Oh hai, reality!

Of the vast array of things I struggle with regularly, one of the things that bothers me the most is my inability to say what I want when I want to say it. There have been so many things that make sense to me about myself being able to view my behaviors through autism, and while needing time to properly put a response together is one of them, there are still moments where it irritates me. I get angry with myself over it. It isn't that I CAN'T respond, it isn't even that I don't have moments of quick wit where I didn't mean to say a thing, but I am glad I did after the fact. About six times out of ten, I feel pressured into saying SOMETHING, and the something that I say is not the thing I actually want to express.

I had to do a really fast real estate shoot update today. One of the properties my agent is working with is a new build, so I'm popping by every so often to take photos of the progress. There was siding put on the house, so I popped over to grab six or seven photos of it, and leave. There was a worker there, a very friendly older gentleman named Wayne that was more than happy to converse with me, and while I do not mind being courteous, small talk makes me uncomfortable. It's one of the scenarios where I know I won't be able to say what I mean fast enough, because I'm very busy combatting how awkward I feel, and judging my safety, and planning my escape routes should things go sideways. 

I as Wayne if he'll move his truck so I can get some photos of the front of the house, he happily obliges, and as I'm shooting the front, he remarks, "you sure have a lot of ink on you". I didn't expect anybody to be at the property, so I wore my work out outfit. A really breezy, sleeveless tank top that shows my entire back, and a pair of tight 3" seam shorts that show the bottom of my mermaid tattoo (that Derek calls my tree fish). You can absolutely see pretty much all of my tattoos in this outfit. So I laughed and said, "I sure do!" Wayne said, "oh, that's alright, I like tattoos." I laughed again, but felt a little irritated inside. I wasn't apologetic in my response, I'm not looking for absolution in having them, or approval. I opted not to say anything in response, because I know he meant nothing by it. In fact, to spoil the ending, that's the entire MO of everything he says for the five minutes extra he keeps me there, chatting to me. He meant every single thing he said as a compliment. Nothing he said was meant to be anything other than nice. And yet I still left the conversation feeling frustrated twice over: one, because I didn't have the space to figure out what I wanted to say, and two, because I felt so diminished as a person by what he said. I felt like what he said really diminished all femme people, and I can pretty much feel my husband's eyes rolling straight out of his head at me saying that, but the words people use matter, and they tend to speak volumes about any given person's world view. 

So there he was, chatting with me about tattoos. He said the problem with them is once you get one, you're hooked on them. I replied that he is absolutely correct, and I've worked my entire life to afford my tattoo habit. Then I mentioned that my oldest got their first tattoo in June, and is about to get another one. He scoffed as he said, "you're not old enough to have kids that age!" I said I absolutely am, my oldest is 19, my husband's oldest is 19, and my youngest is 15. He was shocked, quite plainly, and he told me that I am just so young looking, he wouldn't have guessed I had kids at all. Point one for having kids and not looking haggard, but also...what is it that he thinks about people who have kids? Does having children automatically age you, or make you look a certain way? I guess...I guess it's equally great he didn't just....ASSUME that I have kids because I'm a femme presenting person. It's hard to suss out a general idea about what he meant there, but it felt a bit....off. There's something in there that's sticking in my jaw, and I'm sure I'll work it out later. 

I finished up taking photos of the house. It didn't take long, maybe 5 minutes. I went back to the front to thank him for moving his vehicle, and he wanted to sit and chat with me about himself. Which is fine. He was very nice, very friendly, and even when it makes me uncomfortable, I tend to indulge people when they want to chat, because I've been on the other end of that and I always feel dumb or worthless if I just want to be nice with someone and connect for two seconds, and they're clearly not interested. I could write a whole thing about femme people being taught to be accommodating to masc presenting people, but I will save that nuanced conversation for another time. 

Wayne told me that he's a 70 year old man, and he stared at me for several seconds, clearly expecting SOMETHING. So I was like....well you don't look it? And he said thank you. And then he said, you know, it's so funny, my daughter is 45, and she has a best friend who's had eight kids. EIGHT KIDS. And she looks just like you, she's skinny as can be and you can't tell at all she's had eight children. But then my youngest, she's had one kid and...at this point, he gestured around his body, making the universal signal for "not thin" and made a sound like a hot air balloon being inflated. A comical WHOOSH. I looked at him and said, "well yeah, carrying a baby does that to you, it's an unforgiving process and it's hard on the body." And he said, "exactly, and it's so sad that she's just so big now while people like you and my daughter's friend get to stay so thin even when you've had so many kids." I frowned a little and said, "why is it sad?" And he looked at me for a moment and replied, "well, when you're beautiful, you're beautiful. And that's it. If you're born beautiful, you're beautiful you're whole life, no matter what happens to you, or how many kids you have. So that's why it's sad for her. But you and my daughter's friend are so lucky! You're both gorgeous!"

I felt...I felt weird. I know he was complimenting me...like...skinny? Come on. Of all the things people accuse me of being, thin has never been one of them. In the moment I felt myself trilling inside at the compliment on my figure. I have worked my whole life to be seen as...if not thin...slender adjacent. I felt instantly pleased, and I felt pleased at him insinuating that I've been gorgeous my whole life. Which is objectively untrue, but I felt pleased jut the same. But I came off of that high really quickly as I realized what it was he was saying about me, what it was he was saying about his daughter, and what I could pretty easily hone in on as his central thesis. He kept talking. My face must have been obviously frowning or making some kind of face that showed I wasn't appreciative of what he was saying, because he switched gears. Well, sort of. He stayed in the complimentary gear, but stopped talking about other people in relation to me. 

"You know, your husband is a lucky son of a bitch." Oh. My face still hadn't moved, I felt myself frown a little harder. I was obviously actively frowning now. 

"Do you tell him that every day?" 

"No I do not."

"Well, you should! Does he know that if you weren't as beautiful as you are, he'd have nothing?"

"Well I'm not sure that's true?"

"No it is! And you need to remind him of that EVERY DAY! You tell him, you say that I AM BEAUTIFUL AND YOU NEED TO REMEMBER!"

"I will do my best."

"Ok, now you take care now, baby, have a nice day!"

"Thank you, you as well."

And I got into my car and drove off. And I felt strange. 

I wrestled with myself about several things. First of all, I know him calling me 'baby' was not lascivious. It felt very paternal, it wasn't a come on. I've had enough people call me baby that I can tell the difference. People of all genders. I'm actually not that upset that he called me baby. I am not making excuses for him when I say that he was just being genuinely friendly with me, and he wasn't trying to be fresh. But...I wish I had felt ok in the moment to say, "oh, you don't need to call me baby, my name is Ondrea. Lovely to meet you". I felt panicked and unhappy and couldn't think of that, though. All I could think of was being socially polite. Secondly, I know he was trying to make me feel good by saying my husband is a lucky man, but it didn't make me feel good at all. It made me feel like my worth is merely decorative. I could be a fucking heinous cunt, Wayne has no idea who I am as a person. A heinous, bossy cunt that steals from my husband and cheats on him all day long. I would like to think that yes, Derek is pretty lucky, but not because I'm gorgeous. As established, I do not think I am. What I think makes Derek lucky is that I'm a good partner, I'm smart enough and funny enough to talk to for extended periods of time, and I care about him. We share interest, we have a great time together, I'm relatively patient. None of Derek's luck in having me as a partner, in my mind, is related to how I look. And it feels absolutely fucking WILD to have a stranger tell you that you are nothing more than window dressing. 

Of course, as I drove the fifteen minutes home, I was able to properly put how I felt into words that I should have said. Responses I wish I had been able to process immediately so I could have said what I wanted to say. It's frustrating to not be able to get everything right in the moment.