It does suck. I’m not sure who originally said it, but this quote “Deep down, men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Deep down, women are afraid that men will kill them” is unfortunately not that far off the mark sometimes.
Granted, that’s not true always, for all women, toward all men, in all situations, but I’ve had numerous discussions with my male friends about being hyper-vigilant in certain situations and had all of them express astonishment that I’d be cognizant of certain things at certain times.
Unfortunately, given that (according to various sources I’ve read) the majority of female rapes and female murders are done by men that the victim knew prior to the crime, we women are made hypersensitive to the wrong things most of the time.
Well, that’s true to a point, but usually there would have been warning signs if a man you know very well ends up raping or killing you. We probably have some idea whether we have cause to be concerned about that with the men we know.
But with strangers you have no idea. And the only way you can even try to prevent it is by being hypervigilant in certain situation (or avoid the situations entirely).
But I think it is true that being slightly acquainted with a man will often give a woman an unfounded sense of security. I know it does with me sometimes.
I used to work as a cashier at a convenience store that sold cigarettes. The rule was, if someone looked under 30, we were supposed to card them.
One day a guy came in who bought cigarettes from me all the time. He was in his early 20’s, and looked young for his age. I had carded him before, but now no longer bothered since I knew he was old enough. So as usual, I sold him his cigarettes without carding him. He was white.
On this particular day, a black woman who looked to be mid to late 20’s was in line behind him. After he’d bought his cigarettes and left, she asked for cigarettes. Since she looked under 30, and this was the first time I remembered waiting on her, I carded her per our policy.
She immediately cried racism. I admit it did look bad. I had not carded a white guy who barely looked old enough to smoke, but I carded a black woman who definitely looked old enough. I tried to explain that I knew the guy, but she didn’t want to hear it. She complained, and I got written up for not sticking to the carding policy (they said I should have carded him since he looked under 30, even if I remembered carding him before).
Wow, some pretty dark stories. I have one that’s a little more lighthearted.
My ex and I went to a party that was attended by all of her friends and their extended social circle. When we got back to her home I said that all of her friends were smart, musically talented, and good looking. She immediately went on the defensive on their behalf, and couldn’t understand why I was insulting them. No amount of explanation on my part could change her mind. I think that to this day she thinks I don’t like them.
@everyone else: I was hoping that my lack of heterosexuality would be some clue to her that I meant no harm; unfortunately I have learned it is not as obvious as I was told it was by other people.
Talk about misunderstandings… that aspect of the situation was not in the least bit evident to me from your retelling.
Maybe if you let your wrist go limp when you’re raising your hand and be sure to speak with a lisp that would help?
Or ask to walk with her and her manfriend and then hit on him. At least she would see that you are lacking-in-heterosexuality.
(Ignore my asking if it is overly personal, but I’m trying to avoid another misunderstanding: does lacking-in-heterosexuality mean gay?)
Of course, this isn’t a thread about sexuality, it’s a thread about people thinking you’re a racist.
I used to work in a store in an ugly part of Minneapolis where we did not cash checks. That part of the city hadn’t always been dangerous and there were a few older people who were holdovers from the more gentrified days. One in particular had known the store’s owner’s father and she was treated as a sort of matriarch.
She was allowed to cash checks.
A woman behind her in line one day asked to cash a check too. I told her that we did not cash checks. Of course, she assumed this was due to racism.
Unfortunately, she had a point; racism was (and likely is) rampant in that neighborhood. However, she had also had checks refused when we scanned them…
Zoom in on the story though and all you see is some white punk cashing a white woman’s check without so much as an ID check, and then telling the black woman next in line that the store doesn’t cash checks.
Other Dreams, not to put the spotlight back on you, but…
I was thinking about your situation. If it’s still happening, you need to arrange for a meeting with Eldera and straighten this out. She needs to know that she is the one acting badly and needs to get the hell over it. That situation is unacceptable.
30 something years ago. I had only been married for a few years and my wife Cherry and I were still in the passionate highs and lows phase.
Well this part was definitely in a bit of a low and also I was ready to travel the next day overseas back to work.
I was having a farewell drink at home with my wife and her sister who had also called round to say goodbye. My wife however was sulking and not talking to me, preferring to chat to her sister while I was sat nursing a bruised ego and glass of vodka.
In front of the fire lay our beautiful though crazy Afghan hound.
The conversation between my wife and her sister revolved around a very expensive set of professionally applied false fingernails to which that day, Hazel, the sister in law, had treated herself.
As the dog started to scratch himself I took the opportunity to join in the conversation that I had been excluded from by pointing to the dog and saying out loud. “Hey Hazel how would you like to do that to me?” Fully intending to allude to the use of her nails!
You can guess though that by the time they both looked at the dog he had stopped scratching himself and was now licking his balls!
Last night I made a joke to friends about one of their girlfriends “crying in the hallway.”… no one had bothered to share with me before hand that after I left the party on Saturday, an incident happened and said girlfriend spent the rest of the night… can you guess? Can you guess what she was doing?
Of course…
Crying in the hallway.
So everyone thought I was referencing THAT incident. When I had no idea anything like that had occured.
My friends have a comedy improv troupe and were performing at a coffee house. About 20 minutes into the show a group of about a dozen college age folks show up. One girl appears to be their leader and is translating the performance in French to her group. The performers ask her about the group, she tells them that they are students from France on an educational exchange trip taking in some local entertainment. Cool!
Well, the performers are inspired to start making funny with the French folks. Now, the lead girl is quite attractive, so one of the performers is trying to make a joke about jumping in the shower with her, so they could, y’know…
She, translating, is not picking up the reference properly. Instead she is thinking that she and her group are being insulted about their perceived lack of hygiene, “He said we need to take showers!” Much accented huffing and stomping out!
You bastard. What were you thinking?
To the OP, it’s a tough situation but at the same time, you may want to think about your expectations. Showing up two hours early to try to make a friend when other people are just showing up for class, and then feeling dejected, is blowing this out of proportion. Maybe just interact in the classroom setting next time, letting relationships develop naturally?
Then again what do I know, I barely leave the house except for going to work.
This week I learned that most of the staff were let go. Since I did not see Eldera all week, I suspect she was one of the losers in the lottery.
Problem solved. Unfortunately, now we only have two tutors in the Laboratory, with about 10-15 people needing their attention. Admittedly, that pales in comparison to the duties of a regular teacher.
A friend of mine has been texting (and calling without answer) a girl he’s known for a while, but has suddenly deemed him a very bad person. He’s always giving me the updates; all he is asking, over and over, is what has he done? What has he done? And the replies are always dodgy or vindictive like “You should know, how dare you ask”.
I posted the following in another thread, and it made me think of this one:
Charlie Chaplin’s silent films became popular the world over. You could still see them being shown in Bangkok on something called a Microbus in the 1990s. Microbuses were a private city bus company that tried to offer extras like that to justify their higher fare price. And there used to be a regular American columnist in the Bangkok Post named Bernard Trink. One week, he reported seeing large posters of Adolf Hitler for sale in a popular department store here, back in the 1980s. He asked the clerk why on earth they were selling those and was told: “Because he was a very funny man.” Trink could only speculate that they had mistaken Hitler for Chaplin.
