I don’t know if it’s from getting hit with all that gamma radiation, or the wacky experiments those aliens did on me a month back, but lately, I’ve developed this great new way of pissing off women by doing virtually nothing.
Friend A: I catch her online, and invite her out to a show. My friend is playing guitar for an AIDS benefit downtown, we haven’t hung out in a while because she’s been really busy with school, so I figure “Hey, let’s hang out.” I’d like to, but I’m meeting up with my grad student in five minutes, and I’m really busy. Okay, I’ll talk to you later. I get back after the show, she’s online again, I ask “How’s your grad student?” Her response:
“You know, I really don’t appreciate the way you insult me incessantly.”
I invited her out to a concert, a fucking AIDS benefit, something she’s all about, and somehow I’m insulting her? Apparently, the sarcasm I’ve been using since I’ve known her has finally gotten to her, even though I haven’t spoken to her in weeks, and the last several times I had, I’d not made a single bitting sarcastic remark.
Friend B. Very next day…I saw her and her boyfriend/fuckbuddy/whateter at the Reverand Horton Heat show wo days prior. While looking for one of my other friends, I bump into them at the bar. She shows me the new shirt she just bought and tells me “I’m going to go change over there,” over there being ten feet away. Her and her boytoy make a bunch of silly comments (“Keep your eyes open, you’re about to get a show,” that sort of stuff). Well, she goes over to change, I turn around for modesty’s sake, think I see my friend, wander off, find a different friend, and when I turn around, they’re gone. Monday, I write her an email saying “Hey, sorry I lost you there, when you went to change I turned around to give you some modesty, thought I saw another friend, went off, couldn’t find you, I didn’t ditch you on purpose.” I then proceded to talk about the rest of my weekend, and asked her how her’s was and if she had anything going on this week. HEr response was along the lines of “Don’t call me a slut, I’m not some white trash whore who goes around flashing people and letting strangers grope them.”
I was in a bad mood and wrote back a snippy email saying “Look, that’s not what was meant, if you got that from it, it’s your fault, not mine, I got shit from someone else yesturday, and I don’t need this crap.” She wrote back appologizing, saying she was just in a bad mood and read it wrong, and we’ve since patched things up and shared many a beer and good tiem.
Friend C: Lately, online conversations with her have been kinda tough, we both get a little touchy with one another. One morning, it hits me that we haven’t hung out in a while, so I send her an email saying “Hey, we’ve been a little snippy lately, and I realized we haven’t hung out in a few weeks. Some of us are going to the park today, you should come. If you can’t, we’re going to see Jason X tomorrow night. If you can’t make that, maybe we can grab a beer when your tests are over.” I knew she was busy, of all my friends, she’s under the most stress right now, so I figured “Hey, if you need to take a break, we’ve got things going on, why not join us?” I get a polite email saying “I’d really like to, but I’m too busy.” She expressed that there was a LOT more going on with her than I knew about, so I wrote a response saying “Hey, don’t worry about it, we’ll get together when things calm down a bit.” A few hours later, I get a phone call from her telling me that she doesn’t appreciate me writting her complaining that she’s neglecting me when I know she has all these things going on, and that I need to stop telling her how she should live her life. Well, one phone call, one email, and two IM conversations all led me to believe that we’d worked out that that was NOT what I said and that I know she needs to study and that she should do that and not worry about it, we’ll hang out later. Like I said, I know she’s been under a lot of stress, and that there’s alot more to it than I realized, but I don’t appreciate being the scapegoat. Although I’ve gotten over it, somehow, though, I think she’s still pissed at me.
VERY NEXT DAY: My mom calls while I"m taking a nap. We talk briefly about my plans for the weekend and if I got teh results from my MRI back yet. I tell her I’m waiting for the specialist to call me back so I can get the results. She says “the radiologist,” and me, not knowing, says “Yeah.” THus begins a five minute circular romp about the fact that the radiologist just takes the MRI, he doesn’t discuss them, but that I’m goign to some specialist, not my doctor, to review them, because the specialist is the one who scheduled me and the doctor wouldn’t know his head from his ass. After we finally clarrify that…“Okay, well, by then.” Wait, you’ve been out of the country for two weeks, and I’ve only spoken to you once since then and you’re hanging up after five minutes?
“WEll, you’re tired, irritable, and I don’t have to deal with it.”
I wasn’t irritable, I didn’t raise my voice, I just got confused about what a radiologist does (I vaguely remember a sign in the doctor’s office saying “Make sure your X-rays are explained to you by a ______,” I substituted radiologist, I guess I was wrong), and she got confused about the fact that there was another specialist between me and the radiologist who I needed to see first before my doctor. Apparently, breaking it down for her wasn’t enough.
Thirty Minutes ago… I work at a news station, I was working the prompter. The weather woman had a script to read, she said she changed it, but the changes hadn’t been put into the prompter so she was going to wing it. Suddenly, a script appears in the prompter. I start running it, she starts reading it, and halfway through the first paragraph, I realize they loaded the old one. So, seeing as she’s winging it, I turn the prompter off so she doesn’t get confused by the other words on screen, and seeing as how she’s making it up as she goes, there’s really no point. Big mistake on my part apparently, because even though she wasn’t reading it, she still wanted it up. I viewed it as a problem that anyone else prompting would have made, but when they start attacking me personally, I get defensive, and she gets pissed. We’ve both calmed down since, and things are cool.
But yeah, so that’s me, a young man gifted with special powers to offend women through the art of simple conversation that used to be seen as everyday pleasantries and friendly invites to social gatherings. Aside from my ex and my mom, everything’s been worked out with my friends, but I’ve still got a LOT of female friends, and it looks like a LOT of covering my ass to do. Any suggestions for a name? I’m thinking my costume will just consist of a white suit with a bullseye on the crotch.
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