Jealous and Engaged

Something interesting is happening, which is that I seem to be developing a backbone and a sense of self-worth.

Yesterday, I shared a bottle of wine with a guy that I think I'll see again.  (I mean, he has already asked me out again, we just haven't set a date.)  And I talked with 3 men for over an hour each.  A fourth guy, who's name really is John (but not "John"), who had my phone number, finally texted me "Guess who."  Now several obnoxious things:  I hate it when guys expect me to know who they are from their text messages, but this guy hadn't even given me his cell before.  I'd been wanting to talk on the phone for a while and he kept not calling, so why he should expect me to know his name from his phone number is beyond me.

I didn't feel like playing the guessing game, so I didn't.  I said "I'm going out with a friend--let's text later."  He then said that he was the jealous type and I shouldn't be seeing other men.  "I don't want to share. I'm the jealous type."  I said "we haven't even met.  You can't be jealous until we have the conversation about not seeing other people."  He seemed annoyed with me.

Early this morning (EARLY!) I got a text message, and was annoyed, but went back to sleep.  Another text message a minute later.  I ignored it and tried to go back to sleep.  5 minutes later a phone call, which I took, annoyed.  It was from John's fiancee.  She had gone through his cell phone and seen my text message.  I gave her his profile information and told her the rather short history of our contact.  I really hope he doesn't get mad at me.  I don't like it when people are mad at me, even when I think they're wrong.  He has my phone number. He could yell at me.  I hate it when people yell at me.

I feel sorry for her.  I'm glad he doesn't have anything other than my phone number.  And I'm glad I never met him.  And, frankly, I'm glad I was already annoyed with him and planning on not meeting him.

I guess there isn't any way to avoid this.  But when men won't talk on the phone, I should assume they are hiding something.  I was thinking it was flakiness or not that much of an interest in me.

So now I try to get back to sleep...

Straight Pride

I've come to believe that Halloween is really just "Straight Pride Weekend."  All the straight people get dressed up in slutty outfits and parade their sexuality, just like the gay people do during "Gay Pride" day/week/month.

So I went to a 'play party' at a club as a sexy barmaid. An S&M club!

The women were all variations on a theme.  Most of us had a full skirt, mid-thigh length.  Most of us had crinolines, no doubt purchased separately. Most of us had stockings with bows or fishnets.  My heels were higher than most at 4", but variations.  Most of us had low-cut neckline.  Most of us had accessories defining what we 'were.'  Most of us bought our costumes at stores like Party City for somewhere above $30 and below $70.  My variation was the corset lacing below my breasts and the white dirndl look.  Theme and variation.

For much of the evening I sat in the corner, watching.  Observing.  Several guys started a conversation with me, and it felt so silly.  I wanted so much more than they were offering.  (Interestingly, "The Republican" that I blogged about AGES ago came back.  For those of you (probably all) who don't remember, he was someone that got under my skin quite a bit, then wanted things to progress much more quickly than I wanted to to a sexual level.  But he and I had clicked on an intellectual level that stuck with me.  Well, he had reappeared a couple of times, and had pushed towards us getting sexual immediately, and I just say "you have to seduce me first."  Well, he seems to have taken that to heart.  I have no idea if we'll make it work, but I find it very affirming that he would finally decide that I'm worth seducing.)

I wanted more on a relationship level, but also on an intellectual level and wisdom and some sort of grounding.

I did, however, look adorable and when the rather nice lady told me I should enter the costume contest, I said something about not winning and she said "you need more self esteem" and I said "those two over there"(two gay men with AMAZING costumes) "are going to win."  She said "It's not about winning.  It's about twirling around on-stage so all the men can see how cute you are."  So I entered!

I still felt self conscious being in the contest because I used to make amazing costumes.  My best costume was the year I went at a peacock with about 50 (literally) peacock feathers I sewed to my outfit.  But the lady who told me to enter emceed and commented on how cute I was and told them to give me an extra round of applause for being so pretty and people did!  (And it was rather enthusiastic applause.)

I think it was actually really good for me.  I think right now I know I look cute intellectually, but I'm working on getting it at a cellular level.  And this was clearly really good on that level.  Just the fact that the women who seemed like a co-owner wanted me on the stage because she saw me as an asset to attract guys said a lot.  (I want to explore more what it means to be a feminist and also allow myself to be objectified in certain situations, but not at 3:30 in the morning.)

I must say that I mostly stuck to the bar and avoided the 'scenes' going on.  It was a little more hard core than I am.  Part of me wished I had someone I loved to do things like that, but I can't just give my body without my heart.  They are so attached.

However, I met a guy (who is married, and we weren't flirting--his wife was there, and she seems nice) with whom I had some pretty darn amazing conversation.  We were in overlapping fields a couple of towns over from each other, so we talked about work.  We talked about kink.  We talked about politics and Republicans and what kink means.  We talked for about 2 hours.  And it was a really fun, expansive conversation.  I think he could pick up that I don't 'play' and when I apologized for taking so much of his time when he was probably looking for someone to play with, he said it was the best night he'd had at a play party in years.  Spanking was fun, but this was great.  That felt really nice.  (He also was pretty surprised when my age come up in passing--he was like "you don't look 40.  And you don't act 40.  I mean you're smart enough to be 40, but you're so active and young!"  I wonder if he has any friends!

Fucking Adorable

When I was in the 4th grade, I went to family church camp and sang in the choir, which was mostly composed of adults.  My beautiful mother sang soprano, and when the choir director told me I had to sing alto, I burst into uncontrollable tears.  The choir director, clearly shocked at this unbelievable display of emotion, relented and said "oh, you were just nervous.  You can be a soprano."

It was kind. But...  I'm an alto.  (Which you probably wouldn't guess if you spoke to me, as I have a rather high-pitched voice.)  And even in the 4th grade, I knew that Altos were comic side-kicks.  Not romantic leads.  It is the only reason that could possibly make sense why I reacted as I did.  I wanted to be pretty.

This year, for the first time ever, I bought a sexy, slutty, adorable Halloween costume.  And I have to say, I look fucking adorable.  Absolutely adorable.  I wouldn't mind if my tummy were a bit flatter, but I have great legs, going up to the adorable, crinolines under the skirt, great cleavage, a nice hourglass.  I really feel adorable in this, and that is really cool.  I spent over $100 when you count the adorable, come-fuck-me shoes that have leather criss-crossed on suede, like a corset, but subtle enough I'm not embarrassed to wear them (and while they are 4" heels, it is really only 3.5" because the toe has plenty of padding).

I look cuter than I ever thought I would look.  At 40.  Maybe I am making peace with who I am, rather than who I want to be.  I do think that feeling that way about myself is totally worth the $100.  Even if I never get the courage to wear it out of the apartment!

Perfectionism

So I had a big set-back at work today.  The proposal I was working on for over a year got shot down very quickly, and it was an idea that was very dear to me.  I'll find another way to have the idea heard, I think.  But it was very sad making.

In a complete and totally mind-fuck, I went out with men this week who's real life names are Bob and Robert.  I won't see either of them again, so I can give their real names.  But Bob was critical of me.  He gave me a task, which was fine because it was a task I wanted to do for myself, but then was critical when I didn't do it the way he wanted (and he wasn't at all clear about what his expectations were).  I think he was mostly critical because I was critical of what I had done.  I think if I'd said "It is perfect" he'd have been way more pleased.  But his task was to finish something I'd been working on for 4 months.  I did everything he had said, but I still didn't think it was finished, and I really didn't like the dynamic he set up.

Which brings me to something interesting.  The thing that made me decide I didn't want to see Bob again is that he was as critical of me as I am!   And there's just no way I could do a D/s/ thing with someone who is that critical of me.  But it might be interesting to explore how I might start to be less critical of me.  Maybe just a little....

Trivial Trust update

I had e-mailed the guy that ran the last event and he was SUPER nice.  He actually offered not only that I could come to my next event for free, but I could have a free year-long membership to the kink group that sponsored it.  That felt like too much and I think I might go to their Halloween party, but not take the year-subscription.  That just seems out of whack.  But he was super nice.

Now, if I go to a Halloween party, I think I might get a slutty costume like everyone else.  Somehow, I don't think of myself as dressing like a slut.  (I'm thinking this one, but probably with fishnets that go all the way up, as I think that will be more flattering.)  What, really, would I have to lose?  I'm actually thinking of going to a party where some people (NOT ME!) will be playing in public and I'm questioning whether or not I should dress like most people will.

Trivial Trust

I went to a 'scene' event.

So I get there and the nice lady says "$10."  And I say "I thought it was $8."  And she said "Oh, he changed it."  And I said "but it says eight dollars on the website"  And then I show her the current website on my phone.  And she said "He changed it.  We don't negotiate price."

It really pissed me off.  On one level, this is totally trivial.  What is $2?  I can't believe I left and went back to my hotel room over $2.  I wasted and evening in NYC over $2.

But here's the thing:  people in my vanilla life would never dream of doing something like that.  They'd be like "oh, we advertised it at $8.  Our mistake."  I just can't imagine another circumstance where people would advertise something to get people to the door at one price and then switch the price when they show up.

And, it feels to me that that basic level of trust is just missing from the kink world.  There's all this talk about SSC or RACK but I feel like some (not all, but some) people are saying "we reject societal conventions on sexuality, therefore all societal conventions are bad."  And I really need things like men being the age they say they are and sending pictures of themselves taking during the Obama administration and not the Clinton administration. I swear 2 men I've gone out with had pictures from the Bush administration.  George H.W. Bush! I want men to have a basic level of manners.  I want men who know the difference between "an" and "and" or "there" and "their."

On one level, this is all incredibly trivial.  What is $2?  Why not just pay the $2?  I'm spending more than that on the movie in my hotel room.  But on another level, believing that I can trust people to be who they say they are and do what they say they'll do is absolutely essential to me and there are too many people in the kink world that just don't.  It makes me wonder if they reject dental floss as too bourgeois

Deranged performance art

The 'gentleman' was in his late 40s to mid 50s and sported a thinning, comb-over mullet and a paunch.  He entered the subway (I was there last weekend) with a large crucifix attached to a broom handle and a shiny red pee-chee with a cross constructed out of mirror pieces, like a 5th grade art project from Our Lady of Perpetual Guilt.

He talks about his ministry to the 'angels' of the earth.  Angels are only women.  Everyone else should jump off the subway, he informed us.  The demons and the guerrillas are abominations and they should cleanse themselves by jumping off the subway now.  I'm mildly amused--enough to turn down the volume on my iPhone, but not enough to look at him.  He continues in his glory-hallelujah style.  Demons are, of course, men (aside from himself, of course).  Angels become Guerrillas the second they turn 22 years old.  He realized there were a lot of teenage boys on the car I was on, but no teenage girls and started praying to Jesus for the train to get to the next station and save him from the abomination of the guerrillas.  He said this while looking at me, then covered his face with his pee-chee, which had mirrors when he opened it.

I honestly don't know if he was trying to pick up young chicks, or was mentally imbalanced.  Or if he was an avant-guarde performance artists deconstructing male privilege.  I think he was probably just crazy.  But it still made me feel shitty.

Yes.  A crazy man with a home-made crucifix taped to a broom handle talking about angels, guerrillas and demons made me feel like I wasn't good enough.

And that is the male prerogative to define beauty.  It is conferred on every gentleman to define every woman.

And then I felt shitty for letting him make me feel shitty.  "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent!  What is wrong with you? Buck up!"

And that is a combination of my perfectionism and all the trips that I felt feminism laid on me.  Am I the only one who felt that "Be the change you wish to see in the world" was impossible to live up to?  I can't be the change.  I keep fucking it up!  Even trying to accept myself with joy and vitality is a tall order many days.  My mother still feels guilty for not single-handedly stopping W.'s 'election.' And I feel guilty for letting the patriarchy get me down.  And for not being a good feminist.  And for believing that there is such a thing as a 'good' feminist, instead of a woman living openly and honestly as best she can.