So things are happening.
Big things:
- I got paid from treeplanting. Boo-freakin'-ya.
-I've been working 5 days a week as a hostess. As predicted, it's boring as hell but I can leave the house 5 minutes before I start and be on time. I've also been told that if I stick with it a few more weeks I could do the whole waitress thing but my boss is sketchy as hell so... we'll see about that one.
-Because of work, I've met new people. Some of these people are male. One of them is a real swell guy. I'm being cryptic to piss everyone off. Hah. (because I'm conceited enough to think you care)
- School starts soon. I'm hella looking forward to it.
So those are Things.
How about some Thoughts?
Have some thoughts. My job consists of me standing out in front of the terrasse with a stack of menus and try and lure people in to the restaurant. It's a little boring but it can be okay when it's busy. You get to talk with a lot of tourist who often have interesting things to say and they often genuinely want to have a chat with a "local". Other times you get to try and avoid homeless and/or mentally unstable people who also want to chat and/or yell at you. That can be less fun but some of them are rather pleasant polite people. Others are downright scary and I don't mean that in a "oh wow, they're really weird" way but in a "I am seriously concerned for my safety" way. But the scary ones are few and far between and aren't really what concerns me right now. It's no secret that I generally don't dress in a particularly feminine way. Personally, and I'd like to think most would agree, that I look fine the way I dress and, most importantly, I'm comfortable this way. But, as a hostess, I have to make some sort of effort to look "nice". As a result, I've taken to wearing a lot of skirts (for some reason I have a lot of these that I rarely wear. Luckily, I like wearing them. Unluckily, I would rather not wear them every day). I don't HAVE to wear a skirt, I just don't own many pairs of nice pants. (by nice I mean not ripped, covered in paint and/or 3 sizes too big)
***WARNING: the rest of this is really long and rant-like and, as Rhonda would put it, full of feminist-like rage. If you don't feel like sitting through it, then you have my full permission to skip this one***
What I'm taking forever to get at here, is that for work I generally wear clothes that would be considered more feminine than what I'm used to. On top of this, part of my job is to be pleasant to everyone who passes and generally call attention to myself/the restaurant. What this does is that it subjects me to a fair amount more of male attention than I'm used to. Basically, it's starting to disgust me. It's not that they're always overt with it, it's the fact that I'm treated drastically different than, say for example, a guy would be doing my job. Every time a man walks by and I smile and say hi and he looks back like 5 times with this stupid grin on his face as he goes down the road it just makes me want to come to work in sweatpants. It drives me nuts that I can't get in to a conversation with a guy at work without it eventually leading to him hitting on me. It honestly feels like I'm a girl first and a person second. That the only way that I can be interesting to these guys is if there's a chance they can get to paw all over me. It's not that they are condescending or insult my intelligence directly, it's the fact that because I'm female and dressed attractively it can only lead to one thing. I'm realizing now how lucky I am to have the friends I do who have always treated me like any other person regardless of the fact that I have boobs.
man, instead of pacifying me, this rant is just pissing me off more. Some nights when I just don't feel like dealing with it, I deliberately wear the most unrevealing and conservative thing I can think of. The fact that I even consider this angers me a lot. Why should I change what I wear because of other people? Why is it that I have to basically hide the fact that I'm female before men treat me like an equal? Oh and to put a cherry on top of it all, I found out that someone from the street thinks I'm gay. Okay, this one will take a bit of explaining. The restaurant I work at is on a little pedestrian street with about 15 or so restaurants on it. Because I stand at the same spot at the same time every day, I've begone to both recognize a lot of people and be recognized. I've befriended a flower seller who is one of the few men I've had regular conversation with without him making either a pass at me or some sort of physical compliment. Anyways, the other day he told me that he got into a debate with someone on the street (he wouldn't me who) as to whether or not I was gay. Apparently, this mystery person (a guy) felt that I was a lesbian because he's seen me dress in more boy-ish clothes and the short hair and whatever other stereotypical thing he was going on. Now at the time, I thought this was pretty funny and in a way I still do. I'm not insulted in the least and couldn't care less that he thought that. The part that bothers me is the fact that because I don't regularly emphasize my stereotypical female traits (curves, hair, legs... whatever) the logical conclusion is that I'm not trying to attract men and that I must be gay. The assumption here is that the only way to show my interest in men is to show off my body so that they are attracted to me. WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?
Are we in a society so fucked up that not only is the only way for a woman to show her interest in men is to show off her body but that the only way a man can be attracted to a woman is initially because of her body. That sentence was convoluted and awkward but I don't care. The thing is, I know that thats not how all guys think. In fact, the optimistic side of me thinks that MOST guys are interested in intellect first. I mean, I'm friends with so many guys for a reason. But for some reason, the guy thats most represented and most obvious out there is the sexist jackass. At least, he's the guy that I notice everyday. To be fair, I must deal with plenty of men who are perfectly respectful people but I probably forget them right away because that's the behavior I expect. It's normal in my mind. It's ordinary. What stands out most obnoxiously is the dude who thinks that because I had a 3 minute conversation with him, he's got the right to try and sleep with me. Or the man who feels it's a compliment when he tells me I look sexy today. Or the guys who leer.
Basically, I want people to treat me like I have no relationship with sex. I am just a person in some sort of body that you can talk to. Done and done. Quit staring at my ass.
So sorry for the rant. Don't say I didn't warn you. I also get a lot of time to think at this job. We all know how bad that is for me.
This event was of particular interest to my family because of my grandfather. Many years ago, my grandfather owned a men's clothing store selling mainly suits and nice dress clothes. One night, the store caught on fire (I don't think they ever determined a cause). The place was pretty pwned but my grandfather has always been an optimistic person so he staged some sort of clever "fire sale" and got rid of all the leftover inventory and eventually reopened his shop. I'm not entirely sure how long the time span is in all of this but, as many independent stores do, his shop closed for financial reasons when big malls became in vogue.