I suppose that statement isn’t totally fair since I have had roommates in the past that I have liked. Unfortunately, they have always been tainted by the shizzy roomies (whom I’ve discussed in past posts) that were there too. But now I finally have a group of roommates that I can actually totally get along with as a whole.
It helps that I only have two roommates this year rather than three, which means I get a bathroom all to myself. One of my roommates, who I will call A, is super sweet. She does take up about 75% of the fridge , but she is friendly, invites me out to stuff, watches movies with me, actually has conversations with me, and is totally understanding when I have a concern. For example, she likes to blend things at 7am every day, so I messaged her nicely and asked if there was any way to do it the night before or in her room since it was making it hard for me to sleep. She actually apologized and promised to be better about it. It was amazing.
I know that sounds like the decent and normal thing to do, but I am used to roommates just arguing with me about things like that in the past or ignoring me and not changing at all. So yeah, it’s awesome.
My second roommate, who I will refer to as C, is also way chill. She doesn’t take up hardly any space in the apartment. She spends 90% of her time in her room and is always super quiet, which I appreciate. She may not be super social, but she doesn’t cause any issues either.
Basically, I am super happy I don’t have any roommates to worry about this year.
In other news, my anxiety has gotten a lot worse lately. It has been happening more in the middle of the day, when I am trying to work and actually get stuff done. So that has been a bit of an issue. But I am starting to take my meds more regularly to combat that again.
There was a huge wildfire near me and what I saw and heard from people reminded me of the novel White Noise, by Don DeLillo, which is a very interesting read and I would recommend it. But anyway, here is a weird poem I wrote about it named “Wildfire”:
Yesterday was different smoke hung in huge ominous masses above the mountains the other side of the mountains were lit up from beneath highlighted with reds and hazy auburns a showcase in a window the glass separating us luring us in we could not smell it yet it was distant far and an apocalyptic aesthetic we craved the edginess the dark style of it all could not possibly be good for the air quality look at what just a strike of lightning can do yesterday now we can smell it upsets us it is dense in the air we despise it is a nuisance what thought do we give to the death destruction disaster on the other side of the mountain we feel the side effects not the burns themselves but it still spreads the news is just White Noise blurring together just entertainment insignificant faded static we ignore until it is close too close too late today.
I hope y’all enjoy! I’ve never written a poem in a paragraph format, but I felt like it helped to get the point across. Feel free to leave me suggestions or feedback if you would like! Thanks for reading 🙂
So I had this realization recently that really hit me hard. I had been sexually assaulted. It wasn’t something that had happened in the last couple days. Actually, it had happened over a year ago, but I just hadn’t realized it.
About a week ago, I had to take an online sexual assault training for my job at my university. To be perfectly honest, at first I found it to be kind of excessive. I felt like it was saying the same things over and over and over again. I kept thinking that I already knew all this stuff. No means no. Yes means yes. The absence of yes means no and not yes. It was obvious, right? We should all know this stuff…right?
But the thing was, I didn’t know. I had not comprehended it. Back in my high school health class they spend a day teaching you this stuff. They say that consent is important and if they say no then it’s a no and if they say yes then it’s a yes. But…I don’t remember ever learning that it wasn’t that straightforward. That if there is a grey area then it is a no. No one ever really told me this stuff and I was never very sexually active until college so it wasn’t like I had many experiences to draw from. My parents never really went through it with me, which I don’t hate or blame them for, but it is part of why I didn’t really understand consent to the fullest degree.
So here is what happened to me. It wasn’t some sort of extreme example and don’t worry, I am not going to go into any details, but I wanted to share the gist to get my point across. The guy I was with I had been talking to for a couple weeks. One night we were hanging out at my apartment in the living room and at some point he picked me up and carried me to my bed. It is important to know that he did not ask for permission for anything he did. He took my clothes off for me, rather than letting me do it or asking me if it was ok. He asked me if I trusted him and I responded with something along the lines of “I don’t know” or “I’m not sure,” but he kept going. I was silent, but at certain points it was painful for me and I tried pushing him away. He only paused and continued. I eventually found an excuse for him to leave and hurried him out. But I didn’t think this was sexual assault. I had never said no explicitly or clearly told him to stop. For the most part I just let it happen. He pressured me into it by not even giving me the chance to give consent. He knew I was inexperienced and submissive and he took advantage of that to do what he wanted. It was sexual assault and it wasn’t my fault.
I kind of had to remind myself of that. It just wasn’t my fault. It is never the victim’s fault. And now I understand how hard it is as the victim to actually make yourself believe that. You want to tell yourself that it was your fault or you should have done something or you should have said no or you should have known better…but that stuff doesn’t matter after it has all already happened. I was taken advantage of and it wasn’t my fault.
I talked to my best friend about it and she helped me to kind of come to terms with it a bit better. But it still bothers me. Thinking about it just makes me feel upset. I even talked to my dad about it and it was then that I kind of saw a bit of the problem. He said that we really ought to teach people to say “no” more explicitly, but he has got it backwards. What we need to be teaching people is it is ONLY A YES that makes it ok, not the absence of a no. Guys and girls need to be taught this in high school, as that is when they start to become more sexually active anyway. It needs to be taught more clearly, more concisely, more in depth/detail, for more time, and it needs to be repeated until it sinks in completely. If I had been taught more about it and if the guy I was with had been taught more about it then I would have known it was wrong what was happening and the guy would have known not to do it in the first place.
I know this is a much more serious topic than what I talked about yesterday, but it has been on my mind and has been bothering me so I feel like it is important to say. I feel like there are still so many people that don’t grasp this. If there is anything I forgot to mention that you think is important then please feel free to comment below.
Here is a website I found that lists 67 resources on sexual assault. It includes hotlines, call centers, shelters, counselors, support resources, somatic therapies, yoga for those experiencing trauma, animal therapy, art therapy sites, online chat/peer support, retreats, books, and a section on how family and friends can support those who have experienced sexual assault trauma. Copy and paste the link or click HERE if you’d like to learn more:Â https://greatist.com/live/sexual-assault-survivor-resources
The National Sexual Violence Resource Center also looks like it has a lot of good info and you can check that out HEREÂ or use this link:Â https://www.nsvrc.org/
So…apparently I have been doing it all wrong. I’ll admit, I have had a lot of really bad dates and that should have tipped me off. But I suppose I was just so content with how bad things were that I did not really think about it. It took the much-needed bluntness of my best friend to bring me to the obvious realization that all my online-dating choices were pretty crap.
Basically, I was just “too nice.” I gave every guy the benefit of the doubt rather than being much more skeptical, specific, and picky in general. Every time a guy would message me, I would always respond. And every time a guy wanted to hang out, even if we had literally only said ten words to each other, I would be like “alright, you pick a time and place as long as it’s in public.”
Now I wasn’t a total moron when it came to safety. I would never give my number or full name out unless I super super liked the guy and we had been talking for awhile. I would never meet anywhere where there wasn’t going to be other people. I also always drove separately rather than being picked up, as that would mean the guy would know where I lived and could drive me off to anywhere.
It is actually kind of insane how oblivious some guys are to how suspicious they can be sometimes. I’ve had guys ask if we wanted to have our first date “taking a long drive through the canyon” or “walking through a park at 7pm.” I once had a guy keep asking to come over to my place so we could have a movie night (even tho we hadn’t met up in person yet and had only been talking for a day) and when I told him “no, I would rather avoid stalkers” he told me I was weird and never replied to me again.
List of creepy/weird/bad experiences I have had:
I’ve had a guy describe himself as “psychotic” and literally say that girls who are creeped out by that are “morons”.
I’ve had a guy read my entire profile and automatically assume that every word of it was bullcrap, effectively calling me a liar before actually talking to me about it and asking me questions about it.
I’ve had a guy continuously ask me about how comfortable I am about public nudity and, after I refused to answer because even the question made me uncomfortable, he said it was to break the ice and reduce awkwardness. I told him it only made things more awkward and is a question that should wait until you get to know someone more, and he ended up calling me a couple crude names before leaving altogether.
I have had a date where the guy had not even combed his hair, wore a grimy camo sweatshirt, admitted to not being able to drive, had no money but tried to convince me that he’ll “soon get a lot from his dead grandparents”, had no future aspirations, and did not ask me any questions and just talked about himself the whole time. He thought the date went well…he was disappointed by the end.
There are definitely more, but there are a couple examples, anyway.
9/10 of the dates I have been on have ended up weird, just bad overall, or incredibly awkward. And so what was the last straw? A guy who took me out to an ice-cream place, who was probably the most awkward person I have ever met. He did not know how to approach or talk to me in any way. We spent the first 10 minutes in silence as we ordered our ice cream separately (even after I tried to ask him a couple questions). I tried to ask questions and expand upon both of our answers, but every time he would ask a question and I would answer, he would just ignore my answer and ask another question. It was awful overall and only lasted like 20 minutes total. He also thought the date went well and I had to tell him that no…it didn’t.
After I shared this experience with my best friend, she informed me that I shouldn’t be going out with guys willy nilly. I need to spend more time messaging them and getting to know them beforehand. I should also be as picky as possible when it comes with who I choose to match with. “If you can’t picture spending the rest of your life with them,” my friend put it, “then just say no.”
It was genius, revolutionary, and so completely obvious that I couldn’t believe how stupid I had been. It shouldn’t surprise y’all that I have never really had much experience with dating as a whole so I am still learning, but still I can’t believe how nice and open and hopeful I was about all the guys on online dating. So no more Mrs. Nice Gal.
I’ve more clearly stated in my own profile what I will pass on and reasons why they ought to pass me if they don’t like particular things. For example, stuff I will pass on I listed as:
Guys who smoke,
Guys just looking for hookups/sex
Guys who have empty profiles
Guys who leave 1-3 word messages
Setting these standards like this for myself will definitely be a good start in helping me rat out the bad ones and I now plan on spending a lot more time actually talking to the guys I match with.
I once had a guy that said “if you don’t meet up with the person within a week then it isn’t going to happen” but now I totally disagree. If you can’t keep up an interested conversation for more than a week, then why even bother meeting in the first place? The one good relationship I had was done online for MONTHS before we had a chance to meet each other due to long distance living situations. So when you meet up doesn’t make any difference. I am surprised so many guys are so eager to jump into meeting in person so quickly. From what I have experienced, most of guys have been much worse in person than online.
By the way, I received my first unsolicited dick pick recently and it is GROSS. I feel even less attracted to sex more than ever. Even after I explicitly said NO when he asked if he could send it and he STILL sent it. Why do guys do this? It’s nasty and violates consent rules. Just DON’T DO IT MY GOD PLEASE STOP WHY
So, anyway…that has been the evolution of my experiences with online dating. We will see if this new approach will lead to better results for me in the long run. Wish me luck.
I’ve come back from the depths of school, work, and YouTube to write again. For anyone who is still remotely interested in following my exploits, I started school a couple weeks ago and have finally been able to muster enough time and mental energy to post on my blog again. It’s been ridiculously busy, to say the least. I’m taking six classes this semester, all related to education, so it has been hard to keep them all organized. I also have to do 20 hours of observations in schools on top of my classes and job.
In the meantime I have been working as a REC (Residential Engagement Coordinator), which has been incredibly fun and busy. I have a partner to work with and, although she is kind of scatter brained at times, she is super nice, helpful, and positive. She’s much more extroverted than I am so it’ll be interesting to see how the two of us work out. Unfortunately, I spent two hours bent over a poster painting about 4 days ago and my back has been KILLING me ever since then. So I’ve gotta sort that out.
Anxiety Update:
My anxiety has not been super bad in a really really long time. I haven’t had any attacks for awhile now, actually. I do feel as if it is creeping up on me slowly as I become more stressed out about school. However, my therapist recommends that I don’t try so hard to avoid it because that will just end up making me afraid of it. He says it’ll be much better if I am aware that it could happen, accept that it is a possibility, and just be prepared for it. Already that has helped me significantly. I haven’t had to take my meds as regularly anymore too!
Random Updates:
I have managed to send out my novel to publishers so hopefully that turns into something awesome.
But, in even more interesting news, I’ve started up online dating again. Y’all can expect to see a post later today discussing how that has been going in general so you can look forward to that!
Anyway, that has been what’s going on with me and I hope y’all look forward to future dramatic, ranty, insightful posts. I already have a couple posts lined up, so get ready…
J's College Crisis 