[162/366] tough day
Jun. 10th, 2020 08:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguistInterestingly, the bank emailed me today with a survey. "We recognise the impact coronavirus may be having on you and your family. Now more than ever, we want to ensure we are delivering the best service possible..." Blah blah blah. So I told them what I told you guys yesterday.
It's been a very complainy day. I had to go to Tesco for work and it was so bad we've both tweeted at them to say so. I was utterly wiped out by the experience, still am really. When young men stride past you as if they own the place, dripping with toxic masculinity that's far too fragile to let them wear a mask... when old white ladies think your attempts to keep a distance so no one dies are in fact you moving out of their way so they can breeze past you and thank you in a tone that makes it sound like they believe you've only offered them what they're due as your elder and better, or call you "ladies," misgendering you both in the process...you take a lot of psychic damage from those kinds of hits.
I was having a kind of psychic-damage day anyway.
I'd run into Stuart (in a social distance kind of way! these Tesco fuckers ensuring I've gotten a lot closer to them than I have to my own boyfriend on the last four months!) on my way to work, he's house-hunting and looked at a place nearby! (Turns out he didn't like it as much as the other one he looked at today which is back in the not-easily-accessible part of Manchester he lives in now, ah well.) It was the first time I'd seen him since well before lockdown, and except for sporadic text chat and a few phone calls I hadn't spoken to him since. He's not really a phone person, most of our conversations happen face-to-face.
So it was a really delightful surprise, but after we parted ways I ended up collapsing onto a bench for a minute and sobbing. I didn't understand why at first, but then I was surprised that I was surprised (I'd cried twice at the book I'm reading already this morning too, so there's that...). He's had some bad health stuff going on as well as the precarious housing situation, all things I'd like to be help or at least company for and I can't be. Can't offer hugs or make tea. He started to offer me a lift to work and then realized he couldn't. We wanted to kiss hello and hug goodbye and we didn't. It was still worth it to see and hear him, but that doesn't mean it wasn't weird and difficult too.
Also, another Wednesday had rolled around and I decided I had to fess up to my friend who was doing this "life coaching" group of her friends that she needed to do as part of getting some life-coaching qualification. I'd been finding it difficult from the beginning: it's people I know from the old WI days which makes them a little more normie than my queer/neurodiverse/disabled/etc friends tend to be. And much as I like these people, I felt out of place. I didn't want to talk about diets like a couple of them were doing at first (my disordered eating was particularly bad at the time and I questioned whether it was not just wise but healthy for me to stay at that point), I didn't like their jokes about sexuality and relationship styles (even though I'm not the only poly person in the group and I don't think I'm the only queer...not that that stops alloqueers from being horrible about aro/ace people, which is what the "jokes" seemed targeted at). And I just felt...left out. I felt different and awkward and it wasn't all in my head. Those guys were meeting up for socially-distanced walks, virtually celebrating one of their birthdays, and probably without conscious malice no one had mentioned any of it to me. It's not really their job to be my friends but it triggered some old bad school-days stuff in me that just wasn't good.
And, I dunno, I thought at first that I could overlook the fact that my friend said her coaching group would be "for women" but now I'm not so sure. Last week when I was musing on this I wrote
I got a message back from the group runner saying "Hi Holly, that's absolutely fine. The group has actually stopped being a coaching group now - which I should have informed you of after we decided it last week. We really just feel the need to meet and natter now the worst of things is over." Damn right she should've told me. I got myself all stressed and psyched up for nothing. I tried so hard to make it to last week's meeting, had to keep messaging to say technology was letting me down, and there are only four people in her coaching group so I wouldn't expect my absence to be so easily overlooked.
At least now I don't even feel bad. Well I do because this does no good for the feelings of being left out, I was literally left out of the group changing its entire purpose. And I certainly don't want to be in a group nattering about how "the worst has passed," again I feel like an alien here because the worst has definitely not passed for me. In Tesco, J and I were talking loudly at people failing social distancing near us how we expected this not to get any better for months and quite possibly years. Again I feel like such an alien to the abled world. But also I'm mad at my friend for not telling me the coaching was done, my haphazard attendance lately might have given the impression I wasn't that dedicated to it but still, when you have a contract and everything you really do owe it to your participants not to just stop without telling them surely. And here I was so careful not to hurt her feelings! I put this off for ages just to avoid that. That'll teach me for being better at looking after other people than myself. (Now if only it wasn't so much easier to look after other people than myself...)
It's been a very complainy day. I had to go to Tesco for work and it was so bad we've both tweeted at them to say so. I was utterly wiped out by the experience, still am really. When young men stride past you as if they own the place, dripping with toxic masculinity that's far too fragile to let them wear a mask... when old white ladies think your attempts to keep a distance so no one dies are in fact you moving out of their way so they can breeze past you and thank you in a tone that makes it sound like they believe you've only offered them what they're due as your elder and better, or call you "ladies," misgendering you both in the process...you take a lot of psychic damage from those kinds of hits.
I was having a kind of psychic-damage day anyway.
I'd run into Stuart (in a social distance kind of way! these Tesco fuckers ensuring I've gotten a lot closer to them than I have to my own boyfriend on the last four months!) on my way to work, he's house-hunting and looked at a place nearby! (Turns out he didn't like it as much as the other one he looked at today which is back in the not-easily-accessible part of Manchester he lives in now, ah well.) It was the first time I'd seen him since well before lockdown, and except for sporadic text chat and a few phone calls I hadn't spoken to him since. He's not really a phone person, most of our conversations happen face-to-face.
So it was a really delightful surprise, but after we parted ways I ended up collapsing onto a bench for a minute and sobbing. I didn't understand why at first, but then I was surprised that I was surprised (I'd cried twice at the book I'm reading already this morning too, so there's that...). He's had some bad health stuff going on as well as the precarious housing situation, all things I'd like to be help or at least company for and I can't be. Can't offer hugs or make tea. He started to offer me a lift to work and then realized he couldn't. We wanted to kiss hello and hug goodbye and we didn't. It was still worth it to see and hear him, but that doesn't mean it wasn't weird and difficult too.
Also, another Wednesday had rolled around and I decided I had to fess up to my friend who was doing this "life coaching" group of her friends that she needed to do as part of getting some life-coaching qualification. I'd been finding it difficult from the beginning: it's people I know from the old WI days which makes them a little more normie than my queer/neurodiverse/disabled/etc friends tend to be. And much as I like these people, I felt out of place. I didn't want to talk about diets like a couple of them were doing at first (my disordered eating was particularly bad at the time and I questioned whether it was not just wise but healthy for me to stay at that point), I didn't like their jokes about sexuality and relationship styles (even though I'm not the only poly person in the group and I don't think I'm the only queer...not that that stops alloqueers from being horrible about aro/ace people, which is what the "jokes" seemed targeted at). And I just felt...left out. I felt different and awkward and it wasn't all in my head. Those guys were meeting up for socially-distanced walks, virtually celebrating one of their birthdays, and probably without conscious malice no one had mentioned any of it to me. It's not really their job to be my friends but it triggered some old bad school-days stuff in me that just wasn't good.
And, I dunno, I thought at first that I could overlook the fact that my friend said her coaching group would be "for women" but now I'm not so sure. Last week when I was musing on this I wrote
I think that when my friends say the thing they're doing is for women and I say "okay it's not for me then but have fun you crazy kids," and then my friends say "oh no you can come too..." They actually think they're doing me a favor. Like they're sneaking me into the woman club underage or something. It's so difficult to explain that I'm feeling weird and out of place and I think this is part of why. Overlooking my not-a-girlness might make them feel better but it makes me feel worse.So I finally wanted to own up and get this monkey off my back. I messaged the friend whose group it is, being careful of her feelings. I messaged the group chat and left it before anyone could say anything. I was anxious at the potential feelings I might have targeted in my direction, but no one said anything to me at all. Maybe I flatter myself by thinking they cared.
Some women act like they think they're doing the non-binary people a favor by reacting this way, like it's getting an upgrade. They're dragging us along with them into the woman club, we're getting past the bouncers at the cost of hearing our friends say "oh she's with us."
I got a message back from the group runner saying "Hi Holly, that's absolutely fine. The group has actually stopped being a coaching group now - which I should have informed you of after we decided it last week. We really just feel the need to meet and natter now the worst of things is over." Damn right she should've told me. I got myself all stressed and psyched up for nothing. I tried so hard to make it to last week's meeting, had to keep messaging to say technology was letting me down, and there are only four people in her coaching group so I wouldn't expect my absence to be so easily overlooked.
At least now I don't even feel bad. Well I do because this does no good for the feelings of being left out, I was literally left out of the group changing its entire purpose. And I certainly don't want to be in a group nattering about how "the worst has passed," again I feel like an alien here because the worst has definitely not passed for me. In Tesco, J and I were talking loudly at people failing social distancing near us how we expected this not to get any better for months and quite possibly years. Again I feel like such an alien to the abled world. But also I'm mad at my friend for not telling me the coaching was done, my haphazard attendance lately might have given the impression I wasn't that dedicated to it but still, when you have a contract and everything you really do owe it to your participants not to just stop without telling them surely. And here I was so careful not to hurt her feelings! I put this off for ages just to avoid that. That'll teach me for being better at looking after other people than myself. (Now if only it wasn't so much easier to look after other people than myself...)
(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-10 11:09 pm (UTC)They're dragging us along with them into the woman club, we're getting past the bouncers at the cost of hearing our friends say "oh she's with us."
That made lightbulbs go off! Thank you.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-10 11:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-10 11:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-11 06:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-11 03:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-11 06:37 pm (UTC)Thank you.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-11 06:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-11 06:37 pm (UTC)And at least I've been able to do not much at all; I wasn't working and nothing urgent has come up.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-11 08:58 pm (UTC)