Boosting morale and apparently also your dick

So, hey, Creepy Guy From Another Office in my Building to Whom I’ve Only Ever Said ‘Hi’ in a Small Talky Sense…

I have not “been on a diet.”

I have not “lost weight.”

I DO “look good,” but it’s pretty gross that you said ALL that while passing me in the hall. I realize I can’t get you to stop appraising my body, but it’d be SUPER great if you could stop reporting your findings aloud.

Worse, I said “Thank you,” because I’m an asshole, and am now wondering what kind of goddamn hambeast I looked like before. (I look fine, it’s just my dress — sundresses are very kind to my body.)

By the way, yes, I do think I’d be this pissy if it were an attractive man who said it. Because you brought my weight AND dieting into your “compliment,” implying my weight until today had been somehow suboptimal. So fuck you twice-baked.

P.S. By the way, dicknuts — depression, anxiety, and stress can also cause weight loss. In my case, so can being on drugs that screw with your appetite and hopefully prevent you from going crazy. But hey, I’m thrilled I’m able give you your Monday lunchtime semi. I’ll go find out who I speak to about adding “fluffer” to my business card.

We’re both too awkward for sexual harassment.

My (male, straight) boss just emailed me with the subject line “available?” and asked me to do a work thing.

I replied and said I’d do it, and then he wrote back, “I also just realized that my subject line could get me in some HR trouble… ha… I’ll be more specific next time.”

Oh. It actually didn’t even cross my mind that my married, just-had-a-baby boss might be soliciting me for…whatever, until you pointed that out, but…well, NOW I’m uncomfortable.

I mean, aside from the “married, just-had-a-baby, boss” bit, I totally would, but all things considered, I’m incapable of perceiving anything you do as flirtation. Obviously don’t grab my ass or anything, but as far as hitting on me, you’d have to be pretty explicit for me to pick up on it. I can’t tell when eligible dudes are flirting with me.

Plus he has like five kids, so his sperm are far too industrious to be allowed anywhere NEAR my bits.

The “P” in “PMS” stands for “pugilistic”

Apparently I’m so much of a flirt that men think it’s my default setting?

I’ve been texting with an OkCupid guy for a couple weeks. Today’s conversation began with him saying he hadn’t texted yesterday because his work life had been turned upside down, and then he found out his friend had been diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic.

I told him I was sorry, that sucked, and I hoped the weekend treated him better. He asked how my week was going, and I said, “Pretty good, no complaints,” because that is the answer to that question.

Then he asked if I was “still being a proper lady,” a joke I’ve been making about trying not to flirt too much before we actually meet.

Uh… Sorry, my bad. Didn’t know “paranoid schizophrenic” was supposed to affect my panty places. Should I have said, “Bummer. So, hey, how’s your dick doing?”

I told him it seemed odd to respond with smut, and he seemed pissy and said, “I was just explaining why my attentions had been elsewhere. But the turbulence has cleared and I’m back to blue skies now.”

OK. Well, sorry again. I didn’t notice the sun shining out of your ass, and didn’t know I was obligated to taste your rainbow whenever you feel like flirting.

I started composing a response, but everything I typed just sounded cunty. I put the phone down so I could think before I spoke.

My level of irritation caused me to go do the math on my menstrual cycle, because this bitchface felt prescient. And yep, should be any day now.

When I hadn’t answered an hour later, he followed up with, “Did I offend?” Yes. Yes, you did, but I don’t know if it makes sense that you did, or if I’m projecting issues from a previous “relationshit.” I need a minute. Plus, hi, there’s this new thing called work? I waited a day, you can’t wait an hour? No. That’s not how this is gonna go. <– Oof. Yeah, now that I write that, it’s related to past events, for sure. Doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be offended, but I should take it into account.

When I told him I was, “Just confused, and also working,” he said, “You’re supposed to stop working when I text you. I thought you knew that. 😛 Sorry if I confused you, though I’m not sure how. I hate text, you can’t convey tone well.” Hey, you know what didn’t just help your case, even with that bullshit “:P” after it…? (<– And that’s different baggage.)

He asked if he should stop texting me, and I said, “I might not respond right away, but you’re welcome to if you want.” He said he was afraid to, that the conversation was “colder than the air outside,” and that he was going to “retreat” and I could text him whenever I was free and felt like it. Again, the fuck? And again, Bitchface McMenses.

Also? I give ZERO fucks if you don’t text for 24 hours. We haven’t even met. You’re under no obligation to communicate with me every day, nor to explain yourself when you don’t.

I’ll stop this saga now. I think I just need to get some sleep. And maybe take my Midol before I come to class.

Slut Shame and the Blame Game

I had scheduled a date. I was going to meet an OkCupid person. We were going to go to a Philly taproom I’ve wanted to go to for years but never had time/company. They have fried PB&J, and I KNOW y’all don’t think I’m above eating the HELL out of that on a first date.

Yeah… I can’t. I started thinking about our conversations, the number of red flags I’d been letting pass because they were “just little things” that made me go “Hmm…” But when considered together, they make me really uncomfortable. I have a bad vibe I didn’t get from the initial OkC messaging, but have had for the past few days of texting. I told friends about less than half of those “little things,” and they told me to cancel, and cancel NOW.

But something in my brain felt guilty, like I should meet him because I said I would, because I said we’d at least be friends, because I flirted, because I took the flirting further than I should have, because I am a sexually frustrated attention whore, and because what did I expect would happen when I behaved that way?

Sound advice from a friend: “Don’t help them think only with their dicks until you’ve at least seen their face.”

On occasion it seems a self-proclaimed male “feminist” bloviating that, “Women should be able to express their sexuality without fear of being judged!” translates to, “I’m going to make demands on your time and behavior, and treat you like you owe me something, even when you’re sick, or busy, or clearly don’t want to.” I guess I’m only free to express it when the whoring works in your favor?

But I am legitimately concerned, all bad Spidey Sense, and fuck that. I’m not gonna get axe murdered just so everyone at my funeral can remember me as NICE. (My friends wouldn’t — they’d be like, “GAWD, how was she such an accommodating asshole when her asshole never actually accommodated anyone?!” My mom would probably be proud I died polite, though… [Ahem. Too dark?])

Anyway. I should’ve known when I found myself telling him we had to go out Monday because I was “busy” on Thursday — busy watching Scandal, but busy nonetheless.

It’s possible I have more feelings than one normal person should, like maybe I evolved wrong, or missed a meeting. Because I shouldn’t be blaming myself for being “slutty” here. (“Well, yeah, I feel like he’s overstepping my boundaries, but how would he know I even HAD boundaries?”) And if I’m actually worried about my safety (not a TON, but…a little), I REALLY shouldn’t feel bad about either just saying “no” or blocking his number.

But…come on. Bend me over a desk just once?

A happy bonus of having NO game whatsoever is that your boss probably can’t tell when you’re flirting with him.

(Subtly. I’m not an idiot.)

What I Know for Sure

Things I know about men: Be nice to their penis. Figure out what they like during sex and do it. They also like food. 

Things I do not know about men: Whether the guy asking me about the office coffee is just chatty, or hitting on me. 

(If he’s hitting on me, score, because I look like a bag of hell today. I get cuter, sir. Come back tomorrow.)

The Timeshare Dick seminar would be interesting, but not my scene.

For the record, I would NEVER hit on the married guy I work with. I don’t even flirt with him. I have zero interest in timeshare dick.

That said, I’m pretty sure he still knows I want to bang him. I can’t stop my face from flushing, and I tend to lose English and get a little flustered when there’s no blood in my brain.*

I’l get over it eventually, but for now, UNF.

* Upon further reflection, he might just think I’m an idiot who gets hot flashes. So that’s a bonus.

Principles of Flirting

When you get really good flirting from a person you can’t have, it really emphasizes the shitty flirting you’re getting from the people you can.

Ain’t nobody got time for that!

I’ve been attracted to a good friend of mine for a long time (about a year), and there’s been some pretty heavy mutual flirtation, but he has a girlfriend. Yes, a serious one. And no, I’m not trying to break them up — first, I’m not an asshole; second, I wouldn’t win that battle; third, even if I “won,” I wouldn’t know what I wanted from him. I’ll just stick to dating/breaking up with transient morons, rather than someone I want to ensure remains my friend at a minimum for a long time. But our interaction was making me feel a number of things that were not OK for either of us.

ANYWAY. I sent an email to another friend about this, saying:

“He and I are OK, I think. We had a conversation, and now it’s possible we’re both faking it ’til we make it, but we’ve been talking normally and not flirting. It’s like a fog lifted: I’m still into him, but I’m too cute to place second. Plus, I have to get a fucking job (or a job fucking), but either way, I can’t be dealing with that right now. If it’s meant to be something else, it will be when the time is right. For now, I got shit to do.”

This discussion happened about 2 weeks ago. Even though he and I have both tried 100 times before to be “just friends,” I think we’re finally on the same page at the same time, so it’s actually working. Neither of us is goading the other into flirting, and I’m not being needy or throwing myself at him — aspects of my personality that I HATE but sometimes can’t control. If nothing else, I don’t want to be in any relationship (even a friendship) where I’m That Girl, so that needs to get settled first. I think it was happening as a byproduct of an otherwise restless time in my life, so I have to take care of me first. (Which, by the way, still feels absurd. I’m an “adult,” right? How do I still have so much to work on just to be the kind of person I WANT to be?) But I don’t want to be That Girl, I am NOT That Girl, and I’m not interested in the kind of guy who’d be into That Girl. So That Girl needs to get bitch-slapped.

Emergency Dick Alert System

It’s so sweet of my guy friends to warn me when THEIR friends are hitting on me. I tend to not realize people want to fuck me until they ARE fucking me.

As you can imagine, this method is quite problematic.