school; LJ ppl; men
Mar. 3rd, 2006 04:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
verushka70LJ is keeping me sane through this hell known as nursing school. I have now been pushed, prodded, nominated and all but voted in as president of the student nursing club. No joy. I doubt there's been a less interested presidential candidate, but, this year's club is really sucky, so if I can do anything to improve it, that's my main goal. I wasn't even going to do it but people keep pushing me. I had this sudden sinking feeling last semester one day, when it suddenly dawned on me, "Oh. My. God. Nursing school is going to change my life... it's going to change me... am I okay with this??" and the answer is still, "I don't know... just go with the flow." I may not have supreme confidence on my abilities to lead, but I am pretty sure I can do a better job than the present clowns in charge. There are so many little ways to help the nursing students that old folks like me can start -- like, just having a computer workshop once a month, to show people how to do certain things the instructors expect them to know for the online coursework... and they don't know how to do. So, we'll see... I'm still secretly hoping that I won't get elected, but it's looking like a done deal and people keep coming up to me and saying, "You'd be perfect for this!". Riiiight...
Anyway, LJ ppl are way cool. So way cool that I am about to get copies of both Dance Me Outside and Love Crimes Of Gillian Guess. Serious Hugh Dillon eye candy... if the screen cap and trailers are anything to go by. And I won't get it until after the pathophysiology of cardiac conditions exam, so I won't be too distracted.
Men. Y'know, when you send an email to someone on Tuesday asking "Do you have more-than-platonic feelings for me?"... you expect some kind of answer by Friday. Esp when you put checkboxes in the email: Yes, No, Maybe (But I'm Seeing Someone), Maybe (But Aren't You Seeing Someone?).
How hard can this be? Hit "Reply", type X next to the appropriate answer, and click "Send". It's not fucking rocket science! Not a lot of thinking involved here. If he had to think about it this long, the answer is obviously "No" and it would be so much easier if he'd just say that. I'm a big girl, I can take it, just give it to me straight. I'm gonna send him an email this weekend saying just that: Dude, it's okay, stop stressing: if you had to think about it for this long, the answer is obviously No, and I'm okay with that... Now back to our regularly scheduled bachelor and bachelorette lives, which include getting together to see movies and occasionally (when I'm not in school) smoking way too much pot. I mean, I'll move on, set my sights on someone else; I already got a line on another guy who expressed interest in my online profile from like 2 years ago. (This makes me sound like (a) either I'm constantly prowling or (b) some kind of raving beauty, when in fact I am neither because I haven't got the time or the genetics. I'm just... comfortable with myself I guess. And I'm 38, so I don't really give a shit what people think anymore; I have appetites, I have likes, I pursue them or send out feelers. Chips fall where they may. I can't take everything personally anymore because it's so often not, I've come to realize.
So, whatever. Men. Just step up to the plate and spit it out. For God's sake, he's almost 40, and I'm right behind him. You'd think two people this old would have it together enough to be blunt about their likes/dislikes or whether or not they've carnally thought about each other. Well, I do... but apparently he doesn't. Sigh. Whatever.
update: So he calls me. Tuesday 3/7. Exactly 1 week after I'd originally emailed him asking him if he'd had more-than-platonic thoughts of me. We chat superficially. I wish him a happy birthday after he tells me it is his birthday. He does not mention the email I sent. I do not mention them nor do I mention the fact that he never responded. We get off the phone. I am bewildered as ever, but apparently we are still (platonic?!? who knows!) friends.
Oh, and the online guy who responded to my profile? Fucking married.
Men, here's the thing: some of us are not clueless, born-yesterday idiots. When you ask "Do you live by yourself?" before you've even met us (but we've traded pictures with you), and when you ONLY send/receive email related to singles activities or dating between 9am and 5pm, we can tell that you're married because only married guys need to find out before they meet the chick if she lives alone (because they have to go to her place, they can never bring a "date" home to their own because of their wife) and only married guys read online personals at work between 9am and 5pm, whereas single men cruise online personals 24/7, especially in the evening when there's no boss checking what they're doing.
But I really freaked this guy out when I told him that I noticed he only sent his emails from Motorola during the 9-5 workday. Apparently he did not know that in the long header information of every email sent, there is the originating IP address... and one can easily do a reverse-lookup (I love http://www.network-tools.com/ to determine where it came from originally, before it got to Hotmail or Yahoo or wherever.
I mean, hey, if he wants to fuck around on his wife, that's their business. Far be it from me to moralize about it; if I'd married my one ex-bf from about 6 years ago, I'd probably have cheated on him after a couple of years, because he was very big on the withholding of sex (not to mention having erectile problems for which he refused to seek treatment or take Viagra, and which he them tried to blame on me despite the fact that he was the only bf I'd had in my entire history of bfs who had a constant (and pre-existing) erectile problem).
And I don't play that -- ANY of that. I don't do it myself, so I don't expect it done to me. I'm a very scratch-my-back-&-I'll-scratch-yours kind of person. But I just don't date married men. I don't need the bad karma. And I resent their double-dipping. Y'know? "You've got a chick at home -- go fuck her, don't try to fuck other women who have no designated man. And if your at-home partner won't give it up, then do the honest thing, and get rid of her and find one who will." Is it really worth it to stay with someone who refuses to give you sex if it makes you miserable and you become a shittier person for it? Not in my book.
Now, I could be very French about it, and just be all c'est la vie. Except with the difference that I'm not living in France. And I just try not to do things that I don't want done to me. I could've married someone with whom I was totally sexually incompatible, but I didn't. I didn't because I didn't want that miserable kind of marriage because women have conjugal rights, too, and I plan on exercising mine when I'm married. And I knew it would be impossible and I'd cheat on him because he would withhold sex, and then if I was cheating on him, what would be the point of being married to him? If I'm fucking someone else? So however they do things in France, I just don't see the point of that.
And I resent married people dating single people anyway. It's not fair to us single people. (Unless, of course, you're one of those single people who wants a lover who is already committed to a spouse, so they won't be breathing down your neck constantly... like Samantha on Sex And The City. I mean, I understood her POV, I just don't want to do that myself.)
But the point was, if you are married and you want to mess around, just be fucking honest about it. Say you are a MWM, not a SWM. Explain that you're looking for discreet fun, rather than a LTR or "fun & romance." Don't, in any way, give the false impression that you're true boyfriend material capable of making a commitment. Just let us know what the story is so those of us who are not interested in the bad karma can steer clear.
But of course that would be asking too much. Of most humans, not just men. Honesty's not particularly prized. At least, not in this culture. I mean, look at Enron. Look at our president.
Anyway, LJ ppl are way cool. So way cool that I am about to get copies of both Dance Me Outside and Love Crimes Of Gillian Guess. Serious Hugh Dillon eye candy... if the screen cap and trailers are anything to go by. And I won't get it until after the pathophysiology of cardiac conditions exam, so I won't be too distracted.
Men. Y'know, when you send an email to someone on Tuesday asking "Do you have more-than-platonic feelings for me?"... you expect some kind of answer by Friday. Esp when you put checkboxes in the email: Yes, No, Maybe (But I'm Seeing Someone), Maybe (But Aren't You Seeing Someone?).
How hard can this be? Hit "Reply", type X next to the appropriate answer, and click "Send". It's not fucking rocket science! Not a lot of thinking involved here. If he had to think about it this long, the answer is obviously "No" and it would be so much easier if he'd just say that. I'm a big girl, I can take it, just give it to me straight. I'm gonna send him an email this weekend saying just that: Dude, it's okay, stop stressing: if you had to think about it for this long, the answer is obviously No, and I'm okay with that... Now back to our regularly scheduled bachelor and bachelorette lives, which include getting together to see movies and occasionally (when I'm not in school) smoking way too much pot. I mean, I'll move on, set my sights on someone else; I already got a line on another guy who expressed interest in my online profile from like 2 years ago. (This makes me sound like (a) either I'm constantly prowling or (b) some kind of raving beauty, when in fact I am neither because I haven't got the time or the genetics. I'm just... comfortable with myself I guess. And I'm 38, so I don't really give a shit what people think anymore; I have appetites, I have likes, I pursue them or send out feelers. Chips fall where they may. I can't take everything personally anymore because it's so often not, I've come to realize.
So, whatever. Men. Just step up to the plate and spit it out. For God's sake, he's almost 40, and I'm right behind him. You'd think two people this old would have it together enough to be blunt about their likes/dislikes or whether or not they've carnally thought about each other. Well, I do... but apparently he doesn't. Sigh. Whatever.
update: So he calls me. Tuesday 3/7. Exactly 1 week after I'd originally emailed him asking him if he'd had more-than-platonic thoughts of me. We chat superficially. I wish him a happy birthday after he tells me it is his birthday. He does not mention the email I sent. I do not mention them nor do I mention the fact that he never responded. We get off the phone. I am bewildered as ever, but apparently we are still (platonic?!? who knows!) friends.
Oh, and the online guy who responded to my profile? Fucking married.
Men, here's the thing: some of us are not clueless, born-yesterday idiots. When you ask "Do you live by yourself?" before you've even met us (but we've traded pictures with you), and when you ONLY send/receive email related to singles activities or dating between 9am and 5pm, we can tell that you're married because only married guys need to find out before they meet the chick if she lives alone (because they have to go to her place, they can never bring a "date" home to their own because of their wife) and only married guys read online personals at work between 9am and 5pm, whereas single men cruise online personals 24/7, especially in the evening when there's no boss checking what they're doing.
But I really freaked this guy out when I told him that I noticed he only sent his emails from Motorola during the 9-5 workday. Apparently he did not know that in the long header information of every email sent, there is the originating IP address... and one can easily do a reverse-lookup (I love http://www.network-tools.com/ to determine where it came from originally, before it got to Hotmail or Yahoo or wherever.
I mean, hey, if he wants to fuck around on his wife, that's their business. Far be it from me to moralize about it; if I'd married my one ex-bf from about 6 years ago, I'd probably have cheated on him after a couple of years, because he was very big on the withholding of sex (not to mention having erectile problems for which he refused to seek treatment or take Viagra, and which he them tried to blame on me despite the fact that he was the only bf I'd had in my entire history of bfs who had a constant (and pre-existing) erectile problem).
And I don't play that -- ANY of that. I don't do it myself, so I don't expect it done to me. I'm a very scratch-my-back-&-I'll-scratch-yours kind of person. But I just don't date married men. I don't need the bad karma. And I resent their double-dipping. Y'know? "You've got a chick at home -- go fuck her, don't try to fuck other women who have no designated man. And if your at-home partner won't give it up, then do the honest thing, and get rid of her and find one who will." Is it really worth it to stay with someone who refuses to give you sex if it makes you miserable and you become a shittier person for it? Not in my book.
Now, I could be very French about it, and just be all c'est la vie. Except with the difference that I'm not living in France. And I just try not to do things that I don't want done to me. I could've married someone with whom I was totally sexually incompatible, but I didn't. I didn't because I didn't want that miserable kind of marriage because women have conjugal rights, too, and I plan on exercising mine when I'm married. And I knew it would be impossible and I'd cheat on him because he would withhold sex, and then if I was cheating on him, what would be the point of being married to him? If I'm fucking someone else? So however they do things in France, I just don't see the point of that.
And I resent married people dating single people anyway. It's not fair to us single people. (Unless, of course, you're one of those single people who wants a lover who is already committed to a spouse, so they won't be breathing down your neck constantly... like Samantha on Sex And The City. I mean, I understood her POV, I just don't want to do that myself.)
But the point was, if you are married and you want to mess around, just be fucking honest about it. Say you are a MWM, not a SWM. Explain that you're looking for discreet fun, rather than a LTR or "fun & romance." Don't, in any way, give the false impression that you're true boyfriend material capable of making a commitment. Just let us know what the story is so those of us who are not interested in the bad karma can steer clear.
But of course that would be asking too much. Of most humans, not just men. Honesty's not particularly prized. At least, not in this culture. I mean, look at Enron. Look at our president.