Sometimes, Women Confuse the Hell Out of Me

Other Women Confuse Me.

The way I see it, if I, a woman, can’t figure out how some women think, then men are hopelessly doomed when it comes to trying to read the signals, understand the talk, and figure out whether or not their next comment is going to earn them a hug or a swift kick in the dick.

Recently, I was talking with a girlfriend of mine and the subject invariably turned to the customary litany of man complaints, affectionately known as man bashing by the female persuasion, and indignantly referred to as “you women are never happy” by that other gang. It’s almost a rule of nature that no matter who you’re hanging with, when conversation runs thin and you’re almost out of things to say, switching the topic to men will afford you with at least another 10 hours of lively chit chat. On this particular day, my friend was bitching about how men stare at her. Naturally, I became interested and quickly formulated some commentary in my noodle, in preparation for the bash fest to follow, and sat back to hear the story. Seems she had purchased a new bathing suit, one of those suits where you pay approximately $20.00 per square inch of material and the total price of the suit was about $80.00 which should give you at least some idea of just how big this suit wasn’t. She had worn it to her local public pool and quickly found herself the center of attention, with the wives glaring balefully and the men either snatching quick, surreptitious looks or trying to simultaneously stare while sucking in their guts and not get busted by the glaring wife at his side. Many failed. At this point I began to feel the confusion. There was no complaint of rude commentary, no stories of being hit on, no grab-assing, and not a single “Hey baby woo woo!!!” howl anywhere to be found. Not a single person said a single word to her, offensive or otherwise, during the entire pool excursion. She was stared at to differing degrees. She was noticed and, if her story is to be entirely believed, she was envied and probably the target for an all-female lynching party involving Nair and Sharpies had she strayed too far from the herd, but that was about it.

I sat there a minute and puzzled it out. And because I’m a woman and I don’t HAVE a dick and am therefore not hampered by the fear of a quick or any other kind of kick in it, I asked her. I asked her the obvious question (at least pretty effing obvious to me), and the question was “If you didn’t want people to look at you, why did you wear that concoction of dental floss and tea doilies?” She proclaimed “Because I wanted to. I liked the suit and I should be able to wear it if I want to.” I replied, “OK. Fair enough. But you look me square in the eye and tell me that on some level, you didn’t buy that suit and then turn around and wear that suit around approximately a couple of hunnert strangers IN public because it looked damned fine on you, you knew it did, you knew it would attract attention and you would be noticed, because you will never convince me you bought it and wore it to a public pool because it was just so comfortable you couldn’t resist because the day comfort is defined by being slowly sawed in half from the bottom up will, that will also be the day I go to that same pool, hand my kid a video camera and do a hand stand naked and you KNOW damned well I can’t do a hand stand.”

Do you understand my confusion because she didn’t. I know for a fact, and am perfectly willing to admit, that I am fully aware of what kind of attention I’m expecting or anticipating when I don a particular outfit. If I throw on old baggy jeans and a sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled up, yank my not quite clean hair back in a rough ponytail, root around under the bed for some flip-flops that actually match, and pat my make-up bag affectionately on my way out the door, I’m figuring I’m going to be able to pretty effectively fly under the general population’s radar at the very least. If I added a guitar case to the mix, I could probably do well, financially speaking, parking my ass in front of the local Safeway and singing a few tunes while people chucked their spare change into the case.

BUT if I stand in my closet, eyeball up those Seven jeans that by most people’s standards are just a wee bit too tight, snatch up a low cut tank top, gel up my hair and get it curly and shaggy out to HERE, match up the jewelry, actually open the make-up case, and head out, wobbling only slightly on a pair of 3-1/2 inch semi-slutty woven leather slides, I know what I’m doing. I’m dressing for attention. I do it, you do it, we all do it. Now that’s not to say I’m not going to have a snappy, equally offensive come-back at the ready for the Neanderthal that can’t help but vocalize, but I’m not going to be offended if somebody notices, looks at or even stares at me. Actually, I’ll be offended if I take that kind of time to go out and nobody notices me at all.

So you’ll pardon me if I’m a little confused that a grown woman could dress in what could be considered band aids and string at a public pool and then be offended that people had the audacity to look at her.

And to all the men in the world who might be reading this, you have my apologies, my sympathies, and may rest assured that for now, my “Things to Bitch About Where Men are Concerned” list just got a little bit shorter.