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Coldplay - Shiver |
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I drank a bit too much last night, and so woke up promptly at 8 this morning. Now I'm faced with this loooong day ahead of me, but I'm too fuckered and slow/blinky to get off the couch.
Did not have a pleasant evening. Met Ellen and her friend for drinks at Barca, thought everything was going OK, but then for some reason right at the end we were in a heated two-on-one argument. They'd pointed out a woman whose boobs were falling out of her skimpy little top. I'd said I thought it was pathetic that some women feel they have to dress like sluts to attract the attention of the bar-trawling men, and they shouldn't be surprised if they go home with guys who just see them as sex toys.
Ellen's friend got angry and said that when she was younger and just wanted sex she presented herself boobs-forward and what's wrong with that? I said a woman can be sexy and available without cheapening herself, without wearing heavy makeup, glitter lipgloss, hair dye, and those backless spaghetti-strap tops, with her thong poking out of her capri pants, and that the whole game just seemed silly to me.
Which I don't think is much different than their earlier condemnation of guys in the bar wearing baseball caps, or of fat girls wearing lowriders. But at that point they'd somehow taken my generalization as offensive to them personally, and the atmosphere at the table was pretty pissy. Which doesn't make sense because these women were in their 30's, conservatively dressed, and the polar opposite of the people I was pointing out.
Ellen ended it by smirking and saying, "We're /so/ right and you're /so/ wrong, just admit it." At which point I became angry - I didn't realize my opinion could be "wrong." Then she got angry at me for not "laughing off" her assertion. And maybe she has something there. But I'd just shown up wanting to relax and have a couple drinks and was aggravated that suddenly I was in a men-vs-women argument, with two against one.
Afterwards Ellen and I argued for another hour in her car. These arguments aren't belittling or mean or meant to hurt - which to me is a fundamental distinction - so I don't consider them fights or even necessarily a bad thing when done rarely and in moderation.
But we get into these stupid semantic/reduction loops where we argue about how to argue. She repeats what I said but with a couple words changed and some rolling of the eyes, and I yell back, "You're changing my meaning!! What I'm saying is /this/ not /that/. How can we argue productively if we can't even find common terms?"
For example, she said, "You have threads of misogyny in your personality." I became agitated and said, "Don't call me a misogynist!" And she replied, "I didn't! I so didn't call you a misogynist! I said you have /threads/ of misogyny and you're taking that as extremely as you can and blowing it way out of proportion."
To which I say, "What, what, so there's degrees? You're trying to soft-pedal. You're saying I'm /sort of kinda/ a misogynist, and so I'm not supposed to be offended by that? What the fuck?"
She: "You're making a big deal out of it. If you weren't so insecure and resentful towards women you'd just drop it."
And so it goes. I feel like our typical argument is:
1) "By the way, you're a misogynist."
2) "That's bullshit. Don't make baseless attacks on my character."
3) "See?! See?! You're angry and resentful towards me, therefore you're a misogynist!"
Which just makes Cooper want to scream.
"But I love women!"
"That's why it's so strange that you're a misogynist!"
Perhaps she doesn't realize what a highly charged accusation I find that to be. It's like "racist" or "sociopath."
I find these sorts of debates very unproductive because we can't agree on terms or first principles. And if I try to defend myself she accuses me of being defensive. In the end we're always arguing about the argument itself, and so rarely the original topic.
I find the charge particularly upsetting because earlier in the evening I'd told them about my female friend who just moved to CA. In the days prior to moving, she asked me out to dinner a couple times, then showed up at my apartment at midnight wanting to spend the night. But there was no sex or even hug goodbye in the morning.
Ellen's friend immediately asserted, "That woman is self-centered and she's just using you as her support system. Trust me, I'm the same genetic material, I know. I'm not trying to make you feel bad or anything, but she's not interested in you as a person and it brooks no debate. You have to ignore her completely, starting now, or she won't even respect you."
I'm the misogynist?
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