mercy me (the night is long)

*warning. this post is heavy and has swears. i wrote it late last night during a particularly angry bout of the night-time-sads. i thought about not posting it. but i try to give valid time and space to my night-time-sads even in the much calmer light of day. because they are very much a part of me and they are as real and as fleeting as anything else. so being honest with them is being honest with myself and you. but don't worry. i'm fine.*

{photo by james nord}

i am so lonely it is killing me.

i hate that. because it is not that i can't be alone.

i love being alone.

i hate all those 'learn to spend time with yourself' preachy pieces. i am a master of doing things alone.
often i'd rather watch the play or the movie alone. for a less edited reaction. to actually feel the thing rather than moderate. so as to never make anyone uncomfortable? so as to be accommodating and apropos?

but i want my fucking someone, god damn it. i deserve my fucking someone. and sometimes it is so much a part of me - the lacking of that part of me - that i can feel it everywhere. and i want to throw up and i want to punch walls. and i want to scream at all the people who are doing it wrong. that it is unfair that they get to go around pretending. thinking they know better and that i could have what they have if i just relaxed or some bullshit. and i watch them smash and train wreck their way through. and i find it completely exhausting. i am completely exhausted.

rant

this is a non-friday feminist post because i had already written yesterday's post when something happened that made me foam at the mouth. and i don't feel like waiting till next week to talk about it.

here we go! let's look at this infographic of how sexism works, shall we?

{thank you, xkcd}

i saw this wee cartoon while reading melissa's piece about how feminism works. good stuff. 

and then i had a lovely example handed right to me! how lucky am i?! i was out with friends at a bar. i ordered a martini. a male friend - who as far as i know is a kind and caring and loving type of man - said to me:

'how on the market are you?!' with a sly, slightly condescending look and sassy smile. then explained to me that girls always order martinis when they're single and looking... he sees it all the time. a girl orders a cosmo and it's all a big show of being out there, available, looking for a maaaannnnn. (note. he's bar tended lots. so. he knows.)

here are some important facts. yes. i am rather-newly single. true. i am 'available' i suppose, and 'out there', although the idea of picking up at a bar makes me want to vomit a bit (a lot). i was drinking a dirty gin martini and not a cosmo... 

but. those things DON'T ACTUALLY MATTER AT ALL! because, actually, turns out, i like martinis. and i drink them. because. i like them. in fact, i drink martinis when i'm in relationships too! look at my instagram for proof. ask any of my exes. i ALSO drink martinis when i'm single but NOT looking. which is a thing which is possible, too. weird, right?

when i tried to argue those points, i was of course told that i was being defensive and (by a female friend, too) that that defensiveness was caused by the fact that i knew it was true. blah blah.

nope. that wasn't defensiveness. that was anger. anger that a girl can't drink a drink she likes without it being a big thing that girls do. you know. like sex and the city told us to do it. like shit girls say.

the man also asked me why i didn't just order a double shot of bourbon. and also argued that if i was drinking gin cause i liked gin, i wouldn't have ordered the 'bar rail' gin. my being frugal (or cheap, whichever you prefer) was not a thing, apparently. and. the fact that i didn't want bourbon... or beer, or wine, or vodka, or water, or sodapop, or or or... i'm not going to go into it.

know what tells you i'm on the market? asking my friends if they know of anyone who might be interesting. going on eharmony. going on dates with humans. my saying so. know what doesn't? WHAT I'M DRIKING. because actually, i am me. and not every girl/woman. 

now here's a picture of margene to diffuse some of my (and hopefully your) rage.

that is all. thank you.