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You make me think... Here are some trains of thought brought upon by meeting up with Ava and Jen last night. You guys make me think. Thinking upon it now, I can see how Jen is rather right. I seem to be a very opinionated person. Strongly so, in that when your opinion doesn't agree with mine, I see you as being wrong instead of myself. This is where I expect Helen to tell me that it's my pride rearing up and it may be that she's right. The reason for this is simply that I like to keep things simple. Black and white, right and wrong, I like when things are along those lines. It's true, and I realize that most things in life AREN'T that simple and I accept that, but that doesn't keep me from wishing it were so. Reasons like this one is why I really enjoy movies like Red Eye while my sister and Sam walked out of the theater feeling gypped. From the conversation afterward, they wanted some sort of twist or at least wanted something MORE than just an hour and half of two people on a plane. To me though, the movie did exactly what it advertised it would do, simply, expediently with no fancy gimmicks, no last minute aliens or magical powers, no last minute repentances and breaking of character roles. I like it simple and clean. White and black, light and dark, right and wrong. It's when you toss in the shades of grey that I get into trouble. When I encounter the in-between phases, a part of me sort of buckles down and tries to FORCE things back to being either white or black and therein, I suppose, lies the problem. When I try to order things too hard, I come across as stubborn and rude. This is not something I knew. You guys gotta tell me these things when you see it, or tell me harder if I'm not listening well. I see the abrupt sort of expedience as a way of cutting through the generalities. When I'm in an argument (note, NOT a debate) the basic stance is that we're right and they're wrong and then working from there and I guess I rush at that point first before trying to explain or listen to explanations. I just don't see the point in wasting time coming to a point that we're eventually going to hit anyway. If you've experienced this with me and thought that I was just generally being a dick, I apologize. I need you guys to tell me these thngs because I have a really hard time seeing them for myself. If you're shaking your head now thinking to yourself that such things are just common knowledge...well, it's not like I've read a giant book that's chock full of this supposed common knowledge. I'm making most of this shit up as I go along and HOPEFULLY, learning to be a little easier to get along with as I do so. Just because I like things simple doesn't mean that they are and I KNOW that, but that doesn't stop me from wishing it were so. This is why I started hating math in high school. I was fine with the basics of addition/subtraction, multiplication/division. Fractions tripped me up just a bit but I got the hang of them...then they had to introduce X as a variable which took the wind out of my sails and then calculus which sunk my battleship. The whole indeciveness bugs me somewhat, moreso because I do it fairly often myself. Used to be when I went out with my sister and Sam, they'd ask me what I want and I'd ask them what they thought was good. This kind of roundabout talk that basically said, "I don't know what I want," would go on for about 5-10 minutes before I actually made a choice. Now, I just look at whatever menu and pick what seems tasty. In my attempt to pare down my own decision making process, that same line of thought and ideology seems to have leaked over onto my argumentative attempts, making me form opinions and state them quickly without much thought to how it'll be received. So that's the first issue. If you see it come out of me again, tell me that I'm being a dick and hopefully, I'll see what you mean and try to cut back a bit. The next thing involves machoism and chivalry. If the need arises, within reasonable limits, I'll walk a girl home. It must be kept in mind that what may be reasonable for me, may seem like imposing to others. Darkness is a key factor as there's not as much chance of anything bad happening in the middle of the day but if I go out with someone and it's night and they need to bus or walk home, yeah I'll accompany them. I'm sure I'm not the only guy in the world that does this. Over the summer, I met with a few of the old chinese bunch and Taehee and talk got around to how one of them walked home a friend from school. Tae hee couldn't understand and was jut...completely puzzled by the whole thing, saying repeatedly, "I wouldn't do something like that," and though we tried to explain, he couldn't understand why a guy would walk home a girl that he wasn't dating. It's about protection I suppose, although that sounds fairly...overly lofty I guess? The way I see it, my friends are precious to me, without question and if something's precious to you, would you casually put it at risk? This may make you guys think that I'm objectifying women but I don't think I am. To be sure though, this isn't something I would offer another guy, and no, I don't know why that is. It's just not. If they're driving, then risk goes down to a managable level and I can rest fairly easily but just bussing or walking home along after dark? I'll accompany, or at least make a very sincere offer and not feel put out or imposed upon. It drives me a little nuts though, and it frustrates me, how contradictory women can be. It's a new age, or so I'm told and women don't just belong in the house to make food or clean house or whatever and that's fine, I can accept that no problem. It's the same women who then say that a guy shouldn't feel it to be demeaning if he's asked to cook, or vacuum or do a load of laundry or something and fine, I can accept that too. If men and women are equals now, it's only reasonable that a man can do what was formerly considered women's jobs around the house. If we're all happily equals and men are doing a bunch of former women's jobs, why is it that you oh so rarely see a woman doing what used to be a man's job? This rant is mostly just something that bugs me around the home. Mowing the lawn, taking out the garbage, etc etc, these are things that I do because it's a "man's" job. But I thought we were all happily equal now. Shouldn't this preclude the occasional completion of these jobs by women? "No," they say. "You're a boy and you're stronger so it's your job." Lemme tell you something. It doesn't take much strength to push a lawnmower around a lawn or drag a bag of trash to the curb. If they refuse to do "my" jobs, why should I do "theirs"? Men and women are equal in SOME ways, just the ways that they want, but not ALL the way, but we should be considered "equal" nonetheless? Don't make me laugh. That's gotta be some of the strangest double talking bullshit I've ever heard. I don't mind doing what used to be "women's" work though. Cooking, although I'm not very good with it and usually lack the patience to do it, I like it. It gives you a strange feeling of accomplishment to eat something you've made by yourself. I don't do much laundry because I'm still vaguely fuzzy on the colors vs. whites rule and am afraid of messing things up but if they seperate shit for me, then I'm fine doing that too. I dont mind washing dishes cause I can't stand the sight of a sink full of nastiness if I can change it. In short, I don't mind doing most of the chores around the house. Just so long as they someday realize that I'm doing it out of a familial love and NOT out of their half baked, bullshit notions of gender "equality." Well, that rant just went all over the fucking place. I think I'm done. |