Year-End Survey 2020

 Here's my year-end survey for 2020!

1. What did you do in 2020 that you'd never done before?

• Lived in a pandemic.
• Got asked to blurb another author's book.
• Made my own marshmallows from scratch.

• Ran a funeral fundraiser.
• Filed my taxes through a professional tax preparer.
• Took ownership of some place settings of my mother's china.
• Got invited to play-test a card game for Steven Universe.

• Went on an actual specific diet.
• Joined a postcard-writing campaign for a political candidate.
• Donated to a political candidate.
• Had a work-from-home job.

• Spent Halloween alone (dressed up, though!).
• Began participating in a group online game night.
• Made a four-tier cake and worked with fondant.

• Ate chili and liked it.
• Cooked chicken (for Jeaux). 
• Found a snake in my house.
• Hosted Christmas dinner.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Last year, these were my resolutions, and whether I kept them:

• Finish a book and start editing it. [Did NOT.]
• Complete my photos page on the new domain. [Did NOT.]
• Make healthier choices with my eating, including taking vitamins and not eating just because I'm bored, therefore being able to fit into some of the clothes I'm a little too chunky for right now. [ACHIEVED!]
• Get some kind of consistency to responding to e-mail and comments. [Did NOT.]
• Use Lyft to go to work less often--try to ride the bus more. [ACHIEVED, but it was only because of plague.]
• Get some kind of pattern to do better on social media besides Facebook. I want to be more active on Twitter and Instagram. [Did NOT.]
• Submit more short stories. Can't really control if I get picked, but I hope to! [ACHIEVED!]
• Finish all the Steven Universe recipe replicas on my list! [ACHIEVED!]
• Complete my Steven Universe variant comic books collection! [Did NOT. Still missing ONE!]
• Drink more water, dang it. [Only marginally.]

My resolutions this year:

• E-mail. Get caught up and STAY CAUGHT UP. I have always struggled with this.
• Learn to put myself to bed. No more falling asleep on the floor or with my contacts in. Get a bedtime routine and go to BED!
• Complete my photos page on the new domain.
• Maintain my healthy choices and my weight that I finally managed to hit this year.
• Make time for writing projects. Finish at least one book in progress.
• Continue to submit short stories.
• Complete my Steven Universe variant comic books collection!
• Actually follow through on drinking more water.
• Less scrolling on Tumblr and Facebook; more working on projects. Set a timer and stick to it.
• Help my mom with some important stuff and touch base with her more often.
• Draw more fun projects.
• Get a literary agent for my fiction projects.
• Become more adventurous with my home cooking.
• Improve on ukulele.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Ammy gave birth to little Zoë.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Brendon. He just died on Christmas.

I was so incredibly fortunate not to lose anyone else close to me this year during the pandemic.

5. What countries did you visit?

I did not leave the US. For much of the year, I was not allowed to.

6. What would you like to have in 2021 that you lacked in 2020?

• The Covid vaccine.
• As always, a book deal.
• A copy of the SU comic I'm missing!
• Friends and family in my house.
• Stability for friends and family whose lives are upended or uncertain.
• Conventions.
• A trip to New York City.

7. What dates from 2020 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

• January 17–19: Meghan visited for our birthdays.

• March 16: Began working from home because of Covid-19.
• March 27: My favorite show Steven Universe ended its run.

• May 20: Celebrated 15 years of running my webcomic Negative One.
• July 6: Joined an app-based diet program to try to lose some weight.
• July 28: Started playing weekly online games with Meghan and some friends.
• October 27: Did a three-hour livestream on YouTube for Ace Week.
• October 31: Gave out candy alone from my garage for Halloween because of plague.

• November 1: My short story "Everyone's Gay in Space" was published in After Dinner Conversation.
• December 25: Brendon died.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

• I sold a short story.
• I lost 18 pounds and regularly walk 10,000 steps a day. (I never intended to show the comparison pics they have me take but I was surprised to see you can see the difference so I guess here. I'm so short that that's a pretty big change.)

July to December

• I navigated the difficulties of working from home.
• I stayed isolated since March except for weekly trips to the grocery store with Jeaux (who is also working from home and isolated) and occasionally seeing my equally isolated mother.
• Began my Ace Interviews series and it is very well received.
• Despite many challenges, I still managed to post a new video (just about) every month, keep up with a weekly and a monthly webcomic, write up and review all the new Steven Universe comics, books, and podcasts, and maintain an active social and online life.
• Began the search for a literary agent to represent a science fiction book. (My existing literary agent reps my nonfiction.)
• Got featured posts 11 times on Steven Universe Amino.
• Won Best of Crafts on Steven Universe Amino.

9. What was your biggest failure?

• Not finishing writing any books.
• Falling off creating content for things that are important to me.
• Spending too much time distracted.
• Really doing a terrible job on my online communication. I feel like I disappointed a lot of people.
• Routinely staying up too late.
• Probably not doing enough to be there for people who could use check-ins from me.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

I had food poisoning like three times. It was weird.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Books, face masks, delicious coffee, presents for others, and cartoon collectibles. 

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

• Protesters and civil rights activists who made a statement so loudly, so clearly.
• Parents who had to suddenly shift their entire world around when Covid hit and they had to become teachers.
• My incredible, wonderful Meggie. I can't even express in words how shattering this year has been for her and I'm so grateful and awed that she is part of my world, somehow still standing.
• Everyone who gave up personally meaningful gatherings, trips, and events to help keep others safe.
• The vaccine task forces.
• The nurses and medical practitioners of this world, and every other essential worker.
• My boss who made his company safe to work for during a pandemic and accommodated my needs.
• Three trans friends who began transition/came out this year.
• My queer friends in general.
• Poll workers, political activists, and fact-checkers who helped make the election more accessible, more informed, and fairer.
• My friends who are parents, managing that delicate balance of dedicating themselves to their kids while engaging in some self care.
• My friend Ronni who got a paperback deal.

• My nephew Ash who made it through a strange time of distance learning and has continued to make cooler and cooler art.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

• As usual, Donald Trump and his supporters.
• People who spread lies and conspiracy theories (many of which have their roots in antisemitism).
• Everyone who contributed to the coronavirus outbreak by refusing to listen to science and boycotting masks because inconveniencing themselves to literally save someone's life was too much of an imposition on their personal freedom.
• People who are intentionally attending spreader events when they do not need to.
• People who use tragedy to capitalize. 
• Every single fatphobe.
• People who blamed black people for their own oppression.
• People who used the coronavirus to be anti-Asian bigots.
• People who don't think it's a crisis that our country imprisoned people for seeking refuge here. And the people who made it possible to do that to them as if they're criminals for trying to survive. (But these are the same people who would handcuff someone for stealing baby formula from Walmart, so. How desperate do you think someone is if they're stealing food for their baby?)
• People who refused to use their power and money to improve the lives of desperate people.
• Racists, homophobes, and transphobes who have felt even more emboldened this year to be huge disgusting bigots.
• People who expect me and others to clean up the messes they made.
• People who think it's edgy to repeatedly engage in behaviors they have been asked to stop for the purpose of upsetting others and then minimizing their pain.
• People who send me snotty, rude, offensive, and creepy messages online.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Besides rent, it was definitely Steven Universe merchandise and lending other people money/contributing to craptons of fundraisers.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

The Steven Universe finale and final books, every step forward in queer representation and equality and happiness, oatmeal, talking nerdy stuff with friends, bringing my friend Steve into my circle of oldest friends to play games, podcasts with Daria, cosplaying, my nephew, a New York trip I planned but canceled, previewing and play-testing the SU card game, Angela Chen's book coming out (with my blurb!), finishing my SU recipes, my Pearl costume.

16. What song will always remind you of 2020?

Usually I'll pick some pop song I discovered during the year, but this year I will nominate "Ghen Cô Vy"--Vietnam's song teaching people how to wash their hands in the coronavirus pandemic. I unironically like it.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

i. happier or sadder?

Sadder.

ii. thinner or fatter?

Thinner.

iii. richer or poorer?

Richer.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Writing fiction, responding to mail, and working on my damn website.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Arguing with people who aren't listening, worrying about politics.

20. How did you spend Christmas?

Well, largely in a weird sad haze because I woke up to the news that Brendon died and still haven't processed it all the way. 

But as far as Christmas CELEBRATION plans, I invited Mom, Victor, and Jeaux to my house for Christmas dinner. So many cookies!

21. How will you be spending New Year's Eve?

By myself drinking Sangria and drawing comics. 

22. Did you fall in love in 2020?

None of my relationships with other people could be described as "falling in love." I maintain that I have all the love I want in my life.

23. How many one-night stands?

I should probably just delete this question from the survey. But then I'd have to re-number and ew.

24. What was your favorite TV program?

No one who has spoken to me in the last five years doubts that my favorite TV program continues to be Steven Universe. I also got into Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, The Umbrella Academy, and the Animaniacs reboot though.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?

Nah, I hate all the same people.

26. What was the best book you read this year?

My five-star reads this year were Ace: What Asexuality Reveals about Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen; Steven Universe: End of an Era by Chris McDonnell; The Art of Steven Universe the Movie; and Attachments by Rainbow Rowell.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

My talented friend Steve who has begun to share meditation compositions during the pandemic.

28. What did you want and get?

Followers, love, attention, lots of really cool merchandise, a complete collection of autographed trading cards, great coffee and scented stuff, a healthy year, a win for Democrats in the presidential election, incredible conversations, a resolution to some instability at work, a short story sale.

29. What did you want and not get?

Better time management, a trip to New York, the 2015 issue of the Greg Universe Special with cover by Fellipe Martins (the only one I'm missing DARN IT), visits with Meghan and Steve and my dad, holidays with family, friends to remain healthy (a bunch of my friends have caught and suffered from Covid), an agent for fiction (though I just started looking!), a Democratic presidential nominee more in line with my views (Biden was low on my list), justice and peace for oppressed people, basic relief for people in my life who can't make a living now.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?

I hardly saw any movies this year and a couple of the ones I did see I didn't like, so I guess (if it counts) I'll just pick the Hamilton broadcast?

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 42. At work one co-worker got me tiny cupcakes and my boss bought me a cake! 

After work I went out to Japanese food with Meghan, who came for our birthday, and we had Jeaux over so he could give us birthday gifts. We ate some of the cake my boss gave me. I got to celebrate my birthday before Covid was happening in this country since it was in January.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

If my country took Covid seriously and obviously if I didn't lose a dear friend to it. If we'd had a president and leadership that wasn't obsessed with image and willing to ignore science for his reputation and the economy. And as always, a book deal would have been cool.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2020?

Sweatpants and Steven Universe tee shirts. And when going out, stylish masks. Also being able to fit into some of my smaller clothes again, but that's not really a fashion concept.



34. What kept you sane?

Cartoons, long walks, Polos with my sister, Stephen Colbert, sympathetic friends, coffee, kind people, music, distractions, stress cleaning.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Oh, you silly survey.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

Black Lives Matter and the entire shitshow that was the Presidential election.

37. Who did you miss?

I already miss Brendon and he's gone a week. And beyond that, I miss literally everyone I haven't been able to see, especially Steve and Meghan because they've both been through some terrible stuff and I want to hug them.

38. Who was the best new person you met?

I haven't met anyone new this year "for real" but there's someone pretty cool I'm talking to on OKCupid (I haven't written about her here yet), and all of the people I interviewed for my Ace Interviews series were so cool!

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2020.

We have to accept that we live in a world where some intensely selfish people will light the world on fire before they'll deign to grant you your fair share of it.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

"Things start and things end, and isn't it lovely in theory but...."

The trouble with Trump

One of the biggest problems with someone like Trump is that he (along with anyone who still supports him) does not actually care about integrity. That's why he is able to blurt the baldest lies, repeat the most contradictory and debunked positions, and make the most ridiculous accusations, and even though he will inevitably be called out later and proved wrong, it won't matter at that point.

Because he has had the experience of speaking the falsehoods on a national stage, and by the time anyone calls him out on it, the damage is done. It doesn't matter how clearly false they are; people who want to support him only hear the part where he says it, and then the people who contradict him are FAKE NEWS and ALWAYS PICKING ON HIM trying to discredit him. He lies, and then he brands the truth-seekers as unreasonably harassing him, as if wanting him to have any integrity and be in any way beholden to honesty is all just a plot to make him look bad.

He already looks bad without help, if you would LOOK AT HIM.

Trump was impeached and the outcome of that investigation was that he was acknowledged to have done the things he was accused of, and they still decided it was okay to keep him in office anyway. He translated that as TOTAL EXONERATION and THE DEMOCRATS' HOAX, and that's what his supporters heard. It's not in any way true that he was "exonerated." It was in fact proven in the investigations that he did everything they accused him of. They just also decided those crimes weren't wrong and that he has the right to commit them, happily flouting the laws of the land his supporters claim to love, and they're walking away with the belief that the Democrats tried to unfairly oust him from office and were instead embarrassed and proven wrong. That isn't what happened. They just established that he indisputably did a bunch of shady stuff and the members of his party fell in line agreeing that the way he abused his power didn't count as abuse. 

He calls himself perfect and insists that he has "absolute" rights to do whatever he wants. He fires people who get in the way of him abusing power. He hires people who don't know anything about the office they're elected to. He announces utter scientific and historical falsehoods consistently and then fires people or insults people publicly if they call out his mistakes. The man can't even be corrected on his spelling or his misconceptions of literal geography without him blustering at other powerful people until someone's head rolls, and then his followers will still repeat excuses, denials, and reframed versions of the truth so they don't have to accept that Trump has ever been wrong on anything he's ever said. They do this even though the statements are on video. It should be embarrassing for them, but it isn't.

Despite our country becoming an absolute dumpster fire, Trump continues to praise himself on what a great job he's doing and how nobody else could have done a better job and anything that suggests he isn't winning, winning, winning better than you, YOU'RE WELCOME--anything anyone says against him is met with transparent, pathetic blustering and whining about how we don't see what a great job he's done.

What I really don't get is how come this supposed perfect superman can't solve any problems at all.

Our country is now the WORST when it comes to coronavirus response in terms of deaths and illness, and Trump is busy blaming China, blaming Obama, blaming people who supposedly didn't give him the right information, and downplaying how bad it is because he thinks he and his will only be in trouble if the economy continues to tank. Buddy, if everything you do is perfect, why didn't you hire the right people to give you the information? Why didn't you have all your ducks perfectly in a row to handle something like this instead of insisting you couldn't have done a thing? Why, if you're so superior to everyone else, are you failing harder than absolutely every industrialized country?

I mean, I know why. And I also know why people think you're not failing; because you keep telling them you've already won, and they believe you.

There simply isn't a way to criticize you that gets through to your supporters because literally anything we say is rebranded as "THEY'RE JUST TRUMP HATERS! THEY'LL DO ANYTHING TO DISCREDIT ME!" Uh, but . . . what we said should discredit you! It's like a couple of third graders are in a dispute and one stole the other's eraser, and then the one who reports it to the teacher is crucified as a TATTLETAIL and a SNITCH because that's much worse than committing the crime they reported. Let's not even look at the eraser-stealer, who is still enjoying the eraser and enjoying watching everyone reject the victim for daring to have a problem with what the thief did. 

It shouldn't WORK to derail like that, but it does, because many people who follow Trump in the supposed name of patriotism and respect for capitalism are not applying critical thinking skills to any of the statements he makes, and they're willing to get all of their news from a single source that has a strange habit of disconnecting their news stories from sources so you can't research what really happened and drilling into your head that everyone else, everyone but them, is lying to you. (It's a known abuse tactic where you isolate people and then make them think only those in the inner circle are safe. Ironically, it's also what "liberals" outside their circles get accused of--needing "safe spaces" where they can't be "triggered"--and yet these folks are the absolute most oversensitive and easily exploited tools of authoritarianism I've ever seen in my life.)

You should want to know the real story. You should want to hear opinions and perspectives from people on "the other side" so you can form an opinion of what you think. You should immediately mistrust anyone who tries to give you a sensationalistic summary of this is what happened, and THE LAMESTREAM MEDIA won't tell you about this because it means they're LOSERS and we're WINNERS and they can't handle it ha ha ha! ...and mysteriously, they don't include the names of the people involved in an incident, or the places where it happened, or enough detail to pin down what news story they're even reporting on before they fill your head with specious details about what REALLY happened. If they leave out the details and clutch their pearls over everybody else's fake news, spending more time making you fear and pointing at who you should consider an enemy, they are manipulating you and you are falling for it.

You should want to know. You should actively seek out the story after Trump and his supporters tell you something happened. Even if you support Trump completely, you should be able to read a countering view without being swayed or poisoned if he's so obviously right and righteous. Just like a "true Christian" shouldn't be in any danger of being corrupted if he goes ahead and learns what other religions actually believe (so he can argue more effectively and with some actual nuanced understanding), you should be able to expose yourself to the "other side's" perspective without getting recruited if in fact one side is clearly wrong and one side is clearly right. But they've got you convinced that no one's saying anything of value on that other side, and that we all "fight" the same in our political arguments. We don't.

Do yourself a favor and mistrust statements that aren't presented with facts you can check. Do yourself a favor and start noticing when the politicians who serve us toss out abuse to distract from the fact that they won't answer a question. Do yourself a favor and realize when you are being manipulated. Don't be embarrassed; these are established, intentional, aggressive techniques developed to make you fall in line and make you angry. But you should want to know the real story. And if the real story contradicts what Trump told you to believe, no matter how much he calls the opposition losers and comments on how their ratings suck, you should seek out more information and corroborate it from multiple sources, not swing around looking for someone who will repeat what you wanted to see. And if someone's reporting something that makes you think differently about one of Trump's statements, you should let yourself disagree with him sometimes. Unless you think the President is God, you should sometimes be able to think for yourself and separate what he says from objective reality. If him saying it MAKES it true in your mind, congratulations, you are in a cult and worshiping him as a god.

Wednesday Factoid: Worst and Best Stranger Message

Today's Wednesday Factoid is: What's the worst message you ever received from a stranger? What's the best?

Oh, GOD, now this is hard. How can I pick what was the single "worst" message I've received when I've been a queer activist for so many years and I've received SO MANY horrible messages?

I'm not going to review all my horrible saved messages just to narrow them down and select which one was absolutely the worst. I'll just think fast and settle on one that was pretty bad but who knows, may not be necessarily the worst.

Stuff contributing to it being "the worst":

1. The absurd length
2. The absolute horribleness of the content
3. The demonstrated familiarity with my material

A man once wrote me a very long letter (which also included an attachment that was itself over 100 pages long) explaining to me that he would like to possess me in a romantic and sexual way, and how much I hurt him by existing as an aromantic woman in the world. He then launched into criticizing my online behavior and commenting on how my callousness toward horny men was intentionally and incredibly cruel of me. You see, these horny men are suffering in a way I cannot comprehend, and they are entitled through their maleness to ask me for sex whenever they want regardless of my feelings --which should be understood to be irrelevant. It is, after all, a woman's job to be accepting and compassionate toward men's desires, so it is actually abusive of me to criticize their behavior or deny them because I don't acknowledge how much pain they must be in if they're at the point of asking strangers for sex. Also, it is so awful of me to do disgusting things like wear a midriff shirt in one of my videos, or to respond to "age? into sexy things?" with "rude" brush-offs that failed to take into account how desperate, polite, and deserving these poor men were.

He told me he wished I was his girlfriend and/or his mother (yes), and then began some of the most horrifying stories I'd ever seen: he explained that he had never once in his life been able to have sex with a woman who was not ugly or fat (you know, because that's unacceptable), and because of this, he believed his future could only take one of two routes: suicide, or going on a rape spree. He opted not to commit the latter crime because he believed it would satisfy women too much to see him behind bars for it. (Because that's what we should focus on. The nasty women who would be happy to see him locked up for pursuing this right to sex he believes himself to have.) He then explained that he had decided to have sex with older men instead (who must be suffering as much as him), believed this had turned him into a woman (because he perceived that servicing men MAKES someone a woman), and was pursuing a medical sex transition (though still privately identifying as male) because he believed having a vagina would allow him to identify as a lesbian, pursue women, and receive sex. (After all, it's women who get to be sexually selective in our society, and becoming a woman was the only way he would ever have that ability.)

He sent me all this baffling horribleness, attached a diary of sorts that he assigned me to read so I could then go enjoy his blog with full context (on which he said he had a female persona and sought to be sexually playful to attract pretty lesbian women). You know, as if I would love to go read the additional content that comes with homework so I could jump face-first into the life of a man who sees women as existing for sex, abused me verbally for being so sexy without offering sex, and grossed me out thoroughly by saying women's cruelty in rejecting him would inevitably lead to him committing sex crimes. He told me he and I were obviously so alike, such kindred spirits, that he KNEW for a fact if I had been born a man, I would never agree with the awful behavior I'd subjected horny men to just for the supposed crime of being attracted to me. And he tried to comment on a bunch of my online journal entries and website content, stalking me across the internet to tell me a) he disapproves of my opinions and b) he loves me.

Yiiiiiikes. Biggest yikes I have probably ever received.

And I mean, keep in mind that I've received a handful of death threats and a couple dozen rape threats, have had men tell me I'm useless unless I get married, have had a man impersonate me on the Internet posting naked pictures he claimed were me, have had a man try to start a rumor online that I was a pedophile and linked it to my legal name, have had to get a lawyer for defamation, have had a man tell me I have an obligation to wear an emblem of some sort to warn men away from propositioning me so I don't hurt them (and he even designed the emblem for me and instructed me to have it made), and had a guy tell me I should wear a jockstrap under my skirt so I could delight in knowing men would be disgusted (and in the same mail asked me to tell him my address because he wanted to look at the structure of my apartment building in Google Earth; random interest in architecture, you know).

I've received a lot of terrible messages so it takes a lot to be the worst. I think that was it.

As for the best?

Man, how do I follow that? I feel exhausted from typing that out.

Probably one of the best e-mails I ever got from a stranger was from someone who became a good friend later on. My friend Jessie was once an Internet stranger who contacted me to tell me about how my work had revolutionized an aspect of her life. I won't go into detail like above out of respect for her privacy, but she credited me with repairing a relationship and validating her in a way she hadn't been up to that point, and she found many of her unrelated ideas so similar to mine (and even some of our history weirdly matched) that it was inevitable that we became fast friends. We were able to go on from there to discuss writing and relationship perspectives, create character art together, discuss religion and philosophy and communication styles, and have a damn good time on the several occasions we've braved distance to visit one another. I was ever so pleased to attend her wedding not too long ago and be there for her special day.

I actually have a few friendships and correspondence relationships that have begun with a stranger e-mail like that, and many to most have begun with someone reacting to content I've made. It's delightful every time, though sometimes bittersweet because occasionally people get very emotional and credit me for saving their lives or their sanity. It's amazing and humbling. I sometimes wonder about how many people feel that way and never do write me. They must be out there.

Small Talk

I know it's not anything special or revolutionary to say you hate small talk, but man, I hate small talk.

Truthfully I don't mind it THAT much if it's something you don't have much choice about. It's pleasant sometimes to exchange observations about the weather, or to talk about where's a good restaurant or where someone is from originally.

But when you have a choice? A completely free, open choice to talk about whatever you want? AND YOU CHOOSE SMALL TALK?

Come on, just spare me.

On the one hand, I want people to be basically polite to me and not assume too much about my comfort level. So I do appreciate people being cautious about touchy or personal subjects (especially since a lot of my online presence is about asexuality or associated with it). But even introductory conversations about these things can be both non-intrusive AND "deep" or thought-provoking. I don't want to talk about polite incidentals as a way of easing into chat. I want to talk to you if you have something to talk to me about.

Yes, it's different if you're around people you don't necessarily need to form a deep or lasting relationship with, like the person sitting next to you at the bus stop or people at work with whom you keep your personal life private. But as part of a getting-to-know-you process, I'm really, really tired of "nothing" conversations that feel like pulling teeth.

I love to make friends on social networking sites, specifically OKCupid (which of course is primarily used as a dating site, but allows other uses through "here-for" categories that encompass more than dating). I have successfully used it to make friends for more than ten years. But like most good things, it has its down sides. And just as often as I encounter people who think it's fine to get TOO personal immediately (read: they ask me for sex or ask me intensely personal questions about my sexual habits), I get people who just don't know how to start a good conversation.

Just the other day I gave up on a conversation with someone who was basically polite but didn't seem to have a damn thing to talk about. His first contact claimed he'd connected with my "story," and he had a high match percentage, so I matched him and accepted the chat, encouraging him to discuss what part of my "story" he connected with. 

He did not do that. He instead asked me where I'm from originally.

Uh. Okay. Well, I told him, and elaborated a little about cold weather. He sidestepped the opportunity to elaborate on that himself and just asked me another nothing question about where I went to college.

I told him. Elaborating less this time, but trying to leave the conversation open.

And then he did it again, only this time he hit one of my pet peeves. He asked me if one of the stats I'd put on my profile--my height, 4'11"--was actually how tall I really am.

So. We've gone back and forth three times and now he's asking me if I'm lying about myself.

I confirmed I'm really 4'11" and asked why he seemed so baffled by that. He said he thought I "looked tall" in my pictures. What. So I asked what he meant, at which point he opined that my being thin indicated to him that I was tall. When I hit him with how absolutely ridiculous that sounds to me and that he HAD to know there are short people who are not fat and tall people who are not thin, he then began doing the thing I hate.

He told me it was just a question, to not get offended, and that he is JUST TRYING TO START A CONVERSATION.

You know what, buddy?

No, you're not trying to start a conversation.

You're apparently not connecting with anything in my "story" because there's not a single thing in this conversation you couldn't have asked any other stranger, and then the only personalized content is about my photographs. Whose authenticity you questioned, slapping them thoughtlessly with a truly bizarre misconception about how body type is likely to indicate height.

You don't need to manufacture conversation with me.

It isn't hard at ALL to find something to talk about with me. I am willing. I am full of interesting conversation handles to grab onto that I carefully installed all over my profile. I even give instructions on how to talk to me--that I want some meat here. That I want something real to reply to.

It doesn't have to be deep. It doesn't have to be lengthy. It just has to be a real thought based on something you noticed about me or something my profile inspires you to want to talk about, and it has to actually be for me. I don't start relationships with people based on an empty questionnaire, and I don't regard the task of getting to know a person as a gauntlet of empty questions we answer before we start really talking about anything.

What's funny is I generally don't have this problem at all with people who become my friends. We jump right in with the fun stuff, the intense stuff, the enjoyable stuff, the deep stuff, the connections. Maybe I talk to them for a month before I find out what their last name is or what their job is. I might literally not know a person's gender or age at first because it's that unimportant to me to fill out a demographics form. These are no longer the foundation of getting to know another person. You connect with the real stuff first, the soul of a reason to communicate, and then eventually some of that other stuff will fill itself in in the background.

You don't need to "make" conversation with me by asking a series of boring, safe questions. Especially if it goes nowhere due to jumping around trying to give me one-liners to answer. My conversations with the people I want to talk to immediately get lengthy because we have so much to say to each other. It's not a chore. It's a joy.

And it really is easy. The hardest part for some of these dudes appears to be realizing that I am a person whose thoughts are unusually available to anyone who wants to take a peek. You should have NO problem at all finding something to talk about if we're similar people.

And if you read through that whole profile and nothing inspires you? If you read through it all and you still can't think of anything to say to me?

Then don't.

Really, don't.

And if you can't think of much to say about yourself? If you have nothing you're bursting to share?

Don't.

Just don't.

Don't bother me. I am not going to stand over you painfully extracting a dialogue. Speak to me if you have something you're excited to say. If you have nothing to say, just shut up.

A friendly zone

I've seen a wordless multiple-frame comic going around lately (which I will not repost) depicting a girl handing a boy a representation of her heart, which he then drops on the ground. Breaking it. Uncaring, he walks away and leaves her with the broken heart. Another sweet boy swoops in and helps her mend the damage. He touches her face tenderly, at which point she seems grateful, but then she turns away and scurries back to the boy who broke her heart, ready to try again with him even though he did that to her.

Of course, you're supposed to feel that the sweet boy has been cheated and the girl is unreasonable.

That the girl should have learned through that interaction that the sweet boy who helped her heal should now be attractive to the girl because he was there for her, and that the girl is actually being cruel to the boy because he did the work of putting her back together and now she's going forward as if that heart of hers actually belongs to her to do with as she wills.

Ya know, I'm not going to go into detail about that. I think most people who know me know how I feel about the concept of a man offering friendship, doing friendship things for a woman, and then expecting that to lead to romantic attraction and feeling cheated when it doesn't. And I think actually it's fine for a man to feel sad that someone he cares about is going back to someone who broke her heart, as long as he doesn't feel that his time and attention to a woman in need are wasted effort if she doesn't reward him with sex or a relationship. I think most men who are sad in this situation don't actually think they're putting a down payment on a relationship if they're kind to a woman who loves someone else.

I want to tell my side of this story.

I have a lot of friends who aren't in established relationships. People who wish they could have a fairy tale romance (or at least a dependable significant other). I don't want to be in romantic relationships with them, obviously.

But I wonder if they're aware how much it hurts to be treated like your friendship is nothing.

Friendship will always be demoted beneath romantic relationships. In time spent, in importance, in "seriousness." And if I am upset about it, I'm always going to be treated like either that is inappropriate and I should've expected to be ignored/essentially dumped when someone has a relationship, or that I must've secretly had romantic feelings for the person.

I'm not offended that they want romance. I'm not upset whatsoever if they establish a primary partnership with someone. But damn, it really gets old being treated like my friendship wasn't worth anything.

When I'm there for them during the hard times, happy to do things in between or outside the relationship, happy to listen when it goes bad, happy to offer advice or distraction or an ear to listen.

You wouldn't believe how often I've been treated like that's nothing.

I don't want a romantic relationship out of it. I would be upset if someone acted like our closeness should lead to romance. That's not the expected result of my care for them, for my treating them like they're important to me and being sad when they're wounded.

But I keep hearing, as they talk to me, the person who's there for them: "I'm alone." "No one cares about me." "I'll never be valued by anyone."

It really hurts to know that my friendship just "isn't anything" sometimes. That people who ostensibly like me think nothing of saying that my affection doesn't count because it isn't sexual, that because of the lack of that dimension it isn't real or significant to them.



I guess that's why people like this really think it's fine to disappear into their relationships and ignore me for months or years at a time, then pop right back out expecting me to be waiting for them.

The first time a particular friend of mine did this to me, I was baffled that he actually did it, and then after that I never trusted him that way again.

I was still kind to him, I was still there when the breakup came and went out to console him with some distractions, still tried to support the other things he did and was ready to include him when he was ready to include me.

But you know what? It didn't really hurt much at all the second and third times he did it.

I had accepted--sadly--that I wasn't anything to this person. Anything real, that is. He felt free to discard me when he didn't need me, and he apparently thought it was fine to leave me out of the loop on what was going on in his life because once he got a girlfriend everything was About Her, and when established routines just suddenly disappeared again I didn't have to ask. I knew it meant he was in a relationship, and that him being in a relationship necessarily means he will just put me down like a toy he's tired of.

I'm not waiting for his attention. If I know that's how someone treats his friends when he's in a relationship and he doesn't explicitly have a conversation about how he's learned not to do that, I will invest far less of myself into my relationship with him. Not because he found happiness with someone else. Not because I require him to find his happiness primarily through his connection with me. I'm honestly thrilled if I can help him mend his heart and he goes off to take it to his love or someone else.

But I need our relationship to be about something too, and I need it to be important to him. Or else I will see that he actually doesn't know how to have a friendship with a person who's not actively providing a service to him, and I will know where I stand.

I'm not going to pretend I don't care when people do that. I actually do invest in my friendships and I actually do regard my friends as if they can be trusted to do the same. I'm always going to be sad about every one of these people I've lost. But I'm not going to pine about it or present myself as deserving the relationship I wanted from them. They clearly don't want to give that to me. They want a friendship of convenience. That isn't what I want, and furthermore, what kind of dipstick am I if I find out that's who this person is and I still want a version of them with that part excised?

It can't be taken out. It's part of them and I didn't see it. It's unacceptable to me as a friend who cares deeply and wants to be equally important to them. I will have a bad reaction and I will mourn and I will probably sulk. I will be sad about the person I thought they were. And then I won't give any parts of myself to them that require trust to hold. I'll understand our relationship isn't what I wanted, and I'll let it be what they're willing to let it be (or, if that's unacceptable to me, I will cut contact).

I will always accept people for who they are. If they show me something ugly and disappointing about themselves, I believe them, and treat them accordingly.

"You need HELP."

"You need THERAPY."

As an asexual, aromantic woman who claims to be happy, this is something I hear a lot. That I need a professional's help to fix myself, because I am, by definition, BROKEN if I think happiness is an option for me.

Let's explore where that idea comes from.

Not the idea that asexual, aromantic people can't be happy--I've talked about that plenty--but the idea that "WHAT?? FIX YOURSELF!" is one of the first things people bleat when they don't personally relate to you.

Let's be clear. This suggestion--or rather, this suggestion made this way--does not come from a kind place. The person, despite what the words say, is not saying "I wish you would get better."

They are saying "You are wrong."

They are saying "I want you to face that you're wrong."

They are saying "If I can't imagine being happy like you, I am allowed to be confident that you are sad. I am allowed to say to you without any self-examination that I reserve the right to define happiness by what makes ME happy. And I have no qualms about contributing to the master narrative that tells us all which ways of living are acceptable and which ways are not."

When someone snaps "GET HELP" or "SEEK THERAPY," they aren't expressing real concern or well wishes for you, no matter how many times they also call you "sweetie" or "dear." And of course, if you call them out on their insincerity, the pearls will be immediately clutched: "Why, how could you accuse ME of false goodwill! The nerve! How dare you imply I do not say this out of LOVE!"

Love is listening to someone and working with them to feel better if they have a problem.

Love is fostering that person's trust, cultivating a caring relationship with them, making yourself available for their doubts and fears.

Love is expressing concern if you are concerned, but doing it in a way that the at-risk person can use without feeling attacked.

And if you think you can say "I'm *sorry*, but you need to GET HELP" as an effective way of opening the door to healing, you are mistaken. Let's just pretend you're actually sincere and you're saying these things, and you truly do not understand why someone who gets snapped at to see a psychiatrist would not read this as loving concern. Let's just say you're confused, emotional, and inexperienced with how to get someone you're concerned about to connect with the proper professionals. Here's what you need to know about our reaction when we confide in you and you say "GET HELP."

• We think you aren't listening to what we said.
  
• We think we can't trust you.
  
• We think you are against us, not trying to help us.
  
• We think we have disgusted or angered you.
  
• We think we need to be silent about our personal truths when we're around you.
  
• We think our differences are upsetting and unacceptable.
  
• We feel rejected.
  
• We feel unsafe.
  
• We feel ashamed.
  
• We feel dismissed.
  
• We feel like you trust a hypothetical stranger's assessment over our lived experience, and that you default to believing a mental health professional would side with you.

And we may feel that your response is inspired by your own insecurity, not anything that needs to change for us.

If someone confides in you and their words Really Truly make you think the person needs counseling, your job is to support them personally, not shame them for their quirks and bully them into getting medical help. If the goal here is the other person's satisfaction and stability, you should primarily be focusing on what they want. Are they safe? Are they conflicted or confused about what they're telling you? Are they ASKING for your advice or your help? Are they asking you to understand them and your first response is "no, unacceptable: get fixed"?

But let's be real here. There aren't many people out there who have said "Seriously, hun, GET HELP" to another person and actually did it out of goodwill and from a caring place. It is a conversation ender. It is a weapon.

Most people, when they do this, are attempting to gaslight others, or call into question their basic competence. They are saying, "Your mind is sick. Your thoughts are inspired by illness and your experience is false. You do not have an authentic life." And they say it with no acknowledgment at all that they are not experts on what it's possible to feel. More often than not, this is something bullies say in response to nonconformity: "Stop being so WEIRD, ya weirdo. You're not doing it for a good reason--it's just to be special, or to be quirky, or to get attention. I do not accept that people can think or feel what you do, so it must be fake and I'll treat you like there's something wrong with you for saying it."

And not that someone's happiness or satisfaction with their life automatically indicates that they are not mentally ill or engaging in pathological behavior, but for the record, "eccentric" people tend to have significantly higher self-reported ratings of happiness. Being unashamedly unusual sometimes takes bravery (especially at first, and especially if it isn't entirely based on a choice), but it also leads to freedom from many constraints that make people miserable, and people who feel free to be themselves usually lead less stressful, happier lives.

You're not helping if you react to their difference by saying it indicates need for professional help.

What you should know is that many people from marginalized populations are intensely harmed by therapy trolling.

Many do not have the resources to know they are being gaslit or bullied. Many are being told their minds are not trustworthy by people they've trusted their whole lives. Many are vulnerable to programming and to being controlled by authorities. Many will internalize feelings of inadequacy and anxiety over being considered so abnormal that they need a head doctor, and it will be devastating for them. Exploiting their weaknesses to make them doubt their own minds could have consequences for the rest of their lives.

Let me say something first, lest I be misinterpreted: THERE IS NOTHING INHERENTLY WRONG WITH NEEDING THERAPY!!!!

Mental illnesses exist! People who need therapists and other mental health practitioners exist! It's not a badge of shame to see a counselor or to need regular access to one. And it's not evidence of a hopeless future or a broken mind if professional help really does make you healthier.

The problem I have is when people believe intervention needs to be forced on someone whose less mainstream perspective or experience is not evidence of deviance, distress, or disease. It isn't HELPFUL--and is, in fact, ultimately HARMFUL--if someone decides their own way of being healthy must be grafted onto someone else whose health simply looks different. My health is not your health. What's good for the goose is NOT always good for the gander. And if you really do approach the world with a perspective that your reality defines how others should live, what others should like, and who others should love, you either have a giant case of unwarranted self-importance or a belief that harmless diversity damages the validity of your life. You're like the people who believe same-sex marriage dilutes the validity of heterosexual marriages because SOMEONE WHOSE ATTRACTION EXPERIENCES DIFFER NOW GET THE SAME ACCESS TO THE BENEFITS OF PERMANENCE THAT YOU ALWAYS TOOK FOR GRANTED. Calm down and let people live instead of spending a bunch of energy and attention making people feel crappy about themselves.

And if it really, truly disturbs you that people you fundamentally don't understand should still be allowed to live their lives according to their own authentic, self-led doctrines, inclinations, attractions, and opinions. . . .

Try talking to other people about it and doing your best to wrap your head around who they are and what they're saying. 

If you need assistance doing that, I've heard some counselors can give you the coping tools to become less agitated about things that aren't your business and aren't yours to control.

Another Explanation

[Sharing some stuff from my webcomic, So You Write, because the associated rant may be of interest to some people who read this blog.]

(Click it to read if formatting makes menus or text obscure the image.)

Step 1: Include tons of irritating stereotypes about women in your story

Step 2: Insist that the presence of even caricature-style women in your story is “diversity” and “empowerment”

Step 3: Portray real-world women as unreasonable for being offended by your portrayal of them

Step 4: Blame hysteria in a female-dominated publishing scene for blocking your opportunities

Step 5: Ignore, discredit, and mock women who try to help you understand

Listen, guys. I know that if women seem mysterious to you, it’s easier to believe lazy stereotypes about them than to give them real diversity and respect as people. But we’re not giving you a hard time about this because we just hate men and nothing you do is right. We’re simply super tired of our motivations and feelings always being tied to sex, babies, sex, shopping, and sex.

It’s not just “offensive.” It’s terribly uninteresting and incomplex. Think about the (hopefully, exaggerated) female supervillain team in this comic. Is the only way you can think of to make a woman bitter is to portray her as a sad barren witch because she couldn’t give birth? Does the only source you can dredge up for a woman’s gritty, dark past have to be tied to rape? Is it really the best you can do if your team powerhouse is simply irresistibly sexy and exploits the heroes’ attraction?

It really is a problem if female characters–even ones not as exaggerated as these–are written by men who fixate on “femaleness” and miss the mark of who they could be. If they see women as sexual manipulators, materialistic shoppers, beings who must find fulfillment through motherhood, or creatures who become interesting and motivated when men violate them, their prejudices are going to come out in what they write.

And they’re probably also going to say if women can’t handle the stuff they want to write about, it isn’t really written for them anyway. Guess what? These messages are bad for other genders too. This is why there’s a pushback against traditionally male-dominated entertainment creating female characters like this. Nobody should be writing terrible female characters and excusing men for telling each other ridiculous stories about who they think we are.

This is not to say you can never have a female character who grieves because of childlessness or has lingering pain and trauma over assault. It just gets so, so tiring when the things that motivate our gender in fiction are always about either things men think are silly or things that tie us to men or define us by men.

All that said, depressingly, having a badly written book is a lot more likely to doom your publishing opportunities than misogynistic text will. Sexist stuff gets published all the time, and even though plenty of editors (of multiple genders) are tired of it, there are also plenty who don’t even recognize it.

Forgive?

Today I saw one of those "viral" stories that might not even be based on anything that happened to anyone. Its basic idea was this:

A bilingual boy and his toddler cousin were playing in a park when they were unexpectedly yelled at by a white woman for speaking a language other than English. The older boy, being a child getting scolded for no reason by a bigot, was rude to her in return. The white woman snapped and began threatening the children, claiming she was calling her husband to come set them straight and beat them up. He was scared, and he and his family decided to avoid the park for a while afterwards. 

Many years later, the bilingual boy had become a bilingual man and he had a good job, and he ended up seeing this woman again when she was sent to his company as a temp. She didn't recognize him but he recognized her. He tolerated her for a few days, and then had an opportunity to bring up the incident in a sideways fashion, pointing out that the woman's current residence was very close to a park where he was once harassed by a racist for not speaking English. The woman looked uncomfortable, got silent, and didn't lay claim to the action, of course. Later he contacted her temp agency and asked them to cancel her contract--which was legal for him to do as they don't need a reason to refuse to permanently hire whoever they send. 

This story circulated on Facebook. Many of the people saying "GOOD, had it coming, this is karma" had profile photos that suggested they were people of color. Almost everyone pearl-clutching over the bilingual man's refusal to offer forgiveness and be the bigger person and not hold a grudge had a white person in the thumbnail.

The common thread among so many of these white commenters was that a bilingual man of color lacked class and must be bitter because his resentment must have grown instead of mellowed over the years, and that wronged parties still owe their abusers forgiveness or else they themselves are not good people.

What they see is an old incident that shouldn't "count" anymore. What they see is a woman whose statute of limitations should have been up on carrying any consequences for threatening children with violence when they'd literally done nothing wrong. Even though she never apologized (despite the bilingual man bringing up the incident, at which point it would have been embarrassing but possible to own the action, voice shame, and offer an apology if she had in fact grown as a person since then). These people focused on what the white woman deserves and what the brown person did wrong, and these people focused on how failing to forgive amounted to revenge.

Did any of them imagine for a second that a woman who's unrepentant about screaming at children, a woman who thinks multi-lingual people are offensive for speaking a non-English language in public, a woman who felt that someone wronged her because they didn't default to her language . . . might actually make a terrible employee?

It isn't as simple as "she did something shitty once and the kid didn't forget and got his revenge." It's that she's apparently still a shitty person. Racists shouldn't be given opportunities by people who know they're racist. It should be socially and professionally unacceptable to be racist. Some people think it's "personal" and "doesn't have anything to do with her as an employee," but if she's willing to scream at children in a park and literally tell them a grown man is on his way there to assault them, how much must she hate brown people? How likely is she to be willing to take professional direction from one? How about if she were promoted and a non-white or bilingual person worked for her? What if they had an accent? What if they had a foreign-sounding last name? What if her customers do? What if her hatred of other races--which, I remind you again, has manifested as willingness to terrorize children who were minding their own business--led her to serving marginalized people in dangerous or less professional ways?

Racists are racist at work. They're racist in their dreams. They're racist in the voting booth. They're racist in church, racist when they teach, racist when they raise kids. They don't keep that hate out of their everyday lives. It informs and infects everything they do.

It isn't simple revenge that motivates a man of color to send a racist packing. It's social responsibility. And it would have been justifiable even if she hadn't been able to connect her bombed opportunity to the way she treats marginalized people, but he even brought it up to her as a way of having that fresh in her mind. When a man she was now working for was able to bring up her act of hatred more than a decade later and describe it as the first thing that enters his head when he thinks about that park. No, it's not about revenge. It's about consequences, which is not the same thing as revenge.

And the idea that marginalized people are supposed to "rise up" and "be bigger" when they experience this, or the idea that they owe their tormentors "forgiveness" regardless of whether their tormentors have repented, or the idea that the victimized lose quality as human beings if they react "improperly" to old wounds etched onto their youthful hearts . . . the idea makes me sick.

I would always prefer an opportunity to come to an understanding versus enacting a simple punishment. I do believe peaceful resolution and reconciliation is superior to cold consequences. But if a person doesn't believe they're wrong to hate diversity so much that their fury over it inspires them to threaten children, that isn't something I can overlook. We HAVE to tackle that first. It isn't politics or opinions or free speech. A person like this thinks only their speech is free, while a brown child speaking a "foreign" tongue must be silenced and punished. 

And frankly, it is not a marginalized person's responsibility to do the dirty, exhausting work of deprogramming a racist--especially if they've been personally harmed by racism (or that specific racist). If this is all about who's been made a better person by all this time passing, where is the evidence that this white woman has confronted her awful beliefs and tried to unlearn racism? Why do we assume she's better, or deserving, or that she hasn't hurt uncounted others in similar ways? We're always ready to excuse a white lady for that one time, but for even one of these times to happen, a whole architecture of racist thoughts and racist intent has to have been constructed in her foundation. This wasn't an accident or something that slipped out. This is an expression of who she was and probably still is. 

Let her do the work of becoming a better person. The bilingual man was already hurt by her once when he was far more vulnerable. He doesn't need to show the world his magnanimous big heart as he extends his forgiveness and education to someone who treated him like he was subhuman. And if we as a culture didn't expect such tolerance, such endurance, such "bigness" from people of color, no one would be in those comments saying his worth as a person is lowered because he wasn't willing to invest himself and trust a racist. If these apologists want people to earn respect by looking past racists' damning ideological flaws, why don't they hold their own to the same standards when bigots refuse to "look past" someone's mother tongue or their brown skin?

Racists aren't good people even when they do good things. What happened to this meritocracy people like this are so fond of? Let her earn his respect if she expects to work at the man's business. Let her acknowledge her wrongdoing and demonstrate that "another chance" wouldn't be wasted on her. Let her prove she's leaving bigotry behind and is deserving of a present on equal ground with someone she once abused out of hate and ignorance. Let her demonstrate that hard personal work--or else surely someone else who hasn't screamed at a kid for speaking the wrong language deserves that coveted position more, right? 

Sure, if that man wanted to, he could extend a hand and try to feel out the woman's potential for education and self-improvement. But to imply it's on him to do this or he's selfish, short-sighted, bigoted himself, bitter, childish, vengeful, or petty? Sounds like more racist nonsense. He can offer the slot to the best qualified applicant. I'm not surprised a man of color would consider the racism of an employee to be a dealbreaker on the level of being a habitual shoplifter or an embezzler. (And as mentioned, if you really think a racist's racism doesn't affect how they do their job, you are sorely mistaken.) Why, if you are a decision-maker, would you decide the best employee is one who is threatened by the language a child speaks, who was willing to express her disgust of such with threats of violence, who threw her weight around hurting a vulnerable person in a situation where she gained nothing from doing so except the satisfaction of causing pain? I don't want that person working for me even if I'm white (well, you know, and I am). I don't want someone around who thinks like that. 

If your response to a story like this is "that poor racist" and "how petty of him to not forgive," I know who you relate to in this tale, and I have my doubts about you as well. I hope you're receiving everything you deserve.