You ready for me to complain to you all? And then you all complain back to me? And my few silent hidden male readers learn a lesson from us in how to be better people?
On Friday, I started a post by saying it was going to be boring and that turned into an interesting little side conversation in the comments about how women tend to denigrate themselves when they don’t have to, and also apologize when they don’t have to. And today I experienced the opposite, men who tend to see the whole world as owing them something just because they are men.
I started the day by taking Albie Dog to the dog park. I saw a car parked so I knew someone else was there, moved slowly to the entrance to give the other person time to see us coming, then let Albie Dog go. He ran ran ran and found the other dog, and then they started playing run-chase, and occasional wrestling.
It’s a really big park so it took me a few minutes to get over to the dogs. And by the time I got there, the other owner was already yelling at them, all snappy and angry. I grabbed Albie Dog and said the same thing I usually say, that he has a lot of energy and is going to want to wrestle, with a nice smile and a kind of “I am acknowledging that my dog is this way” attitude. No response, just more grumpiness. I offered to take Albie into the other half of the park, the fenced off small dog area, his response “He should have been there to begin with”. And then he took his dog and left, no further conversation with me, no discussion of how to solve the problem, no discussion of how it was as much his dog’s fault as mine, just left me standing there feeling guilty and miserable about all the horrible things I had done.
But, I hadn’t done anything wrong! If he didn’t want his dog playing with other dogs, he shouldn’t have taken it to the dog park. Even so, I still offered to go into the other half, he could stay in his lonely kingdom with his special special dog and I would go to the smaller side. No, no discussion or acknowledgement of that either. It was just so FRUSTRATING!!!!! And such a classic male thing, raised to think that the whole world exists for their convenience, and anything that goes against their plans is a terrible terrible sin. No interest in discussion or compromise or seeing the other point of view, just want to make us all feel terrible and guilty for what we have done to them.
I was so mad after that, I decided to stop by the bakery and get myself a treat and a coffee. Big long line, lots of people, staff working as hard as they can. In front of me was a woman and her little girl. They had a nice discussion about what the little girl wanted to order, she finally decided on apple fritters. So there is back and forth and the counter person was moving around getting their order when the man in front of me also asked for apple fritters, whatever was left. As he watched, the last two went in a bag for the little girl and her mother. The staff apologized, said they just sold the last two, and the mother said in a friendly way, “Sorry about that!” To which the man said, “yeah, well, not as sorry as I am.” As in, “how dare you take the last two desserts of the kind I wanted to have?”
WHAT THE HECK???? What is with these MEN!!!! If I acknowledge there is a problem, that doesn’t mean I am taking full responsibility for it, and promising to somehow fix it. And just because the world isn’t going in the exact way they want, that doesn’t mean it is all going wrong.
Ugh, I’m all mad. And ready to be unfriendly to the 3 old men that we are hosting in about half an hour. I’m doing nothing for them! NOTHING!!!!! They can make their own lunch and do their own dishes and if anything goes wrong, I’m not even acknowledging it. Since apparently acknowledgement is the same as taking the blame and promising to fix it.
dontcallitbollywood 
How good to have a place to vent knowing there are people understanding you/empathise with you 🙂 (hope the rest of the day will be smoother)
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I don’t know dogs or dog parks well enough to know the protocol, to know if the man had a point. It does sound like he suggest a solution or alternative, just not in the friendliest manner.
To the Apple fritter loser, if he said that to me, I would have replied “sucks to be you!” with a wink and a smirk on my way out of the queue. 😉
While your stereotype is men, I’ve had more than my fair share of white women in the usa behave this way to me, and worse. I guess it’s their way of punching down (i.e. @ POC women, or @ women they perceive as “foreign”), after having been punched down themselves by white men.
As for interpretation of apology, my ex husband used to get angrier if I apologized than if I didn’t. Because to him, if I apologized (which I did freely if I thought I was mostly or completely in the wrong), it meant that we both agreed that he was right, which meant that it was worse that I did whatever it was that I did, then if I did it and could justify or defend it. Conversely I think he apologized to me ten times in ten years of marriage.
There are lots of wonderful men out there. Just like there are lots of wonderful white women out there. Don’t let a couple of bad apples ruin your day! 🙂
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I shouldn’t have bothered with dog park details, it doesn’t make sense (or matter really) if you don’t know the situation. It was just one of those exchanges where I say “this is my side and my responsibility” and the other person usually says “this is my side and my responsibility” and then together we find a solution. Only this time I said “this is my side and my responsibility” and the response (from a perfect stranger!) was, “yes, you are a horrible person who is ruining my life.” I even offered a solution, no interest, just wanted to blame me and make me feel bad. You know? That kind of shock of “this isn’t how this conversation is supposed to go! You are taking advantage of the social contract in which I apologize for my part in order to make me feel completely to blame!”
And you are totally right, it is all about privilege. Going into the world with the assumption that other people exist to make your life easier, because that is how you have been trained to see them. Instead of seeing them as equals who, for instance, have just as much right to buy the last apple fritter as you do.
On Sun, Jun 16, 2019 at 12:02 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I was afraid the apple fritters’ woman would give one of her desserts to this man who also wanted it. Glad she hadn’t done it.
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I think that’s what he was expecting! that she would give it to him because he deserved it more than her little girl. Because he was a man.
On Sun, Jun 16, 2019 at 4:19 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I think women can actually be worse, but really, snotty people are just snotty regardless of sex. I always try to remember that their life may suck harder than mine. I’m that guy that will take it as a sign that I didn’t *really* need an apple fritter anyhow, or I ended getting something new and it was ah-mazing.
I think it’s sad that some people don’t get how much fun it is to make others feel good. I wish I could wave a magic wand and make it just happen!
As for the dog guy – dog people who are biased against dogs who do not belong to them suck. Truly. (Although, I feel that way about other people’s kids, so … I suck too!)
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Yes! Why would you feel bad about not getting the last dessert when you have this nice woman and her daughter who are so happy with it? It’s so easy to see the other person’s side of things, and it will bring you so much joy in life all of those times you don’t get your way, because you can be happy they got what they wanted.
On Sun, Jun 16, 2019 at 6:47 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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You can’t win with people like doggie park man and apple fritter man. There are females like that, too. There’s some rude, self-absorbed coding in their DNA. I usually smile when confronted with these jerks, but not apologetically; more in condescending sympathy. “Really? Is that so? Too bad. I’ll just move on and you have a nice day.” The more they grouch, the more I smile. It makes them angrier at first; then it confuses them. Their identity is founded on antagonism and when you don’t recognize it, you in a sense, obliterate them.
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Hah. Can’t believe it took me so long to read a post about how much men suck, lol. Just goes to show you I really am busy.
This line sums up privilege very well–not only male privilege, but definitely male privilege also: “And such a classic male thing, raised to think that the whole world exists for their convenience, and anything that goes against their plans is a terrible terrible sin.”
As for the whole “not all men” thing, or “women can be just as bad” thing–both are true, but calling out patterns of dominance and aggression on the part of one type of person (adult male), doesn’t assert either of those things. So why do people always feel compelled to respond with one or the other of those things? Seems like a knee jerk response to me.
And finally, even if not all members of a privileged group engage directly in aggression and dominance towards groups with less privilege, we still benefit from the actions of those that do engage directly. Because those aggressors/dominators are violently enforcing the hierarchy that we benefit from. Every time some jerk of a white woman calls the cops on a person of color for simply existing in a space that white woman doesn’t think they should be in, I as a white woman benefit from that. Whether I want to benefit, or whether I agree with jerk white woman’s actions are both irrelevant.
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This is part of what I love about living in a city. Those things happened in a small town, but it feels like in a city we all have to learn to get along in order to function. Not 100% of course, but if I was getting my morning coffee at the super busy super crowded Dunkin Donuts I usually go to, one privileged man would gum up the works for about 20 other people and no one is going to stand for that.
Although now that I think of it, I have seen that kind of behavior at the fancy fancy over priced coffee place. Which is why I choose not to go there and stick with my scummy Dunkin. Another city advantage, being able to choose the kind of people and kind of places I want to associate with. The privileged folks tend to be quarantined in their horrible little world of privilege and the rest of us don’t have to deal with them. Probably bad in general because they will never learn, but very lowering of blood pressure on a day to day basis for the rest of us.
On Wed, Jun 19, 2019 at 11:35 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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