Ken was entirely polite and accomodating. He was down right nice about things. I guess me being white and seemingly heterosexual takes me further than I thought.
Issue of Californian slamming: he said that he came to California looking to get away from the right wing freaks at home and he was really looking forward to meeting the people here. And in the first year he was here he met very few people who were “nice” and when he did they were all from out of state; so from this experience he hypothosized that there were simply no nice Californians and they therefore suck. He also went on to acknowledge that when he is talking like that he isn’t really trying to insult absolutely everyon–he is making a gross generalization and he is going to work on being able to say “most” instead of all, because he is still frustrated with most of his overall experiences. I thought that it makes some sense and I am not going to invalidate his experiences. I am satisfied with the jump to most, cause I think “most” humans in general suck and I’m ok with that being narrowed down to Californians. 🙂 He is still racist and homophobic and I’m going to actively work on that. I don’t think it’s ok and I’m going to introduce him to people and kind of innundate him with the knowledge that people are just people and you should judge individuals on their own merits. It is my goal.
Gun conversations: he said he had no idea that I was sensitive to the issue and he is very sorry that he said stuff that upset me. He pretty adamantly expressed that he will avoid the topic in the future because he wants to be sensitive to my feelings. He used that word. I was impressed. Ok, maybe he isn’t quite the schmuck I have been thinking.
Crap with the blog: he explained that he has had multiple blogs over the years and he has had a lot of issues with people being really nasty in comments. He acknowledged that when he posted it at this time it was more than reasonable to assume that it was just directed at me, but it wasn’t. He realized how nasty it seemed towards me and has been telling Phil that he wants to apologize in person but Phil has been telling him not to talk to me about it. I told him that Phil has said this because I would have bitten his head off and proceeded to take the head apart with tweezers because I was pissed.
All in all I am extremely satisfied with how the conversation went. He was extremely willing to acknowledge that he has been a douchebag and he is going to try to be nice in the future. That means that I can stop being a bitch and just deal with him as a person that is going to be in my life no matter what. The racism and homophobia are going to be hard for me. Puppy has been actively trying to get Ken to be more tolerant over the years. I can get behind that effort. He seems like he isn’t truly a bad person, he is just very young and limited in his experiences and so intolerant of anyone who is different from him. *sigh* Well… it isn’t as if I am the most tolerant person in the world either.
Why am I willing to give Ken another chance? Because I think that people in general deserve a second chance. Because he is Puppy’s best friend and I don’t believe in making people have to choose between people they love. Puppy wants to be able to spend time with both of us, and I understand that. I don’t want to keep all of my friendships completely separate from Puppy. I want him to come with me to events and get to know and appreciate the people I love. He is simply doing the same thing. I have some sympathy for the fact that in dating me, Puppy is seriously cutting back on the time he is spending with Ken and Ken is pretty freakin lonely. Maybe if I include Ken in some stuff and get him to have some level of liking/trust/respect for me… I can influence his brain. Then he might actually turn out to be awesome. 🙂 It’s a goal.
My Puppy is gone. 🙁 I miss him. Today I am finishing my paper. If I finish early I am going to start on sewing. I am taking the wireless card out of my computer for most of the day so I’m not distracted.