." It's not a thing to do at all, in their opinions. To my surprise, they're more outraged than I am about the whole incident. They tell me that they haven't ever pulled a move like that, and that furthermore they wouldn't. I'm not sure I believe them, but at least they're not mincing words.

This is all news to me, but I don't consider my roommates to be the stereotypical "girly" girls, so I take their opinions with a couple grains of salt and seek out some more opinions from some more girls. To a man, or rather, a woman, they say the same thing: "That's bullshit." One of my friends even tells me she'd have gotten up and left then and there. She says she'd be pissed if a guy did that to her...but no straight guy would ever do that. Not even to an ugly girl. Where was I? Oh yeah, opinions...

I am astounded. Here I'd thought all along that when a girl gets her second X chromosome it comes with the irrevocable right to be completely fickle at all times and in all arenas and get away with it. Turns out I was wrong. The girls have spoken, and they see pretty much eye-to-eye with guys on this one. If you're gonna tell somebody you want some sex, then dammit, you'd better let them give you some sex. If you're not gonna have sex with them, then don't say shit. End of discussion.

I take my newfound surprise and I let it marinate for a couple weeks. The new flavor, I find, is a lot angrier than the original after the couple weeks. I'm not mad at her per se, but more mad at myself for believing that I had to allow this to happen. I had no idea I was allowed to be pissed! I'm pissed that I didn't get pissed before! I didn't know I didn't have to take this shit, and now I've got some catching up to do. Worse yet, she now takes opportunities to take jabs at me under the assumption that I'm just dying to fuck her and she's the powerful gatekeeper who gets to decide whether or not I get let in, if you will.

With each jab, I see less humor, and the more I think about it, I'm generally not in the mood to be some metaphorical puppy jumping and scratching at the door. Fuck that, it's not so bad outside. I may be ridiculous in a lot of respects, but I do hold certain degrees of pride and dignity. Additionally, there are upsides to being unattached. If I sleep alone I can stay up as late as I like, sleep as late as I like and do dumb guy things like play computer games and look at porn. I’ll grant you, my computer isn't much for cuddling, but it always does what it sets out to do and to this day it has never once given me blue balls. I decide not to force the issue, to cut down drastically on my nights spent at her place, and to not let the whole thing get to me. My anger subsides, and eventually I decide I'm over it. This, I'm sure, has been the exception and not the rule of hooking up. Things will go more smoothly in the future, right? Yeah, well, don't count your chickens before they hatch.

3/25
3:00 AM

I've been partying in Omaha with my friends for most of the night. There is more beer than we can possibly drink, there are games, and there is a jolly crew assembled. Notably, one of my best friends is back in town for a week. Hence, this is a party that I'm enjoying and a party that features people I would like to spend time around, all things being equal. That being said, those who know me know that few things are equal to sex (especially good sex) in my book. Also, let the record show that lots of other people share that opinion. Anyhow, also present at this party is a particular girl. This particular girl and I have particularly fucked on several occasions, and it has been particularly good. Beyond that, really. It has been wild, wake-the-neighbors, dude-what-the-hell-were-you-doing-to-her-in-there sex. Let me frame our history for you:

We met very briefly at a frat house in Ames while I was up visiting my friend Darnkness at ISU. She proceeded to get puking drunk and I proceeded to do other things so I did not see her for the rest of the night. Not long after, she came to an apartment party in Lincoln. We were playing strip poker. She ended up naked, and I ended up massaging her shoulders. Through beer, all things are possible. Scant hours later, she ended up in my bed and we both ended up naked. At the time, she did not know my name. For the record, I knew hers.

Spring break shortly followed, and we drank like fish and fucked like bunnies. You might say that we developed a “friends with benefits” relationship. In fact, we never spent the night together and failed to have sex except for two occasions: On the first occasion, she was on her period. On the second occasion, she spent most of the night dry heaving into a bucket, and I had a girlfriend anyhow.

Why do I tell you all this? I tell you all this to illustrate that it was clearly been “like that” between us, and for quite some time. It seems that tonight, it is still “like that”, because she’s letting slip with some fairly suggestive commentary, as well as some pretty suggestive dancing. This is why I have particular expectations when it gets to be about 3:30 in the morning and she makes a point of telling me a couple different times that she's going home. I study her for a moment and say, “You’re going home alone…or you’re telling me because I’m supposed to come with you?” She replies that I am welcome to come home with her…and that's all I need to hear. I bid farewell to my friends at the party and follow her the many miles back to her apartment, even though neither of us really should be driving.

Since I had planned on staying at my friends’ house, I’ve brought a toothbrush, so I brush away my beer breath and go to the bathroom. By the time I finish, she has changed into shorts and a t-shirt. This strikes me as a little odd…but girls often wear uncomfortable things out for the sake of looking “cute”, so I don’t think much of it when they want to change into something else. She gets into bed, and I strip down to boxers and follow suit, because I’ll be damned if I’m dealing with the pretense of getting into bed with jeans and a tight shirt on. Being drunk and horny, I attempt to get things started.

She then tells me she’s tired and she’s going to sleep because she has an interview in the morning. I think she’s joking. I commence with the second effort.

She then tells me she’s seriously tired and she’s seriously going to sleep. I again think she’s joking, and that this is one of those games of “who wants more than whom” that some girls so love to play. Evidently I have to chase a bit. I commence with the third effort, which is much more direct than the previous two.

She then comes back at me with “No, seriously, I’m fucking tired. You’re not getting any tonight. I have an interview in like 5 hours and I'm going to sleep.” I now cannot believe this is seriously happening. Who the hell invites somebody back to their place and then throws years of precedent out the window for the sake of gaining (at most) an extra hour of sleep? Like the difference between 4:00 AM and 5:00 AM is really gonna give you the edge in that interview? Sorry, but if you cared that much about your precious interview you’d have left the party before 3:30 in the first place. I strongly suspect that the real reason she won't lay me is that she has moved in with her sister and they're just not at that stage of closeness yet where it's cool if little sis is awakened just before dawn by the sounds of her champion screamer of a big sister in the throes of multiple orgasms.

Suddenly, here comes all that back-rage that I thought I was over. This is bullshit, and the dam has broken. The waters of anger that have stood placid for so many years as I respected and even defended the actions of so many girls who sent mixed (if not totally backwards) messages are now rushing forth in a torrent of indignation. My conscience attempts to tell me that it’s ok and I could just roll over and go to sleep, but my temper has been sparked, and now it’s clear that this girl going to get to watch me exorcise all the ghosts of teases past.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
“What?”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me. You bring me all the fucking way back here and you’re just gonna fucking go to sleep? Go to sleep by yourself! You don’t need me here to sleep!”

I get out of bed and start dressing. I’ve turned the other cheek plenty of times, but if I’m gonna respect myself, I won’t stand for this shit. Not this flagrantly. Not now.

“Oh, what so now you’re seriously gonna get pissed and leave because I won’t give you a piece of ass?” This from the girl who once expressed disappointment in me for not turning around and driving back once I'd reached Gretna because I actually left Omaha without calling her to hook up when she'd been playing the "I don't want you" game all night.

“You’re GOD DAMN right I am! What the hell did you invite me back for if you’re just going to sleep? Who does that?!?”
“I never said I was gonna give you any if you came back here, I just said you could come if you wanted to.” This one kills me. It is much akin to getting arrested for going into a bank with a gun and then telling the cop, "What?!? I never said I was gonna rob the bank..."

“Oh fuck that. Don’t you try to pull that shit with me. Nobody ever says that shit, it's implicit. You know how this works. You’ve had enough hookups to know that is total bullshit. You don’t take somebody home with you for sleep, especially not from a party. When have we ever just slept? Those were my good friends and I could still be there hanging out with them, but I came back here because you talked all that shit all night and then you kept giving me the ‘I’m going home…’ and waiting to see how I was gonna react. If you’re tired then be tired and go home by yourself and go to sleep. I’m leaving.”

As I get dressed, the argument continues, and I use the word “implicit” a lot. She tries to get mad at me for being mad, but I can see in her eyes that she knows she has violated the hookup codes and is only forcing herself to act mad to save face. As soon as I have my shoes tied, I grab my stuff and I leave.

As I drive back to my friends’ house, I wonder why I chose this time to get pissed about the situation and not all the others, and I realize that it was all about expectations. This was not a girl I’d never been with, and it was not a girl who had never been in a situation like this. This particular scenario was absolutely teeming with precedent and implicit promises. Even just going home alone after being so flirtatious might have fallen a little under the “not cool” category, but inviting someone back after all the flirting and then trying to just go to sleep definitely lands in the realm of the unacceptable.

I couldn’t get mad about the time a different girl once replied to my attempt to unbutton her jeans with the words, “No, I’m such a virgin, you don’t understand.” You just can’t get mad at that…I mean, you can, but you shouldn’t. The best you can do in that situation is keep from laughing (which I somehow did) and find a way to tactfully wind things down and go to sleep before you lead her to do something she didn’t really want to do and wind up with a scared, sobbing virgin on your hands. In that case, tactful escaped me and I followed immediately with, “…yeah, maybe we should just go to sleep then” but the end result was the same. The point of the story is that I didn't push her to do something she wasn't ok with. In the new case, though, I’m pretty sure that leaving was the thing to do. It sure as hell felt a lot better than choking back my pride and engaging in grudging cuddling, that’s for sure. As they saying goes, "a leopard doesn't change its spots." In my case perhaps more fittng would be, "if a leopard is going to try to change its spots, it should not do so at 4:00 in the morning after acting like a damn leopard all night, and if it does you're allowed to be pissed off."

I get back to my friends’ house and vent to those present. They unanimously agree that what transpired was utterly ridiculous and while ballsy, leaving was not a bad choice of actions. Eventually I settle down on the couch and let sleep overtake me. As I drift off, my inner monologue starts a slow clap that turns into a round of thunderous applause from all the parts of me that have ever been disappointed when I let a girl walk all over me. There is a clap for every blow-off, brush-off, tease and copped attitude. The ovation makes for a sweet, sweet lulabye, and I sleep the sleep of the just all through the night.