Stop Telling Me I'm Pretty

I've been spending a lot of time on OKCupid lately, in an effort to get over my ex and remind myself that there are good men out there.

Sadly, this hasn't been the most successful of endeavours.

Online dating has left me incredibly jaded.

Seriously gentlemen... Stop calling me pretty. I get that you like the picture I put up. Yes, it is me. But that isn't everyday me, that is my best face. That's what I look like after half an hour of effort with make-up.

That's just the hook. What I want you to notice is my personality. I want you to notice that I write, that I go on adventures, that I'm happy with who I am, despite being a little too fat and sometimes kinda lazy.

You say I'm pretty, and you reduce me to nothing more than a masturbatory aid. And I feel... I feel like I will be rendered obsolete to you the minute you discover that I'm fatter and uglier than I look in my profile picture because I take really good pictures and am kinda good at make-up, even though I tell you that in my summary. Or worse, that I will become obsolete somewhere down the road, when you notice that I begin to sag and wrinkle.

And I don't know that that isn't accurate.

Yes, I'm pretty. Sometimes. And I like to look good, because I like myself. But that is the absolute least thing you could mention as an opener.

Ask me about who I am. Ask me about what I do. But don't tell me I'm pretty. We both already know you think I'm reasonably attractive, else you wouldn't have bothered to message me.

And when you call me pretty, I know that you are either supremely unimaginative, or you are pretty goddamn shallow. And why would an intelligent, self-assured, independent woman like myself want a shallow unimaginative man like yourself?

Did you ever get that far? Did you ever think that maybe you should be trying to prove yourself worthy of me, rather than tossing out a token compliment like a rich nobleman offering a trifle to a beggar in the street?

I am worth more than that.

Don't call me pretty. Don't start with that.

It is NOT what I want to hear. It is not what any of us really want to hear.

What we want to hear is that we are useful. That we are worthy. That we are interesting. That we have value. More value than the same word you'd use to describe a ten cent scrap of lace.

What Would Social Justice Warrior Do?

Today I took my kid to the park.

All well and good.

But we get there, and this little boy starts immediately yelling at my daughter and beaconing her to come play. He was very demanding. Told her what to do from the minute we got to the playground.

Now, to be clear.. My daughter doesn't know this kid. I don't know this kid.

For some reason that little shit-head seemed to think he was entitled to make everyone around him his bitch. He's up in there calling on a race to the top of the monkey bars but of course he doesn't yell to race until he's already started running and is half-way there. And then he calls my kid over to whatever he's doing only to lose interest by the time she gets there and demand she go run elsewhere.

I did not like this kid.

And when this kid started to throw sand at my kid, I very nearly came unglued. It'd be one thing if she was a big eight year old like he was, but she's barely six, and small for her age. Not exactly going to let my kid get bullied while I'm right there.

However.

I am as lily white as they come. My daughter is also, so far as I know, even though she looks like she might have some brand of not-Caucasian blood in her somewhere.

And this little boy, this little dick-head of a boy, happened to be black.

Cue uncomfortable dilemma. Do I tell this little black child off like I would any little white child that was doing the same thing?

No. I can't do that. We're not allowed to do that, not in this town, I've been called a racist for less. Only ever by other white people, which seems a bit odd, but still. I do not need to have the reputation of a racist. (I dared to express dislike of someone not of my own colour. This was racist, I guess, because racism in a small town apparently = expressing dislike of any person of obvious minority, even if they are clearly a jerk by any standards.)

Pretty much everyone where I live is like this guy, only dumber. 

Suffice to say, the little black kid got to get away with being a total jerk today, but I bought my daughter some ice cream and have vowed to say something next time if I ever see that little shit act that way again.

And I suppose, if nothing else, my daughter and I both learned a valuable lesson about reality vs. idealism, and the universe probably got a smidge closer to balancing the scales. Some days you're the dog, some days you"re the hydrant, and black people as a whole have had a lot more hydrant days.

Today, that little boy got to be the dog to my white-ass hydrant. And I guess that's just how it is.

At least there was ice cream after.