Art Theft

I guess I'll just whine.

I made a fan comic about two Steven Universe characters a while back and every time I share it in a new place I'm pleasantly surprised by how many people love it. I'm not an experienced fan artist or really an experienced artist at all, and it's a pretty new experience for me to have people sending me over-the-top compliments about something I've done, but I'm sure the biggest draw of the comics I did was the writing. I at least have confidence in my ability to do that, but I think the drawings came out unusually good for me, too, so I'm pretty proud of it.

I even learned swanky talk bubbles just for this project!

It was incredibly well-received on Tumblr, with thousands of notes and really flattering tags, people suggesting that it made them cry and whatnot. (I'm making a cute little collage of all my favorite tag compliments. I know it's silly, but it's also hard to look at the comments on Tumblr if they're left in tags, so I saved the images and put them together.) I made new friends from people private-messaging me to tell me how much they liked it, got hundreds of new followers, all that. 

Then I joined Steven Universe Amino, and while the people there were equally enthusiastic and similarly complimentary, several of them also commented that they'd seen this comic elsewhere. A couple, tellingly, said "I've seen this around and couldn't find who made it! IT'S SO COOL THAT I FINALLY KNOW WHO DID IT!"

Yikes?

So apparently the comic has been swiped and shared in at least four or five places without credit. On the one hand, I guess I've never made something that got popular enough and appreciated enough that people wanted to rip it off, so it's kinda exciting that that many people found it worthy. But? Yeah what the hell people not even a basic credit? I know it can be a pain to ask for permission from every artist whose work you want to share (and that's one of the reasons I love Tumblr's system: reblogs that put someone's work on your blog are easily traceable to the original poster, and no one thinks you're stealing it if you reblog it). But it's not like my cartoon blog is hard to find. And it obviously had to start with at least one someone deliberately saving the images off my blog and putting them somewhere else, knowingly, without saying who made them.

So it's been on Pinterest, it's been shared around groups on Facebook, and it has been made into a slideshow on YouTube at least twice by people who didn't make any attempt to find the original artist. (One of said YouTube accounts explicitly has a statement up about how they don't credit art because "it's too hard to find the original artist," okay dude, and their subscriber base of over 32,000 people is there for content that is simply recycled and shared without permission or credit. Someone's monetized YouTube is making money off art they're using without credit.) I messaged one of them and specifically asked my blog link to be included in the info, which isn't too much to ask considering I wasn't asked permission at all and it's nice of me to even let them keep it. But I didn't get an answer, so I submitted a copyright claim. Haven't heard anything back from that yet, but maybe I will. YouTube actually usually is pretty good with copyright claims.

Sadly, I hesitated to submit said claim partly because I feared backlash from the person's followers. It's a very popular account and if you get too many strikes you can get your account deleted. I can certainly imagine the account owner or any number of their followers turning on me furiously claiming that I should not make a big deal of this or that I should in fact be grateful for the exposure. Ah, exposure. That old chestnut, frequently thrown in the face of artists who expect basic respect for their work. I'm not even asking to be paid for its use, y'all. I'm asking to have my name and credit attached to it instead of specifically, deliberately removed from my intended place of display, to the point that people in the comments were asking who the creator is and no one can say. (Dude, a reverse image search isn't hard, and very few people out there have actually made a comic about this subject, so even a text search works.) This is not, like, an extremely old Internet post, or a post from a deleted blog that's hard to dig up the source on, or an image originally shared online for the first time by someone who doesn't know where it came from. It's easy to find me. They simply choose not to.

It makes me angry.

I've seen a few places where sites are offering PDF downloads of my book for free. Most of them are places that are questionable and potentially infested with viruses, and I don't know how accurate the downloads are. I don't bother with them. People are going to try to get stuff for free, and many of them do it partly because they cannot or would not have purchased the book anyway--I feel that very few book download pirates would suddenly become customers if they were forced to choose between getting it illegally for free and not having it at all. I'm not saying it's okay to not pay an author and their publisher for a product you want--yes, it's still stealing. But I think at least in that case, my name is still attached to it and the publisher's name is still on it. It isn't some orphaned piece of content that no one can trace. If someone steals a copy, they can still quote me, or recommend me to another person who might pay for the content, or list it on resources properly.

But when someone separates content from its creator, whether through carelessness or deliberately (as they do when people like this go as far as to actually erase artists' signatures), it's basically treating content people worked very hard on as if it belongs to everyone freely, to put anywhere, to do anything with. I heard my comic was put on YouTube with voice actors doing dubbed voices for the characters, reading my dialogue! I haven't found that anywhere, so maybe the person who told me they saw it was mistaken or maybe it's taken down or maybe its title is so obscure that I can't find the content (deliberately?), but people are making transformative works or including my work in their aggregate posts and not including any connection to the person who made it. Don't people want to know the artist? So they can follow them and see more of their work, or send them a nice message like so many of these people on Tumblr and Amino and DeviantArt have been doing? 

People like this content because it makes them feel something. I'm baffled at the idea that people want to enjoy content I made but think it's either unimportant or wrong for me to expect credit for it. And why do you care if you're not being paid for it either way? you might ask. Oh, come on now. I'm seeing comments like that levied at artists who are also being told "You should work for exposure." How is it "exposure" if the vast majority of the shares are "exposing" my work but not the fact that it is mine?

And perhaps it's also a little strange to be making such claims about fan works. They are clearly derivative content and I don't own the characters or their stories, so what is the point of being possessive of works derived from them if I don't have permission from the creators to make these works?

Actually, first of all this cartoon is specifically made by people who grew up with the Internet and fan communities; they're basically half a generation younger than I am, and their celebration of fan works when they were learning to be the artists they are has informed their perspective and has led them to be highly fan-work-supportive. They say as much in interviews, all the time, and encourage people to write their stories in the universe and create their own characters too. There's no belief amongst the creators that fan works infringe on the main work, I guess unless they are making unauthorized products that they're then selling on a large scale. (Even that is a gray area sometimes.)

But even if that wasn't the opinion of the creators, it's still an original work by an artist who deserves to be credited for doing it. Making the comic doesn't make me an owner of the characters or their stories. But the hours I spent and the care I put into coming up with the story are not lessened through acknowledging that they are not original characters. My name on it just says "I made this," not "I own everything associated with this."

And it just makes me really furious that they can love my content so much that they want to put it in their own spaces, but they don't think I deserve the basic respect of being credited.

 

 

Personal Digest Saturday: March 25 – March 31

Life news this week: 

• OKAY so Saturday was driving school again! I drove around for like 17 miles and practiced some parking and didn't run over any cones. I was also pleased with my bus navigation abilities; I took the right bus there and back and didn't get lost. I worked on a video about my upstairs neighbors' stomping so I could show it to the apartment manager, but I didn't finish it before the office closed. I got Skype-interviewed by a student doing an asexuality documentary, and the interviewer liked my cartoon coffee mug--yes, I was interviewed by a Steven Universe fan (whose favorite Gem is also Garnet, by the way, wow). I talked to my sister P on the phone while redecorating for spring, and after that I did my blogging and stuff. Whee!
• Sunday I did music, watched cartoons, and played with my new Amino app. (I was kinda talked into joining it because they have a Steven Universe app and they figured I'd fit in there. I do. Except the place is very, very young.) I finished redecorating and talked to Dad and Sarah on the phone. And I ate pizza!
• Monday I did some Access training and was able to get a start on making the database I wanted. Something I posted--a collection of toy photos--got "featured" on the Amino app so I kept getting nice messages and occasional people trying to buy my toys, haha. ("What would you sell me? How much? I'll go ask my mom." Haha.) I got a chance to draw at lunch, and after work my mom picked me up and we had some rice together before going grocery shopping. Did some relaxing and fell asleep early.
• Tuesday I woke up late again so I had to do a paid ride. I wonder if this will happen to me once a week or so until I start driving myself? I started to really figure out Access, I think, and my dad picked me up from work and took me over to a parking lot so I could practice some more driving skills. I ended up driving all the way home, including on a very busy road (Dale Mabry Highway, during rush hour). We drove to a pizza place and had pizzas there, and then hung out at my house where he helped me with some stuff about how to manage savings and 401(k) stuff. After he left I bought some silly things online and read a liveblog.
• Wednesday I just barely got to the bus stop in time. I did database stuff ALL DAY LONG and then went back to my neighborhood to meet up with Jeaux. We ate Five Guys food and talked about cartoons. After he left I was so sleepy that I fell asleep very soon.
• Thursday was a long, sort of boring day filling up my Access database with, well, data. The database does what I want! I can get it to respond to queries with the information I actually wanted it to find, in a digestible and usable format! Now I just have to put a bunch of data in it so it will be useful. My boss is helping me with it, and he commented that I'm already "becoming a guru at this, too." Wow. A co-worker drove me home so I had time to stop into the apartment office and pick up a package! It was toys! I entered a contest on the Amino app, talked to Victor on the phone, and saw a leaked episode of my cartoon. Shocking. :o And I found out someone ripped off the comic I drew and put it on YouTube without credit or permission. Also shocking. And I ate a potato.
• Friday I just spent the day tooling around with the Access database. Most of the projects in it still have no descriptions and I'm basically just trying to find descriptions. I reviewed the book I finished reading on the bus, got a ride home with my co-worker again, and did webcomics. Mom came over for a little while and I ate yogurt she brought. After Mom left I posted my other webcomic too and went to bed.

New reviews of my book:

• Dawn Peterson gave it three stars on Goodreads.
• Emelie gave it three stars on Goodreads.

Interviews, Articles, Mentions:

• The video where my fan comic was ripped off without permission. You can see people in the comments saying it was crappy to take it and some other people trying to find out who drew it because there was no way to find out. (I have contacted the person privately, but they haven't responded yet. If they don't respond, I will probably submit a copyright ticket to YouTube.)

Reading progress:

• Finished this week: Picture Me Gone by Meg Rosoff. Four-star review.
• Currently reading: A Corner of White by Jaclyn Moriarty.

New singing performances:

This week's performance was "Here Comes a Thought" by Rebecca Sugar.



New drawings: 

Webcomic So You Write Issue 70: "On Tour."

Webcomic Negative One Issue 0620: "Can't Imagine."






New videos:

My latest writing video is called "Just Keep Trying!" and it is about persistence. People love to advise writers who are experiencing rejection to just keep trying and don't give up, but sometimes persistence isn't the only thing you need to get to yes. You need to be willing to reevaluate your approach or your product, and this video gives five tips on doing that.

 

My latest unlisted ukulele video is "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" in the style of Tiny Tim. I promised my dad a long time ago that I would learn this song so happy birthday, Dad. ;)

 

New photos:

I'm taking a lot of boring morning coffee selfies lately.

Secret superhero under my work shirt.

Me offering proof that I'm the original artist as part of a
requirement for the art contest I entered.

Social Media counts:
 
YouTube subscribers: 5,306 for swankivy (7 new), 625 for JulieSondra (4 new). Twitter followers: 853 for swankivy (5 new), 1,322 for JulieSondra (lost 1). Facebook: 291 friends (I defriended an acquaintance for being a butt sandwich to someone else) and 206 followers (no change) for swankivy, 650 likes for JulieSondra (1 new), 55 likes for Negative One (no change), 127 likes for So You Write (no change). Tumblr followers: 2,487 (lost 3). Instagram followers: 109 (5 new).

Territorial

I was practicing driving on Saturday with my driving instructor and we were doing some drills in the parking lot. Over on one side of the empty lot were two men, both wearing helmets, one motorcycle between them. At times one was riding the motorcycle in circles around the other. Not sure what they were doing, but it kinda looked like they were doing what I was doing: practicing something.

I followed my instructor's directions whenever he told me to go up and down rows, and at one point we came riding up to these fellows. Who, instead of moving the way people generally do when they're, you know, in front of a MOVING CAR, they just . . . stood there. In the road. (Okay, the parking lot, but it was the part of the parking lot where cars drive.) So of course I slowed down and stopped because they weren't moving, and one of them made a "WHAT DO YOU WANT?" kind of gesture at me like he wasn't the one standing in the dang road.

My instructor made the same gesture back at him. They didn't move.

So the instructor told me to go around them, which I did, and as I swung around them one yelled, "WHY DON'T YOU GO PRACTICE SOMEWHERE ELSE???"

I told my instructor I didn't feel safe here anymore and we left the parking lot. But that kind of stuck in my mind for a while.

Like, it wasn't their parking lot. They didn't have more right to be there than we did. And yet, still, because they were there, they thought they could tell us we shouldn't be. And they thought the best way to communicate that was through aggressive language and confrontational gestures.

Some folks are very territorial. Some less literally, too.

I was thinking about this over the course of this month: there are certain people who feel invaded anytime someone comes into their space, whatever that space is. Obviously it's a little understandable if you have a physical space you are enjoying, like a bedroom or a lunch table, and someone you didn't invite barges into it and shares the space with you, regardless of whether they interact with you. But if you're not hurting anything or making the space less welcoming by being in it, or if other people in it don't have more right to it than you do, it seems like coming into it shouldn't be a violation of personal space rules. Like, if I sat at your lunch table without being asked, you'd probably think it was weird. But if I got into the same section of the bus as you, that's what I'm supposed to do. It's even pretty typical if I sit right next to you provided the bus is crowded. As long as I don't, like, sit on your lap. But it's certainly not trespassing if I get on the same bus, or eat in the same cafeteria. 

In less literal spaces, like scientific fields or fan communities, you also see this territorial behavior, and the one I want to focus on is how aggressively men defend space against women. If you think this doesn't happen, you have either never observed the interactions that happen between men and women in these spaces or you have never experienced it yourself and therefore believe it is invented by hysterical ladies whose descriptions of aggression they face are not reflective of reality. (That attitude--that it rarely actually happens and women are crybabies who probably don't belong in those places if they can't "take it"--is actually one of the many attitudes they are subjected to and is often cited as part of why women don't enter some communities or fields as readily as men do.)

Let me start by talking about comic books. Comic fan communities are largely male dominated because mainstream comics are historically enjoyed by men in much larger numbers. Women report the following treatment when they try to engage or interact:

• Doubting of their authentic appreciation of the material ("you're not really a fan")
• Requests for proof of their fan status ("if you're a fan name three of your favorite Spider-Man artists")
• Refusal to listen to women's perspectives on how their gender is presented in comics ("no, the way they clothe the female superheroes in extremely sexualized ways isn't a good reason for you to feel uncomfortable reading them, and if you don't like it, you shouldn't read it")
• Assumptions about their tastes ("you wouldn't like this because it's about war, but I know some comics about fashion and girl rockstar groups you'd like")
• Frequent misogynistic language used around them or directed at them ("haha, you're a chick? go make me a sandwich, bitch")
• Frequent sexual harassment/unwanted advances ("oh, a lady--bra size? single?")
• Accusations of getting a job/receiving a reward simply because they are women ("she only got the position because Affirmative Action wants us to hire more ladies")

Pretty similar stuff happens in male-dominated professional fields. Men doubt women's abilities, ask them to prove themselves more thoroughly and doubt their findings/results, interpret their accomplishments with a more critical eye, process them as exceptions, laugh at them for "being offended" if they don't like guys in the workplace using sexualized language about women or making misogynistic jokes, expect them to assume secretarial/clerical/janitorial duties even if those duties are not in their job descriptions (like always expecting the female engineer to take notes or get the coffee during a meeting where she's an equal participant), make blatant negative statements about typical women's abilities in that field, hit on them at work or make sexual comments to them or in front of them, and sometimes, pay them less (while claiming the discrepancy is based on performance or lack of negotiation skills).

And what do these dudes have to gain by keeping women out of their spaces? Why are they so territorial? Societal messages have taught both of those genders that there are certain "places" for them and certain roles associated with who they are, and sometimes they feel threatened if someone who doesn't match the description is in their space. Perhaps some of them feel that their workplace or their fan community is a boys' club, and the ability to do things that offend, alienate, or disrespect women must be very important to them even though those things aren't/shouldn't be an inherent part of whatever they love. If being asked to be less sexist "ruins the fun," you have to conclude that their fun partially depends on being sexist. And rather than admit that, many of them prefer to assign some kind of inherent flaw to the women trying to come into "their" space.

They're too sensitive (to things designed to hurt them more). They're not aggressive enough (in a society that has punished them more and called them "unfeminine" if they are aggressive, while for men that same aggression is often seen as being a go-getter). They don't have the skills (in a field they've been raised to think they aren't naturally good at, and in situations where men wouldn't think to question other men's competence). They're offended when they're treated like they should be sexually available at work (by guys who always, always see women in a sexual context before they see them in any other context). They need/want mysterious LadyThings™ (certainly they'll call in sick every time they have period cramps! and since most expectations for child care land on women, she'll take more days off to care for sick kids, which is NOT a question/concern anyone has about fathers). They might not be taken seriously by other people (yo, we're not sexist here, but it's a fact that if we have a woman on the team then we might not close the negotiations if the decision-makers are sexist! Can't take the risk!).

You'll notice that they try to come up with "reasons" why women don't belong there that don't boil down to "I don't want them here because I have sexist beliefs." And yet, most of the reasons men don't want women invading "their" space are based on sexist beliefs that they're trying to present as facts. It all more or less goes back to untrue beliefs about the fundamental difference between men and women (and the belief in women's inferiority) and the perception that we women are basically alien beings who are Too Different From Men to ever really fit in. And another shame is that when some women get through to men that they aren't different in the ways they were suspected to be or that the ways they are different don't point to being unqualified or that they aren't nosing around somewhere they don't belong . . . they are still often processed as an exception to a rule that is still in force. In other words, if a woman does prove herself to men who believe like this, they'll usually decide she's not like the other girls, instead of deciding that maybe my beliefs about women were fundamentally untrue in the first place.

But the fact remains that in many areas where we'd like to be accepted and allowed to fully participate, we are instead assumed to be interlopers until we go out of our way to prove otherwise. We're treated like we're moving through their spaces instead of treated like we have equal ownership of those spaces. We're treated like this is their territory, and that they control the rules to who belongs there, even though when you ask them for the "rules" nothing about women's participation there actually violates them.

Sometimes I really wish people who believe this way would just hang up their "NO GIRLS ALLOWED" sign and admit they think we have cooties.

Wednesday Factoid: Local Characters

Today's Wednesday Factoid is: Who are the "characters" who make your town interesting?

You know, I'm kinda ashamed to say I don't know much about my area's local characters, and I'm sure there are loads more that people who are from around here would frown on me for missing, but two people immediately came to mind when I thought "local characters," so I'll share them.

One is someone I've never met, but who lots of people in my social circles know: a man known as "The Senator." 

He is an older gentleman who goes to a local dance club called The Castle wearing very provocative lingerie, and he is basically ALWAYS there and wanting to dance with young people. He is generally eager to pose for people's cameras so I don't feel like it's exploitative or weird to share a photo here:

Most of the photos you'll find of him online are much more revealing.

And the other person who came to mind is the Peter Pan guy.

He's actually relatively famous outside my area, I think, and his thing is that he is always dressed in some version of Peter Pan outfit and he has a "never grow up" philosophy in real life. I think he actually goes to the same club as the Senator, and I have at least personally seen him at Renaissance Faires. (He's married to someone who's frequently dressed like Tinker Bell.)

His website definitely reminds me of my website aesthetic of the 1990s. 

There's also this local celebrity named Julie Sondra Decker but she's just too famous to have time to tell you about herself right now.
 

Personal Digest Saturday: March 18 – March 24

Life news this week: 

• Saturday was Drink and Draw, and also a few popular people on Tumblr shared my several-week-old fan comic about Opal and I just kept getting all these awesome encouraging comments. (I'm making a collage of them.) I prepared for the art event and Eric came over early to get me. We hung out a bit and then headed out to the café, where we had some new faces but some significant old ones missing because the event invitation didn't go out properly. It was a good night. And also, for the first time in literally years, no one owes me any money.
• Sunday was music day as usual. I played a ukulele song that was pretty hard for me and a new karaoke song. I hit a milestone on my cartoon blog (500 followers!) so I drew a piece of extremely ridiculous fanart to celebrate it. It's really not good but I don't care, it's funny.
• Monday involved a LOT of design stuff at work (and I kept monitoring nice comments on my blog, awww). I ended up leaving a little later than usual and the buses were hellacious. I had to wait for one for over an hour. It is not any fun at all to leave my house at 6:30 AM and not get home until AFTER 8 PM, and then my noisy upstairs neighbors stomped and screamed so I couldn't even sleep. Awful.
• Tuesday I had to take a paid ride to work because I was so exhausted from the bad day yesterday that I didn't get up in time to get the bus. It was a good day besides that! A co-worker had brought donuts that I enjoyed heartily, and then later we had a sandwich order because we had a meeting. And then a co-worker drove me home! I had Mom over and she took me shopping, and before that we hung out a bit. I had a chat with Meg on the phone. Her husband is in the hospital, boo.
• Wednesday was a good day too. I did graphics and e-mail at work, and then Jeaux and I met for Best NY Pizza. At my house again we just chilled and then read the new Steven Universe comic issue together. It was a really, really good one! Maybe my favorite yet! (It was about Stevonnie. Dang. They are a severely underused character and we need more.)
• Thursday I learned something called plus stations in the design program and spent a bunch of time putting them on a plan sheet. I got to draw at lunch and after I got home I talked to Victor and drew the rest of my webcomic. It really sucks going to bed at a "reasonable" hour.
• Friday I woke up late again. Not doing so hot on this. Got to work without issue and had an okay day, but there were some server issues that impacted the office's productivity and I got an assignment to learn a program (Access) that I'm really unfamiliar with and doesn't really seem intuitive to me. Not sure I can learn to get it to do what my boss wants me to do with it. Oh well, I'll try. Finished a book on the bus ride home and then when I got home I gave a phone interview to a student doing a story on asexuality. Then I posted my comic and fell asleep.

Reading progress:

• Finished this week: Winger by Andrew Smith. Four-star review.
• Currently reading: Picture Me Gone by Meg Rosoff.

New singing performances:

This week's performance was "Romeo and Juliet" by Indigo Girls.



New drawings: 

Ridiculous fanart I drew for my cartoon blog hitting 500 followers: it's Garnet in human clothes that Steven picked out for her and approves of mightily, and also he gets to wear her glasses.

Webcomic Negative One Issue 0619: "The Present."






New videos:

My latest unlisted ukulele video is "It's Over, Isn't It?" from Steven Universe. (This is a pretty great song but not so great on ukulele sadly.)

(And if you're wondering, yes, it's a lady(ish) character singing about losing the lady(ish) love of her life to a man, noting that this is a single-gender alien race and they all use she/her pronouns but they are technically not women even though that's how most people who watch the show process them.)




If you'd like to hear the song accompanied by piano, like it should be, watch this clip from the show. It's really gorgeous and the voice actor is a Broadway performer.

New photos:

Quality plating at Drink and Draw--Cheong was not a fan of Eric's off-menu order.

Such a tasteless, tasteful drawing.

First of two donuts at the office.

Second of two donuts at the office. Seeing a pattern?

Comic #2, awww yeah!

Social Media counts:
 
YouTube subscribers: 5,299 for swankivy (6 new), 621 for JulieSondra (3 new). Twitter followers: 848 for swankivy (2 new), 1,323 for JulieSondra (lost 2). Facebook: 292 friends (no change) and 206 followers (no change) for swankivy, 649 likes for JulieSondra (lost 1), 55 likes for Negative One (no change), 127 likes for So You Write (no change). Tumblr followers: 2,490 (lost 2). Instagram followers: 104 (1 new).

Wednesday Factoid: City, Suburb, Country?

Today's Wednesday Factoid is: Would you most like to live in a city, a suburb, or the country?

Honestly I feel like the city is the best fit for me. It sounds a little weird because I do like nature and I do appreciate solitude, and actually I think some time out in an isolated cabin sounds pretty nice, but I like being in an urban center. I like being in one of the cities touring bands and acts come to. I like having a lot of choices when it comes to entertainment or shopping opportunities, and I like that I can get to most areas of my city on the bus. I like that I'm not far away from lifesaving care if something awful were to happen, and I like the mood of cities and the flavor of quirkiness they inspire. 

 

17 years

Whoa, how did that happen!

In a couple of days Jeaux and I are "celebrating" 17 years as friends.

It's not a nice round milestone or anything. And we don't really do anything special on our anniversaries, though sometimes we call it our 'versary and go to a slightly nicer restaurant or something. (This week we'll be shopping for comics. But we always do that.)

But it's pretty neat to think about. This person has been in my life for 17 years. We've had a predictable schedule of meeting about once a week and doing fantastic friend things together. We can help each other out in times of need. We can text each other frustrations and cartoon theories. We can have someone to go to things with if we want a someone.

I have a lot of friends who don't really have longtime friends. And they find it AMAZING that I have some friendships that are over twenty years old. My friends Meghan and Victor have been in my life even longer than Jeaux--for Meg we met in 1993, and for Victor we met in 1996. I have friendships that are more than two decades old.

I've said this before and it's probably starting to get tiresome now, but I'll say it again as Jeauxversary approaches: I find it obnoxious that people assume those who don't have a romantic partner do not have meaningful partnerships at all.

My connections with these other people are not romantic, and they are not committed with any ceremony, and they are not what you'd call "partnered" relationships, but they are worth celebrating on anniversaries and worth celebrating daily. We have such a weird fixation in our society on relationship permanence only working in one particular way, even though everybody knows tons of divorced people. And if you asked people, of course they wouldn't say friendships can't/don't last or that lifelong friends don't exist. So, if marriage is not a guarantee of permanence and there are other types of relationships that are known to last a lifetime, why is it that when I say I'm single and/or not married, people immediately respond with pity and thoughts of "oh wow, she's alone/lonely"?

Jeaux and my other couple of lifelong friends make certain I'm not lonely if I don't want to be alone, but furthermore, they understand my boundaries well enough to know when they're needed/wanted. Jeaux has been known to say it's nice to have a friendship where the other person isn't needy and clingy but is reliable and available, and with whom outings and visits are predictable. We both value being able to know what to expect, and so we fit very well together.

Hooray for Jeaux. :)