Posted in: What Would YOU Do?
I can't tell you enough how to not worry about people who aren't worth worrying about. Every second you spend on them is taking away from you being the light you need to be.
FUCK.
THEM.
Do you.
And smile because you're genuinely happy. If you're not happy...don't smile. That fake ish is for the birds. Tweet...tweet!
You and your fiance have dated for 6 years.
He has a group of boys.
They get together pretty regularly and get pissy drunk.
Since you're planning a wedding, etc. your fiance goes out with them much less. (Not every.single.weekend anymore.)
They hold and intervention with him and tell him that you're not good for him and he shouldn't marry you because you're a fun killer.
He stops doing stuff with them and you ask why and he tells you.
How do you handle?
Your friend is single and dating.
Dating is tough these days.
But she goes out with a lot of guys.
You're having a dinner party and inviting a lot of couples.
You don't invite her.
She finds out and is hurt.
You tell her it's because she always brings one of the guys she's dating and that they are all, well, losers.
Yall fight but it ends up that you invite her to the party.
She brings a date.
Dude is handsome, charming, funny and plays the piano well.
Later you find out that the dude is a paid escort she hired to come with her and be charming and awesome.
You good?
You're dating a struggling artist.
He's a painter.
Yall live together.
You come home early one day and he's there cheating on you.
You flip the hell out and destroy one of his paintings.
In the aftermath of the breakup / fall out...he tells you that you owe him $12,000 for the destroyed painting.
How do you handle?
You didn't have a relationship with your father.
You've learned from other people in your family that he treated your mother very badly before he left yall.
Your mother has never said a bad word about him simply saying that they couldn't work it out.
You've since met him and decided that you dodged a bullet by home not being involved in your life growing up.
You are now in your 40's.
You have a family, a good career and you're happy.
If you found out today that you had a half sibling...would it be important to you to get to know them?
“So I’m in Nashville for an away rotation at Vanderbilt, and I’m staying with one of their grad students I found through the student classifieds. He’s a nice enough white guy, super quiet and soft spoken, no issues in the week I’ve been here. I’ve also been gone a lot, working quite a bit at the hospital. Today was my first off day and this morning was the first morning I had to really see the house in daylight (I’m gone from 6am-8pm). Well, while rummaging through his cabinets for a coffee mug, looking forward to finally having some time to brew my favorite Guatemalan coffee and read a novel before church, I had a hard time finding a mug that wasn’t emblazoned with the Confederate flag.
*record scratch* uh say wha?
O_O
o_O
-_____-
My prickly senses heightened, and have been so all day. I’ve lived with a white person before, but he was super liberal, from California. We may have not had many words for each other, but there was a mutual respect. We were cool. To be sharing a roof with a racist is a whole new ball game that I’m not prepared for. We got a lot of Tribe members in the South so my question is: Is the Confederate flag //really// racist, or just a symbol of Southern pride? I mean really? I found some really good points here. (I’ve clearly been thinking about this all day)
http://www.debate.org/opinions/is-the-confederate-flag-racist
”
You have a half-sibling you used to be close to.
For whatever reason...the half-sibling stopped talking to you.
You don't know why.
10 years later you hear the sibling isn't doing well so you reach out.
They don't return your call.
You're hurt but keep it moving.
Years later you hear good news about the half-sibling.
Would you reach out again or would you consider that ship sailed as far as YOUR initiating contact is concerned?
You meet a guy.
Over the course of several months, you date pretty regularly.
Nice dates.
Nice restaurants.
Nice events.
Nice.
He's always respectful, is a great conversationalist, is smart, fun and funny.
You like him.
After about the 9th date...you are feeling some kinda way because he hasn't kissed you yet.
Sure...he hugs you and kisses you on the cheek...but no real kiss.
He holds your hand, has no problem with and seems to enjoy being close to you...but yeah...no kiss.
You've decided that maybe he's just being respectful, which impresses you.
Next date...YOU kiss HIM.
It's nice.
But then...he calls less and you look up and realize you haven't seen him in a month of Sundays.
You good?
Thoughts?
What would you do?
Your home owner's association is getting to be super damn annoying.
I mean...you get it. They exist for a reason and in some cases...they can make you want to stare off into space for an hour just contemplating apartment living and how peaceful it was back then.
So...they amp up their process and start sending out annoying emails, letters and ish that you go ahead and mark as spam so you never see them.
You maintain your home well and never have problems anyway and you don't want to see/deal with the bull they have going on.
One of your neighbors asks you if you got a letter about powerwashing the siding on side of your house.
You tell them no because you just powerwashed the side of your house that Spring.
The neighbor states that they got a letter and that your house has as much grime on it as theirs does and that they sent in an email saying exactly that.
You: Wait...so you told them that my house SPECIFICALLY has the same amount of grime on it that yours does?
Them: Yes.
You: Well ain't that about some bullshit. Who does that?
Them: What? I mean...your house is always nice so I just wanted them to see that ours is the same.
You: How the hell you gonna pull me and my house into the bullshit you have going on with them people? You know I can't STAND them people hell!
Them: Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't think...
You: You know what...lemme go.
You mad?
Or would you have done the same?
You always hated group projects in college but did what you needed to do to get the grade you wanted even if your workload was unfair.
You're now an adult and working in your field.
You and a co-worker have been assigned a project to complete and you meet to set a schedule and action item deadlines.
The first two meetings are fine.
The co-worker misses the next meeting and then...3 out of the next 5 meetings.
Yall have other responsibilities too but the deadline for this particular project us barreling down on you.
How do you handle?
You take a vacation and stay at an expensive hotel.
The hotel and service, in your opinion, was horrible.
You write a negative review on a review website.
The owner of the hotel contacts you and offers you a 50% discount if you take the negative review down.
You good?
Is this ethical?
How would you feel knowing that your stay at the hotel, based on favorable reviews, was probably because of this practice?
From: Tourist Retractions
People talk to me. Always have. They tell me stuff that has been weighing heavy on them. Strangers, family, framily, friends. I always listen and, according to the situation, I take a few quiet moments before I respond because I take it seriously. I mean...it's hard for a person to share something they are struggling with when they would like further clarification. No matter who the person is they are confiding in.
Because of all this...I've determined that there isn't much new under the sun even as there have been a few times when I've been speechless initially and all I could do was *BLINK*.
A while ago, someone came to me and shared a situation that has been bothering her for a minute now. See...she has a good group of girlfriends. They all spend a lot of time together. Most of them are stay-at-home moms living the perfect life outside in. The person telling me this is married, in a high powered corporate position and her husband is a high-level executive as well. They have children and all the things that come with having children. House, cars, private schools, family vacations, mommy group meetings, sorority and fraternity meetings, couple vacations, girlfriend trips, sports, dance, tutoring, church, etc.
On the couple vacations they travel with the couples in the good group of girlfriends. During the girlfriend trips, they go someplace fabulous and enjoy being with each other without husbands and children.
All seems pretty lovely from where I'm sitting listening to this.
That good life ish.
So the person telling me this...(We'll call her Olive...just because I'm sitting next to a character analysis of a character I'm working on named Olive. LOL!)...OLIVE is busy. EXTREMELY busy. Climbing her level of corporate ladder is hard work and the industry she is in is fast paced. Her husband is in the same industry. Think BIG.PAYCHECKS.
Olive is textbook Type A personality. Olive comes from a Type A family of "NO EXCUSES." She has always been the type of person who saw a problem and dealt with it head-on and she doesn't let much rattle her. When it comes to home and family, she's learned to leave the stresses of work at the office and focus on her marriage and her children being happy and healthy. So...she's the kind of person that doesn't complain much because she's learned that complaining doesn't fix a damn thing. If something is wrong, pull up your sleeves and fix it.
Olive's husband is very hand's on with the kids and he loves his wife. He's much less of a Type A personality than his wife is and follows her lead on certain things like finding the best schools, etc. Olive and her husband have the perfect relationship for them. Of course there are disagreements because hey...that's marriage, but nobody has ever left the house, drove off mad and stayed gone. They might stew in it for a minute...but, Olive's point is..."Hey...we got these kids. Ain't nobody got time for crazy."
Once a month, Olive's close group of girls (sorority sisters and mommy group friends) all get together for a girl's night out. Lots of wine is normally involved and it generally ends up turning into an emotional dump for everyone. They bitch about their husbands, their children, their mother-in-laws, all of that. Olive tries to be the person who helps bring it all into perspective. "Girl, your husband loves you, all men do crazy ish, you shouldn't take everything your mother-in-law says as an insult, the other parent at the school might not have been trying to one up you, your husband just bought you a new Audi for Christmas and yall have that big azz house, do you really think it's wise to expect him to take you on that 3 week trip to Europe for your birthday in February when his company just announced layoffs are looming?"
ETC.
She tries to be encouraging and supportive.
She invites their children over for sleepovers so that a couple who sounds like they are having issues can have some downtime together. She just tries to help whenever she can but she's not the type of person who asks for help from anyone outside of her family. When she needs someone to watch her kids, she has a babysitter. When she and her husband travel together, either her mother or her husband's mother comes to stay with the kids. They just aren't the type of people who ask other people to do stuff for them.
She is helpful where she can be helpful.
It never fails, however, that when Olive is headed home after the monthly bitch session that she thinks to herself..."Why are they always bitching about simple shit? If your husband did some shit that pissed you off...why in the hell didn't you tell him about it instead of stewing in it for weeks? If your mother-in-law came to help you unpack your beautiful new home, why are you mad that she put the glasses in a cabinet you didn't want them in? Why not simply say...Mama J...would you mind putting those glasses in that cabinet instead? If your husband's sister needs a place to stay for two weeks while she transitions to the city...why not welcome her with open arms and make it as comfortable for her as possible in the guest suite that is on a completely opposite end of your big azz house that you had to have that your husband, her brother, works hard to provide while you get to stay home while the kids are at school and pick them up after?"
Yall get the picture.
She doesn't SAY these things to them like that...but she does let them know that these situations wouldn't be a big deal TO HER.
Recently, at a monthly dress up, get wasted and bitch session, everyone got quiet awkwardly and started staring at Olive. Olive took a sip of her wine and was like...
"What's up?"
The head complainer (who you'd honestly think was living the most miserable life given to man), started with...
"We want to talk to you."
Olive looked around the table, put on her game face and sat up straight. (You know...that way you do when your boss calls you into her/his office saying he/she needs to talk to you.)
"Okay, talk. What's going on?"
Head Complainer: "We were all talking (Olive made note of that) and we realized that you never share with us. You never tell us anything that is bothering you. You never talk about anything going on with you and Chris (made up name for fictitious Olive's husband) or anything. It's all very surface with you and you always come across as everything is so perfect and not a big deal."
Olive sits back and says, "No, never said anything is perfect, but I just don't let the same types of things bother me that appear to bother yall."
Head Complainer: "Oh come on...so Chris doesn't do ANYTHING that pisses you off?"
Olive: "Chris annoys the shit out of me all the time but at the end of the day, he's my husband and the father of my children and I'm not about to drag him."
Head Complainer: "Oh...you mean like we do?"
Olive: "Hey...Chris pissed me off yesterday morning. He knew I had an early morning meeting and, instead of putting his car in the garage last night after the gym, he pulled up in the driveway behind where my car comes out of the garage. So I had to move his car before I could move my car because he was upstairs getting the kids ready for school. But I moved the car and got to my meeting on time. I was annoyed but then he called and said he couldn't find the brush to do our daughter's hair and I realized that him getting the kids ready alone this morning was something I should be grateful for because I know a lot of people whose husbands don't help with that sort of thing."
Head Complainer: "Like my husband."
Olive: "Your words, not mine. I've never let Chris think that I was Superwoman. WE have kids and a home and bills and family and friends to take care of. Not just me. WE. So that means WE need to do what needs to be done. If he gets home first, he starts dinner. He takes the kids to school, I pick them up. I am not a single mother so there is no reason I need to do everything for our kids on my own."
The other women started looking down at their drinks at this point while Head Complainer kept complaining saying how they all wanted to be close and felt that Olive holds back for whatever reason. It ended with Olive basically saying, "Look...I've seen bad marriages. My parents had one. I learned to not let small shit wreck my flow because I don't have time for that. I don't have the luxury to nor do I want to not work. I put in solid 9 hours of work before I get home to my family and I don't want to be miserable or unhappy so I don't let little stuff annoy me. I just want my kids to be happy and healthy and I want to grow old with my husband and travel the world with him once we get our last kid out of college in 20 years or so. I don't want to be mad all the time. I don't want to hold stuff in all the time. Me and my husband get it out. Yall have been with us and seen it in action. And we're always respectful, because we respect each other and we know how busy we are and what we don't have time for. I'm sorry yall think I don't share intentionally but that's not the case...I simply don't stay annoyed about small shit long enough for it to be share worthy."
They all hugged and kissed kumbayaish and left after the subjects changed.
But it was awkward. Tre' awkward.
On the drive home...Olive was feeling some kind of way. She focused on the fact they all got together and had an intervention because she didn't bitch about her life the way they did. As Olive turned into her driveway she wondered...SHOULD I BACK UP OFF THESE CHICKS?
When she shared it with me, that was her question to me.
I pondered it and answered her even though I didn't need to ponder it. I knew what I was going to say immediately. I just didn't want to come across as ugly.
What would YOU have told her?
What do YOU think about the "intervention?"
Do you feel like you have to share everything in order to be close with your girlfriends?
You had weight loss surgery some years ago.
You meet a guy you're really feeling.
He's really feeling you.
You go out on a date and he asks you if you used to be really big.
You're taken aback because...um...
You ask him why he asked that.
He tells you that a chick who knows you from church told him that you had weight loss surgery when she found out he liked you.
Question: Do you whup her azz tonight, tomorrow or Sunday in the church parking lot?
SIP: WHO DOES THAT????????????????????????????????
You were given the password to someone's Netflix account forever ago.
You watch Netflix daily.
You try to log on and find the password has been changed.
What do you do?
