It never ceases to amaze me: the things people care about. –Marty Rubin

Lately I feel like the world has been struggling. It seems like a lot of people are having a really difficult time facing the election and understanding the decision that was made. Some individuals are so allegedly devastated that you would be under the impression an extremely close family member passed away. Some people are just absolutely outraged and venting their frustration on various forms of social media in order to have their voice heard. Some people are scared for their children, themselves, and their minority friends and family.

Some people are rejoicing and bragging in the form of celebration to their liberal, democratic counterparts. Some individuals are sharing and re-sharing the same posts, reminding everyone that Donald Trump won and that despite everyone’s right to vote, their opinion remains unchosen. Some people are angry up there on their conservative high horse and demanding that those “ungrateful liberals” just pack their things and leave. To be honest, this hateful, absolutely unreasonable behavior is in existence on both sides and it’s infuriating. It’s like one of my Facebook friends has said over and over again while she’s posted positive, upbeat pictures of babies and cute animals, “#stopruiningmyfacebookexperience”.

And you know, I’ve got to really say that I appreciate this woman’s ability to remain positive despite all of the Facebook noise and dysfunction. It’s just like, people have their own things going on and maybe it sounds bitter, but we don’t all want to hear everyone crying about the election for the next three weeks. This woman, for example, is so pregnant that she’s literally all belly. She has another younger, toddler aged child that she has just successfully potty-trained before the age of two. She also has an older, school-aged daughter that she basically raised on her own until recently. She also is a pretty popular tattoo artist and was featured in Cosmopolitan magazine because she wrote a tribute to stay-at-home Moms. I can’t say who she voted for and I can’t say that I know whether or not she’s happy about the results but she’s not an incessant downer; she tries to keep her spirits up. She’s bright, beautiful and optimistic and you know what? She’s got a shit load of things on her plate. Way more than I could probably ever handle.

But she smiles and keeps her shit together because that’s what strong women do. That’s what classy ladies do. And in lieu of never-ending sniveling about how Trump is allegedly a racist, how the election was so unfair and our world is apparently frightening and over, she’s posting things to brighten the day. Because that’s all this woman has time for. And I absolutely love her for it.

Those who are critical don’t like being criticized, and those who are insensitive have a deficiency in their senses. –Suzy Kassem

There are all these talks about things like white privilege and how people like me couldn’t ever possibly understand the amount of racism that exists today. It doesn’t matter that I’m clearly not a racist and that racist accusations make me want to physically abuse people. It doesn’t matter that I’ve never been vocal about who I voted for because I’ve always felt like that was my business and no one else’s. And it really doesn’t seem to matter that I’m a social worker who actually took classes in college about cultural diversity and competency. (And I’m going to go out on a limb and say a lot of these really vocal individuals haven’t ever taken the time to sit and learn about another culture, yet they will defend them to the death.)

It doesn’t matter that I’m married to a naturalized “African American” and that my husband didn’t become a US citizen until he was eighteen years old. It doesn’t matter that I’ve got a pretty beautiful worldview, that I don’t discriminate against anyone, and that I can’t even formally register with a particular political party because I see things from both sides that I can get behind. (As my liberal friend likes to say, “Registered independents are just republicans who are too afraid to admit it.”) It doesn’t seem to matter that I’ve dated men of all colors and have never felt like there was a difference between us because I don’t look at skin color; I look at how I’m treated.

I’ve read things like, “Oh, you don’t feel threatened when you drive to work in the morning? Then you could never understand how it feels to be marginalized.” And other things like, “Oh, you voted for Trump? Then go ahead and explain to your LGBT, Muslim, African American, and Latino friends why you don’t give a shit about them.” I’ve seen really snarky memes like, “You don’t see the republicans protesting because they’ve all got to work in the morning!” Or, “Whatever random liberal celebrity says they’re moving out of the country now that Trump was elected: Good riddance!” I’ve read about people going through the drive-thrus at iconic fast food chains, seeing “people of color”, and being moved to tears because America is now apparently in such a terrifying state, there’s nothing left to do. I’ve read complaints about how suddenly the election isn’t rigged, now that Conservative Mr. Trump won and how anyone who would vote for someone endorsed by the KKK is obviously a racist.

I’m going to level with you friends, because although I am sick to death of all the political bullshit on Facebook and other social media vendors, I’m an American and obviously that means I have the right to say whatever the fuck I want, right? I mean, that’s the whole point of living in a free country right? Having the freedom to express whatever asshole opinion comes to your mind, despite who it offends or how politically incorrect it is? Because in America, people can steal without getting their hands chopped off. Because in America, you can mouth off to a politician or a police officer or your goddamn boss without getting your tongue cut out of your mouth. Because in America you can cheat on your spouse and instead of getting burned in a stack of tires, you just get called out by snatchy toned memes on Facebook. Because in America, we can do whatever the hell we want to whoever the hell we want, right?

Damn the consequences and whoever else gets hurt!

But the thing that I’ve come to realize is that this whole idea of being insensitive and uncaring, this notion of not grasping how to be sensitive to the feelings of other people has become an epidemic. It extends much farther than politics and this apparently life-altering election. It’s something that I’ve said before and I will probably say again lots of times: The reality of our society is that no one cares about anyone. It’s no wonder that relationships are always a shit show. Look how we’ve treated our common man!

And while this might sound really negative, I have to say that when women come to me and tell me their relationship horror stories, I can’t say that I’m at all shocked. When my male friends come to me and tell me all their wild stories about their crazy girlfriends, I would be lying if I said I was surprised by the things I’ve heard. It’s just unfortunately a reality that people are intentionally hurtful, they’re deceitful when it benefits them, and they haven’t any sort of compassion or empathy for others. It’s sad to say that and really realize that it’s true but maybe it’s better to face it head on. Maybe that’s the only way to really fix it.

Anger, resentment, and jealousy doesn’t change the heart of others. It only changes yours. Shannon L. Alder

I have so many friends who have just endured these awful relationships. I can’t even really say that there were parts and pieces that were good because in all honesty, the bad always well outweighed the good. In all honesty, the main reason that I started this blog was because I had so many personal experiences, between myself and my friends, in which women were just put down, pushed around, apprehended and led downtown. And none of these women were weak, lacking judgement, or from relatively poor upbringings. They were good people who put their faith in someone who led them in the wrong direction. They were smart, beautiful women who were just trying to “go with the flow” and be agreeable instead of coming to terms with the fact that their boyfriends were garbage. They were women who were educated, women who knew what they deserved, but probably felt like they were just taking the bad with the good.

We’ve all heard our mothers say that, right? Sometimes, as women, we just have to suck it up and put on a brave face. But if that becomes your daily life with your significant other, if that becomes your first fulltime job because you’re incessantly putting out fires for your explosive, insensitive boyfriend, you’ve got yourself an overgrown problem.

But to me it’s more than just men (and in some cases, women) behaving badly. My whole issue with this, as with this apparent election debacle, is the fact that people are just so inherently selfish. I literally cannot wrap my brain around the fact that people seem to only care about themselves. Maybe it’s because I’m a social worker and my literal job description states that I literally have to meet people where they’re at. Maybe it’s because I’m painfully aware of how my actions affect other people and the realization that not everyone is going to see things from my perspective. Maybe it’s because I was raised by a really compassionate mother who taught me that if I didn’t have anything nice to say, then I had better keep my snarky little mouth shut.

It’s just a real shame that not everyone was raised like that. It’s an even more serious shame that some individuals just feel the need to say whatever barbaric thing that comes to their mind, no matter who they’re talking to, and just expect everyone to be okay with it. It turns out that being diplomatic is a very scarce commodity in our country and that’s what I personally find to be frightening. I never use the abbreviation for “shaking my head” because I think it’s kind of stupid but honestly, if there was ever a time to use it, it would be right now.

I have a friend who has been dating this man for probably about six years. I would think that after six years, it’s maybe a little natural for things to loosen up. You may not always be on your best behavior after six years with your significant other because you’ve obviously already snagged them. But I would like to believe that you still try to be a gentleman when it’s needed and you still make an effort to be cordial because after all, you’re significant other is your most favorite person. That’s why you’ve chosen them.

But some individuals don’t follow that protocol. Maybe it’s that some men never really grow up or maybe it’s because some of them just feel unremittingly entitled. But this man that my friend is still somehow dating, in particular, is borderline unpleasant to be around.

He is incessantly teasing basically everyone and I guess his jokester nature was appealing in the beginning. But after spending some serious quality time with this couple, I quickly learned that this man is incapable of having an adult conversation. He also had this cute little joke he always told about how he and my friend split up restaurant bills. “We do it fifty/fifty,” he stated kind of seriously. And honestly, I sort of raised an eyebrow because I just wasn’t raised like that. What kind of semi-serious boyfriend makes you split the bill fifty/fifty? Then he laughed and said, “If it’s over fifty, she pays,” he pointed to my friend, “and if it’s under fifty, I pay.” Apparently this wasn’t a joke; this is an actual relationship rule they have.

But I kept telling myself that despite how much he got on my nerves, I couldn’t say how he acted when they were alone. I felt like I was sort of targeting him because I hold my girlfriend at a really high standard and I just didn’t think that someone who joked about their relationship so much was really an appropriate mate choice. I mean, she talked so highly of him and set the bar so unbelievably high that when I met him in person, I was almost a little disappointed. He was sloppy, lazy, and ungentlemanly. He didn’t praise her or worship her in the fashion that my husband does me, and he whined about driving places or paying for things. I just didn’t understand the connection.

The other habit this man has is running away from my friend every time reality sets in. They still don’t live together and every time they’ve come close, something has come up. Maybe it’s that he starts to panic and can’t seem to come to terms with their very limited commitment. Maybe it’s that he realizes that if he does in fact move in with my friend, he might have to settle down in more ways than one and God forbid, pay more than fifty dollars for something. Maybe it’s that he’s unsure where the relationship will go if it goes any further and it keeps him at a distance.

But what I don’t understand is every single time, this man comes literally crawling back. I wouldn’t say that my friend is fine without him because I know that’s not the case. But she certainly doesn’t show it or reach out to him first. She told me once that this is because she “knows he’ll always come back”. And in this stage of the relationship, it’s “I love you so much; you’re my person! I can’t do this without you.” In her radio silence comes the grip understanding that he won’t have anyone without her. He won’t have anyone to put up with his drunken binges and obnoxious behaviors. He won’t have someone to open the door no matter what time of the evening and cook him special dinners when he’s not up to going out. He won’t have a beautiful woman to praise him and worship the ground he walks on, a woman who literally talks nonstop to all of her friends about how amazing and creative he is, a woman who genuinely believes that the words coming out of his mouth are gospel.

He soon begins to realize that the only thing scarier than commitment is being alone.

Sometimes, though, we let ourselves get so used to being ‘fine’ that we lost track of how ‘not fine’ we are. –Martina Boone, Compulsion

The part to me that is so frustrating and infuriating is that he clearly just has no regard for her. He (and she) can claim whatever he wants about how he feels about her, how highly he allegedly values their relationship but the fact that he can just drop her repeatedly for no apparent reason says otherwise. If he really, genuinely cared about her, he wouldn’t have an epiphany every two months and decide that he needs to focus on himself. The fact that he has a clear understanding of how much he’s hurting her every time he walks away and then chooses to do it anyway just to come back when he realizes nobody else wants his nonsense, proves that he doesn’t have an inkling of thought or respect for her feelings. Because I’m sorry, but if he did, he would either stay with her or stay gone.

I have another friend who basically went through a similar debacle with her boyfriend. She is currently in one of those rotations where he broke up with her because he was sick of her invading his space. (She’s not even five foot, by the way and is probably the least intrusive person I’ve ever met but whatever, bro.) I think it’s safe to say, however, that this particular “rotation” will be her last because she’s just grown sick of it.

They’re another couple that’s been together for something like four or five years. They’ve been on vacations together, given each other really expensive gifts (including a diamond encrusted promise ring that would allegedly be replaced by an eventual engagement ring), and even ended up getting a cute apartment together. I was privy to the fact that he was a chronic dick to her but she loved him and because of that, I wanted it to work between them. I mean, when I tell you that she is like, prime girlfriend material, I’m not joking.

She was always faithful, she always forgave him (even when he acted like a total jerkoff, which in my personal opinion, was pretty often) and she even maintained a sturdy friendship with him when he was trying to get with the woman he cheated on her with. I remember one time, many, many years ago when they were on one of their breaks, she was in the car with me. We had just left dinner with our double dates (my husband and a fairly handsome man she had started talking to) and her phone was just ringing off the hook. She finally answered and take a guess who it was.

She sat there, in the back of my Scion, trying really hard to calm her crying, asshole ex-boyfriend because he had just caught his new girlfriend (aka, the one he cheated on my friend with repeatedly) cheating on him with someone else. I mean, talk about a classy, extremely functional woman. I would have been like, “I’m not sure why you’re crying because you’re a cheating asshole and that’s exactly what you deserve. And I’m also not sure why you’re calling me about it because I don’t give a fuck.”

But that’s the Italian in me.

But breaking up with her whenever he felt like it wasn’t the only shitty thing in his repertoire. He also was very fond of cheating on her incessantly (as earlier mentioned) and did so for their entire relationship, I would wager. He would never make their relationship “Facebook official” and would always untag himself in photos because it was obviously damaging to his wannabe playboy reputation. He also had this cute habit of deleting her on Facebook and/or Instagram whenever he felt like they were getting too close and while she would laugh about it to her friends, I think it always bothered her. I just always felt like someone who was that shady from the beginning was probably not worth spending time with.

But I’ll go ahead and get off my soapbox because nobody’s perfect.

He was also good at talking down to her when he felt like it could benefit him. For example, when he wanted to go out with “his boys” and leave her at home (which was practically every night), he would tell her that she “wasn’t any fun” and that “they never did anything anyway”. He would call her antisocial and speak to her as if she was unwilling to be around his friends. The reality was that he just didn’t want her there, (I mean, she would obviously put a damper on him getting with despicable Tinder sluts…) so he never asked. And when she finally got sick of it, talking down to her was what he used as a defense mechanism.

He also refused to take her on dates, despite how many times she asked. I would put money on the fact that this was because Dunedin is a small town and he probably didn’t want to bump into his prospective conquests when he was out pretending to court his live-in girlfriend. The one time that she went out with me recently (on St. Patrick’s Day), he claimed that he was “exhausted” and “stayed home with his male friend” and relaxed. I still have my reservations about all of that and honestly believe he was probably right down the street with somebody else. “Exhausted and staying home with a male friend”, my big Italian ass.

And to add insult to injury, he moved her into an apartment that was conveniently close to his work and isolated her from absolutely everyone. She was (very temporarily) unemployed because she was no longer happy at her job and being so far away from her old life made it difficult to see her friends. But knowing that she was unemployed, lonely and completely fucking isolated didn’t do anything to make this trifling child act like a man and be a good boyfriend. It somehow made him pull away even more and despite all of her genuine attempts to repair their relationship, he came up to her one day and said that she had until the 1^st to “get out” because he was breaking the lease on their apartment.

There was no discussion, there were no arguments, it was just a decision that this selfish piece of garbage made all on his own for both of them. He didn’t care that she would have to go crawling back to her parents, unemployed, single and now homeless. He didn’t care that she had literally given everything up to be with him and was essentially now giving up five years of her life to start all over. He didn’t care that she would probably want to discuss the living arrangement or that she had no idea what he had even been up to the last month or so. He didn’t even care enough to come home at night or run breaking the least past her, which would have been respectful considering her name was on it.

But as with the earlier couple, all of these actions coupled together make it very clear to me that he never gave a shit about her. And it’s a real shame because she’s an amazing woman who just wanted a relationship with this idiot she loved. And honestly, she seems like she’s doing okay and is pleasant every time I’ve talked to her. But you never really recover from that kind of selfish deceit. You never really recover from having your life ripped out from under you.

Moral of the Crazy: I guess all of this disruption with the election and all of the proverbial unsatisfactory behavior just really got me to thinking. It isn’t just that people hide behind their smart-phones and personal computers while they spew harsh remarks like it’s their job. It isn’t just that people label republicans as racist if they voted for Trump and lazy, unemployed liberals if they voted for Hillary. It isn’t just that people like Mike Evans seem to suddenly have loads of political knowledge and claim that the nation is in a state of terror.

It isn’t that men cheat on their girlfriends and kick them out of their living situations because they would rather play on the Tinder app. It isn’t that men (and women) lie to their significant others, take pills that aren’t prescribed to them, and tell each other they hate each other whenever a fight occurs. It isn’t just that men continually disrespect their relationship or break up with their girlfriend whenever they get a tiny taste of independence. None of that really matters because there’s a huge, underlying issue beneath all of it. And it doesn’t have anything to do with Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. It doesn’t have to do with racism or the liberal agenda. And it doesn’t have to do with Obamacare and whether or not it should be repealed.

The reality is that people, all people, do not know how to treat each other. None of us know how to respect each other and none of us have ever taken three seconds to look outside of our own worldviews. It seems like, from where I’m sitting, everyone is content where they are. And while they will complain that “they’re scared for our nation” and of all the alleged bigotry that is all of sudden in existence within our nation, no one is doing anything to alleviate it. Sure, I guess you could say the people protesting the election and refusing to stand for the National Anthem are attempting to make a statement but who are they really helping? Who are they really assisting by encouraging disorderly conduct and disrespect?

You get more bees with honey, friends.

I just think that it starts from the very bottom. And the reality is that if we don’t even know how to treat each other within our interpersonal relationships, then how the hell is our country supposed to get any better? When the foundation is built on lying, cheating and deceitful behavior, how can it possibly flourish into anything wholesome that promotes peace? If we yell and cuss at our neighbors and our friends, how are we treating strangers? If you can’t trust your spouse, if you can’t trust the people that are supposed to stand for and support you no matter what, how are you ever going to trust social workers, police officers, and political officials? It just doesn’t make any sense.

I had a whole different plan for this blog when I wrote down the idea originally. But the more I started to really think about it, the more I realized that perhaps more than a bitter little diatribe about one of my ex-boyfriends, we could all use a sweet little public service announcement. I know I’ve said this probably a million times but friends, we’ve only got each other. We have to model these good behaviors, these loving tendencies for our children or maybe all the doomsday believers are right and we’ve set up a future of ruin. 

Instead of rolling your eyes, smile. Instead of idling past that homeless man, maybe you give him your weekly Starbucks money because you could forgo the empty calories just this once. Instead of being incessantly negative about every little thing, maybe you take a page from my Facebook friend’s book and you find something to be positive about because there is always something. I don’t want to make this a political statement by any means but maybe instead of “exercising your right to protest” by not standing for the National Anthem because you feel that African Americans are still being oppressed, why don’t you take your millions of dollars and go personally help some of those oppressed populations? How about you knock on some doors and find out what the community needs? How about you go into schools with at-risk youths and give them some motivational speeches and scholarships to college? There are just so many ways that we can help each other.

If you are really that passionate about something, and who am I to say you aren’t, why don’t you really do something about it? I mean, I can’t compare myself to someone who’s been oppressed because I can’t say that I ever have been. But I was sick of thinking about women like me being stuck in domestically violent situations. So I took out a shit ton of student loans, went to college and started working with domestic violence victims. I didn’t even really have to try. Imagine what you could do if you really, really wanted to change the world.

Peace be with all of you wonderful readers. I know you’ve all got something to be happy about and I sincerely hope you’re able to find it.

You forged my love just like a weapon and turned it against me like a knife. You broke my last heart-string, but you opened up my eyes. –Jewel, Goodbye Alice in Wonderland