What's a Girl to do?
Mood:  surprised
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
Friday 8:13pm 25Aug06

I used to hang out with a couple gay men that insisted on invited me over whenever they had these two straight women that I couldn't stand. On two separate occasions both of the women, when discussing men in their lives said, "He's intimidated by me."
And they went on with some lame reasoning as to why this specific man and all men were intimidated by them. My eyes rolled in my head as I thought, "Please, their silence isn't an indication of their intimidation, it's an indication of their boredom."
You don't tell people that you intimidate them, they tell you that you intimidate them. That's the only way that you know.

One of the contractors asked me to join him on his coffee break today and as I left, my workmate said, "Don't scare him."
I chuckled and went for coffee.

Later on in the day I asked, "Do I scare men? How do I scare men?"
He took a few moments to find his words and explained that because I'm so assertive in the office and that my expectations are so high I scare men off that are actually interested in me. I can be dismissive when a man is too slow. This is true. I back away before a man can get his bearings, his guts, his balls to say what he really wants to say. This is true. And a few other examples that escape me now or I just don't want to discuss or remember?

I am one woman that works with all men. I work with men that swear, men that are aggressive, men that can come across as belittling because I'm a woman and they expect to deal with a man. Men that will often not acknowledge my existence until they discover that they have to go through me before they can go any further. I have men that stand with the doors open while the building chillers noise rages in the office and then give me dirty looks when I ask them to close the doors. It's that, "were you born in a barn?" syndrome.

I have no problems with it. I speak up. I make it clear that if they think I'm some little damsel that will run crying as soon as they bark that they have me confused with some damsel that will run crying as soon as they bark.

My work life is seeping into my personal life. My attitude is (with silent finger snapping) get to the point. I'm busy, you're busy let's not waste eachother's time. Apparently that intimidates men.
My work mate told me that men need to know the real you, that you are compassionate and sensitive and caring.

Everything has been bearing down on my mind, in my thoughts. He is right, I am a ball breaker at work. How do I balance that out? I do approach most situations with the thought in the back of mind that if I'm not tough I'll be stepped on. It's a given.

But talking from that standpoint tells me that I'm coming from a place of fear. The fear of things I've let go by in the past and never spoke up about. The fear of people getting too close and wearing me out. I'm a caretaker whether I like it or not and I know what kind of exhaustion I've suffered from being a caretaker. It's how I got depressed. I don't want to take in too many people for fear that they will be the same as all the others, the ones that come to me for every crisis they suffer and not so real crises. I am afraid that I will spend the rest of my life being the sounding board for everyone's troubles with no time for my own happiness. So I make it almost impossible for the majority of people to get in to my inner core. My real me. Sigh!

How to do this thing called life? The pendulum swings from too nice to too harsh and slowly gets to the middle. In the coming weeks (years?) I'll search for the middle. My coworker is one of the few people I trust to tell me the truth about me, offer constructive criticism, not say things in a hurtful way. That's what got me thinking...

EY