My sister ran up and kissed me on the cheek and said, “I at least still love you.” (Cause of course I don’t love her.)
My mother thanked me for coming in a pretty sucktastic tone of voice. (I let my mother down so why wouldn’t I let my niece down?)
My uncle told me that I should come to his house at least once a week because ‘the women work more when you show up’. (I totally want to harass the women in my family to do more work for the lazy piece of shit.)
My niece’s father repeatedly groped my belly and kept making really strong sexual innuendo about how pregnant chicks are hot; this was overt enough to make Noah uncomfortable. (This guy tried to fuck me when I was eleven.)
My cousins didn’t really speak to me. (They are pissed that I offered to host Christmas so my 70 something year old aunt didn’t have to do all the work.)
Luckily I got to see two awesome women who show me what family actually is earlier in the day. I’m really grateful that I have such an amazing chosen family.
The extra little notes on each of these deepen my understanding of the situation (e.g., I did not know about your uncle’s previous wishes, but should’ve guessed it).
A+++ for seeing people who remind you why life is good.
…and you continue to interact with these people because…?
Yikes.
I went because my niece asked me to please come to her graduation. If you hadn’t noticed I’m not really interacting with anyone else outside of that.
I just think it might be possible to greet the niece, show her you’re there and stay the hell away from the rest of the douchebaggery.
I interacted with them for less than 10 minutes. You are of course entitled to your opinion about how what I did wasn’t the right course of action.
Please don’t snipe at me. I’m not saying you did something “wrong” I’m saying, “hey, wouldn’t it maybe be nice not to subject yourself to these assholes at all if it were possible?”
I am beginning to think that we shouldn’t have these kind of interactions while we are both pregnant. I didn’t snipe at you and I didn’t use the word wrong. We do fine with longer communications.
I absolutely agree that it’s nice to not subject myself to these assholes. To that effect I have had less than 10 minutes of contact with them since Christmas. (and longer than that for my mother and cousins) This all happened as we were standing in a crowd in the very briefest of moments. My family is truly special in being able to walk up to me and instantly suck. I could not have avoided them entirely and been there for my niece. I did the best I could. I experienced intense stress about the level of interaction and spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to avoid it entirely and couldn’t come up with anything that would respect my niece’s request. (I for example didn’t go out with them for the afterparty because it didn’t hurt her for me to skip that.) Not standing near my niece at all at the graduation would have hurt her feelings. She doesn’t deserve that. I left after the briefest respectable time possible.
Hope you read all of this….
“how what I did wasn’t the right course of action” reads like a really long and fussy way of saying “how what I did was wrong.” I really hate it the “you are entitled to your opinion” responses you frequently give me, because it feels dismissive. I think we both agree that everyone is entitled to an opinion. Stating it gets my feathers fluffed because it seems condescending and snipey.
We have these stupid interactions pregnant or not. My pregnancy has nothing to do with my perceptions of tone in this case. They are prickly points for me all the time. Blaming it on my pregnancy is again, dismissive.
All that aside, I KNOW you have struggled a lot with how to deal with this interaction, and I was feeling anxious on your behalf. Your initial post didn’t express the time or context of how much yuck got crammed into how little space. It seemed as if you were there “with” the family, and that seemed really awful for you. I was looking out for you, not trying to tell you that you did something wrong. I’m trying to say, gently, again, I really don’t “judge” people the way you seem to think I do. It’s really not necessary to put up an instant defense against me as a threat.
Well, seeing as you are going to accuse me of being snipey and dismissive, oh and condescending too! How about if I actually am just so that in the future you have a comparison so you can tell how very polite I am being.
Your advice to me was condescending, arrogant, and rude. Condescending because you didn’t bother to find out the facts of the situation before spouting off your ignorant opinion. This is something you do rather constantly. Arrogant because in telling me that I can stay away from the douchebaggery you are assuming many things about my behavior and interactions that are not true. Maybe you could try asking a few questions before assuming you know everything about what I can and cannot and should and should not do. Rude because I have asked you to stop giving me unsolicited advice more times than I could possibly count. You persist in ignoring this very clearly worded request out of more of your arrogance, oh wait… it’s concern. Concern apparently should give you a free pass on ignoring my clearly stated boundaries. Right.
When I say that you are entitled to your opinion I am trying to very tactfully say, “Yeah that’s your opinion and you can have it.” Would you rather I switched to saying, “Keep your ignorant opinions to yourself because I don’t give a shit.” I would quite cheerfully make that switch for you.
Until you see me post something in my journal and come to me asking a humongous number of questions so that you actually know the entire circumstance it is pure hubris for you to give me advice. And I’m really tired of biting my tongue and trying to politely dissuade you from doing it.
This whole conversation makes me very sad.
You are wholly entitled to set boundaries and choose to interact with people who respect your boundaries. If I am interpreting them correctly from what you have written, I am unable to comply and you should choose not to interact with me.
My understanding so far is that when I express how something makes me feel (wjich is what I made every effort to do, in a “when you do x, it makes me feel y” format), it is condescending. I can’t be held to a “friendship” in which is it not permissable for me to express how something makes me feel.
I am unable to restrict myself to only speaking to you when I have completed an extensive investigation regarding something you have introduced via a post. If that is the expectation, I just can’t possibly do it. You should choose to protect yourself and no longer interact with me if I am only expected to speak under those boundaries.
I simply am unable to understand why it is so abhorrent to say what you did say, basically “no, that won’t work, I thought about it (or didn’t) and that’s not for me” without the added, “I don’t give a shit [what you think].” Which, BTW, I apparently HAVE interpreted correctly, as you stated as the underlying message in your “tactful” response. I’m not ok with that, and I’m entitled to express that I feel hurt and dismissed when someone says “I don’t give a shit.” I’d rather they don’t say anything. But that’s MY boundary.
I’ve tried to say from the beginning that I wasn’t trying to be an arrogant bitch, I simply didn’t understand (and couldn’t possibly from the information at hand) that all of the shit happened in a tiny period of time.
I hope that you don’t actually feel as strongly as you seem to about me, but if this is actually your opinion of me, it doesn’t seem like the basis for a friend ship. This makes me very, very sad.
I’m so sorry the price of going was having to deal with such awfulness from your non-chosen family. Chosen family FTW.
oooh, can I meet the niece’s father? I’ll kick him in the balls for you.
whence comes this fury? this is not usual for me.
*seethe*