scrawls.

scrawls

still cheaper than therapy*

15.6.07

competing women

so at lunch, at work. Many people are on vacation so it's a small group: four of us, all partnered, all women, two with kids, and me, and one without. And for whatever reason they are all talking about how awful their husbands are: they never clean, never cook, never help, they drive like bats out of hell, they leave the seat up, they smell funny, they don't listen, they can't vaccuum properly, they take too long to get ready (as. if.), they never talk, they don't interact with the kids, i don't know what all. they're each one-upping the next. trying to convince each other that they've got a lock on misery. Both the ones with kids regretted having them ("you're stuck now, haha"). and, why would you do that to yourself? deliberately focusing on all the things that piss you off? and, focusing on things that actually matter, not just a sock on the floor, and telling the women you work with about it instead of your husband? (and, also, for fuck's sake, don't tell the pregnant lady you wish you hadn't had kids. That may be worse than saying i'm fat. Which i am fucking NOT, in this place that we call Reality, bienvenue, thanks.) This was not the art of complaining; this was not snarkily festive, this was not humorous, this was not light-hearted sitcom banter. this was desperate, chronic, pathetic. and they all wanted to win, to be the Most Pitiable, like it was a little gold trophy they could take home and start fights with. is there supposed to be some way that i can make this person i've never met hear you better? and eventually they notice i'm sitting there all quiet, and ask, and i say, No, mine cleans, and he cooks when i tell him to, and i've seen him change diapers, et c., and they sort of look at me weird, and go back to bitching. And while i like to beat myself up for not marring more of a feminist ... well ... maybe he won't admit to being third-wave, but mine cleans. And is, you know, a rational human being. And also completely awesome, but that's not even the same plane of experience.

and then later they asked - since one of the people on vacation is on honeymoon, finally, after a ten year relationship where they eventually decided to get married, but getting married is not the most common thing for people who aren't trying to get green cards (or whatever) here, apparently, so anyway, the topic came up - they asked why we got married, since we didn't need to, at the time, to live in the same country.

(Sometimes it is just like the states. Sometimes it is like time travel to another galaxy: A Connecticuit Yankee in The Dark Ages of Still No Proper Lettuce. But did you know, if you cohabitate for two years in canada, you get common-law? Why am i not canadian?)

Labels: people

scrawled @ 21:57