Face-Off (a writing assignment)

"Please compose no less than one blog on exactly how it is that you became a "bitch" and why you see yourself as such even though I do not."

bitch (bitch) n. 1. A female dog or other canine animal. 2. Slang. a. A spiteful woman. b. A lewd woman. 3. Slang. A complaint. Slang. 4. Something very unpleasant or difficult

In this context maybe I am not a bitch, although I can be spiteful at times. Maybe not in action, but in thoughts.

picture = Nikko - a real nice bitch

Remembering back about 15 plus years ago, I was asked why I always smiled. And I started paying attention to that, because the answer was "I don't know". I was told frequently that I was "so nice". Nice...what is that? I was "nice", and I did smile an awful lot. Because that is how I learned we should get along with other people. Very little having to do with what was really inside me. It was the social lubrication.

It is more important to me today to be real. What value was someone liking me, when I sugar coated what and who I really was? That is like eating the frosting and leaving the cake. So, most often today I don't try to attend to others' feelings. I don't care if they like me or think I am nice. And my preference runs towards people who are like that, too.

Today I don't bother to engage in social interactions that don't ring true. That is why I think I'm a bitch. The people who avoid me are exactly the people I prefer to avoid me. I don't always smile anymore. I don't like to be 'nice'. I like to be real. If a person can't tell me what they are really thinking, or if they are too uncomfortable hearing what I am really thinking, then I have no problem with silence. If a person can't put their true agenda on the table, then it is an agenda I don't care to know about. I have no interest in a fake 'public agenda', and I don't care if that person is a relative or a co-worker. I have lost my ability to be tolerant of that.

There are a few important qualities that I look for in the people whom I allow to color my world. If I don't see those qualities in a person, then I don't bother with much interaction with them. I don't like them. I don't eat brussell sprouts, because I don't like them. That doesn't mean brussell sprouts don't have value, it just means that I don't like them. Our culture tells us, especially the female of our species, that we should be 'nice', that lying is okay if it 'spares someone's feelings'. The bitch in me cannot see the purpose in that concept. The following are two examples to illustrate:

1.) The man to whom I was previously married told me (and others) that his new friend was a lesbian. He claimed later to many of those same people that the reason he said that about her was to spare my feelings - nice? I don't think so.

2.) I find my boss repulsive. However, because he is fairly recently out of a major surgery, when we had a snow storm during the night I got up extra early to shovel him out. - nice? I think that was nice.

In summary, this has been a thought provoking assignment. Maybe I am not a bitch in the real definition of the word, but a bitch when it comes to being expected to adhere to our social definition of "nice".

Peace