Does familiarity breed contempt? No. Sometimes it breeds recklessness…and that is the amount of recklessness I felt these men were demonstrating. I thought I was way past the age of being in a crowded space with wine spills and incoherent speech….not that I have a problem with the concepts of wine spilling and incoherent speech. We’ve all been there. At least at one point in our lives. But then it was more about the lax and wanton grossness of it all. These men felt they knew us. So there was no need for any type of stiff-necked civility. Which irritated me very much. I think we need to ‘try’, like just fucking try to be civil no matter how long you think you’ve known a person. I remember that night on the phone when out of the need to hear his opinion on an unrelated topic I asked; do you think men take stuff for granted when they get to know you in a more intimate way? His answer was; I think humans have the potential of taking everything for granted once they get to know you. And I guess he was right. We all do take things for granted all the time.
I thought she was weird. The main question was, is she weird or just different? And I remember frowning a lot on many occasions when after nearly two years of friendship she would still come and ask me for permission to use my stuff. Cherie, you can have it. I would say, why ask? Just take it. In retrospect, I respect the fact that she asked. I guess familiarity did not ease her into the comfort of taking boundaries and space for granted which I appreciate now.
So the men wanted to dance…and just like any human that abuses familiarity, the general unmentioned consensus was to dance regardless of if we wanted to or not. An assertive dialogue broke out over this. He thought it was about feminism, and I was just ready to explode. An implosive fit that left me in awe of how refusing to dance is tied to feminism. I was in awe of how Feminism sounds like an accusation sometimes. Maybe I wanted to graduate this implosive fit to an explosive and exaggerated one but I knew better than to get involved with drunk pontificating men. Quite bluntly, I didn’t and don’t care much for feminism. Anything that ensures the sanity, respect and harmonious coexistence of the human race is what we all really want. I recommend everyone doing what floats their boat and if men and women choose to dance, or not dance, the recipient of that bit of info should be ok with it.
Rosa Armstrong 