Saturday, May 10, 2008

say what you mean

Last night we hung with New Neighbor Friends. After rockin out some karaoke, we came home and went upstairs to their place. I let everyone know I wouldn't be staying long because I was tired. A few minutes in, I let Jay know I was tired and would be leaving soon. This was a good hint to prepare himself if he wanted to leave at the same time. Then a few minutes later, I actually did leave to go to bed. Jason stayed. That was fine.

After tossing and turning for a few minutes, I started this text conversation (spaced over about 1/2 hour):

I can't fall asleep without you here.
Be home soon.
Yeah how soon?
Fifteen?
No you won't. Nevermind. Goodnight. Miss you.
Girl NNF is grabbin me a few nuggets from McDonalds. Once I eat I'm home. Love you.
I'll be asleep. Stay as long as you want. Goodnight.

And I did just that. I was asleep when Jay came home. However, he was not expecting me to be asleep; he was ready for me to start a fight. Therein lies the problem. We actually did have a late night / early morning fight because of this stupid miscommunication. He was expecting me to act like every other girl he's ever met, and include gentle subtext in the (in this case, written) text. He assumed that my telling him to stay as long as he wanted was a bitchy way of saying "don't you dare stay up there one minute longer. The minute I got up and left, you should have followed me whether you were tired and having fun or not. I wanted to go home and that means we both go home." That's a lot of subtext. But in reality I meant "I'll be asleep. Stay as long as you want." What do I care what he does, as long as I'm in my own comfy bed? Besides, he's only 2 floors up in our building. It's not like he was in another town.

So that's where our fight began. I was utterly confused as to why he thought I was mad at him (and why he would just stop the communication if that were the case). He just couldn't fathom that I actually said what I meant to say, with no hidden meaning. Obviously we got it worked out and it shouldn't happen again, but it was a stupid thing to happen in the first place. I blame other girls.

Girls* are ridiculously complicated when they don't need to be. What is the point of saying the opposite of what you really want to say? Or of implying that you're angry, but not bothering to enlighten your male cohort as to why? Especially in a medium such as text, where tones do not come across so easily. Logical Robot Brain says DOES NOT COMPUTE. I won't say I've never done this, but I don't so it as a general rule. In fact in the aforementioned textersation, I made a deliberate point not to use the word "whatever" lest it be misconstrued that way. I thought the little sweet notes like "I miss you" would reinforce the fact that I was not angry. I was just tired, dammit.

The moral of this story is: don't ever compare me to other girls. I've proven time and time again that I don't pull stupid crap like that. And other girls: shape up. Stop ruining it for the rest of us.



*I'm not a boy, nor have I ever been (or ever will), so I can't make any generalizations about the male specie.

8 comments:

flutter said...

see I am pretty straightforward too, I don't get the mind games

Anonymous said...

Text and e-mail are both bad that way. My husband and I have had a few arguments that started over the perceived tone of an e-mail (from me to him, I should point out). I always think my usual personality should come through even in print, but apparently it doesn't!

mar said...

i think the 'nevermind' was what came across like that.
i know i've done it before. and the guys i've texted with are always short & to the point. 'yep' 'sure' so i do the whole read into it what's not really there.
anyway...

Anonymous said...

Des said, "*I'm not a boy, nor have I ever been (or ever will), so I can't make any generalizations about the male specie."

I'll bet you knew you were going to hear from me on this one.

I'm not a boy either but I was raised as one. I'll be happy to generalize about boys:

90 precent of them are assholes.
5 percent are gay.
3 percent are women.
and
2 percent are absolute sweethearts.

When you find one of those "two percenters" it takes some time to undo the bad habits they learn from the other 90 percent.

super des said...

flutter - of course you do. You're a smart girl like me :)

aj - I feel the same way. I figure you will hear me speaking the email. Apparently it doesn't work out.

mar - he said it was the "stay as long as you want." I guess *I* shoulda been all about the 1 word responses!

arlene - I was hoping you would take over the generalizations for me! I love them, btw. And I think I got me one o'them 2 percenters. Now there's work to be done...

Suzanne said...

Glad it was resolved. I think Arlene is right, but I'd also apply her numbers to females. Bottom line: most people - regardless of gender - kind of suck. That's why it's so great to find the good ones out there, and why I so love my blog (and real) friends! You are rare gems.

mdog said...

fyi, i will now be using the word 'textversation' frequently.

super des said...

mdog, I was hoping someone would pick up on that!

# #