"Men Are @$$#%/e$"



"Gina came to see her therapist because he was within walking distance. She and Tony owned a car, but he wouldn't let her drive it. He didn't like her taking the bus, either, since guys might try to hit on her. He didn't like any of her friends, so she never saw them. She enjoyed working, but everywhere she had worked, he had become suspicious of her relationships with male coworkers and forced her to quit. Her health was not good, but he didn't like her to go to doctors unless it was an emergency- it was too expensive. He blamed her for their poor financial situation, even though it was he who discouraged her from working." -Let's Face It, Men Are @$$#%/e$
To explain the title: Yesterday while shopping at Borders (again) I found this lovely book entitled Let's Face It, Men Are @$$#%/e$ (the word assholes is spelled out in symbols, the e was a cents sign but that's not on my computer). Naturally I bought it so I could determine how all these guys I like can seem so nice and turn into assholes.

However: when it came to that, this book was no help at all. It instead goes into bossy guys, cheating guys, immature (as in 11-16 year old behaving) guys and ice men. Not at all what I had problems with, aaaaarrrrgh!

However: well, after reading it, it REALLY applies more to Sarah than me. "The Boss" in particular. Didn't THAT sound familiar? And this book is very helpful in that respect: it doesn't tell you to just leave, it gives you factors to consider and tips to coping if you decide not to leave. Perfect for Sarah, I thought. Now if I can only get her over here alone to give it to her to read . . .

Famous last words . . . I got a phone call from Sarah a few hours later! Hardeep was off doing the laundry at his parents' house, so she could go out, so long as she told him where she was and didn't run off (and apparently he wasn't thrilled with her seeing me either now, or anyone she knows . . . guessing by the mumbling she did). So she came over, wanted to hear about the date (I told her the dish), she told me about how she got incredibly sick on Tuesday night off some sausage, just barfing for HOURS, and how Hardeep kept saying he couldn't afford to take her to the hospital (this was mentioned in the book too!) and it took hours to get him to call the ambulance. Then when she got home, he forced her to eat (the doctor told her not to) and go to work and dragged her to the movies, still sick. Real nice, she said.

So I offered her the book. She read it, for a while commenting on things out of it (he does that, yep kinds of stuff). She seemed quite enthused that there was a "coping" section, but I'm not sure if she read it or not (she'd stopped reading aloud before then).

Her comments while reading this were that sometimes he's really nice and sometimes he goes really crazy, which makes it hard to decide what to do. She doesn't like that he hangs out with all the tough-shit repo men who tell him to whip her into shape. She was happy thinking that if he does anything again the cops will arrest him, but now he won't let her near the phone while they're fighting. I asked her if she'd told the neighbors to call the cops if they heard anything out of her place, and she said she hadn't, her neighbors were a bunch of scary gangster people who didn't speak English.

Now she's saying that "if somebody in authority, a therapist or parents, told me to leave him I would." I asked what her parents thought and she said "They're biased." Her parents will pay for a therapist though. She said that at one point (while they were going to L.A. and got in a fight) she was sure she was going to leave him (he held her down in the car by her hair to get her to stay in it, afraid she'd leave him, saying he'd crash the car and kill them). She said at first she was just telling him she'd stay to shut him up, but eventually she convinced him and stayed and well, I guess it went away. Now her theory on the whole thing is that if he does one more thing again that leads to arrest, she will leave him. Even as she admitted that the one more time he could kill her. Oh, how I'd like to think she would do that. Her biggie for staying was because of their financial situation.

She was saying how we should double date, or if she gets divorced, go out trolling for guys together, or if she got divorced I could move in and the cats could sleep in my room (no way- one sucks on eyes!), but she'd have to get the keys back from Hardeep. She was talking about (after reading it in the book) what she wants in a relationship- "some nice, calm guy who will be understanding when I have PMS and doesn't go crazy and psycho." She said that if they hadn't gotten married she doesn't think they'd be together now, and they wouldn't have gotten married if his dad hadn't had this tendency to overexaggerate and panic and get details wrong (about the INS stuff). She hates his parents now, in case you couldn't have guessed that.

He called at seven or so to say he'd be awhile longer- she said we were talking "girl talk" (this was right after she finished w/ the book)- but he wouldn't tell her exactly how long 'cause then she might run off. She told him to call back in an hour, and he did, her time was up and she ran back home, saying she'd let me know any "developments." I wished her luck, she said she'd need it.

In other events: Jensen is on call again tonight (I saw this when I went to check the mail), I assume he was working the desk, but he wasn't there while I was down there, thank goodness. I am not looking forward to seeing the asshole again, even though I'm sure I will again (hard to avoid when you're in the same building).

I was a good girl today, as I hardly did any daydreaming/thinking about guys (or any one guy) today. Didn't check the e-mail/newsgroup a huge amount of times. Reminded myself that nothing is probably going to go on here. I mean, this IS me we're talking about, everything goes down the crapper and the guy acts like an asshole. Now it's like every time I meet a guy, they're my next future object of hate. Anyway, I used restraint. Distracting myself with movies helped that a lot like yesterday.

And speaking of, my brain is apparently gone, as I actually watched Encino Man today. I don't even LIKE Pauly Shore, yet I voluntarily sat through this movie! Why? Why? Why? I can now do the We-e-asal speak shit he does. How dumb an act is that!? Why did I watch it? And why am I watching Billy Madison right now?!? Somebody stop me!

When I came back in from talking to Sarah, I noticed that Kayda, Megan, and Chelsea were all in Kayda's room watching TV together. Wow, didn't I feel out of it. I was kinda intimidated to see them all. I should have probably been friendly and talked to them or something, but I really don't want to talk to 2 out of 3 of them, so . . . ugh.


Background courtesy of Bombadier

© 1997 jdrutherford@ucdavis.edu

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