Under my skin - in a bad way
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent" - Eleanor Roosevelt
She was right about that one. Except no one told me how to deal with someone making me feel as though I'm being privately judged for how I was dressed the other night. Especially when that someone was the guy that I tried to get together with before M and I got involved.
Some back story - this was for Rocky Horror, and I typically dress pretty casually: t-shirt or sweater and jeans. Nothing suggestive or particularly sexy, unless it's a theme night or Halloween. This time, we were doing a fundraiser for a fellow cast member whose family recently lost their home in a fire, and the fundraiser was going to involve us being given money as a vote for who should wear silly underwear for the duration of the show. I was willing to join in - but panicked and backed out by the time that I got to the theater. Still, I was there in a low-cut top with cleavage on display. And any time that the guy walked past and I made eye contact - he walked past like I had the plague. Or as I told M, it's probably the first time that my tits were a repellant to someone. The whole time, he (the guy - not M) had me feeling like someone's Disapproving Dad, ready to shame me for baring as much as I did. And what really made me feel that way was the fact that the only time he actually talked to me was at the end of the night when I had my jacket on and zipped all the way up.
I don't know why it bothered/bothers me. Maybe it's because I felt like "I thought we were cool, even though we didn't work out. What the hell is this?" Or maybe he's just like "...fucking dyke putting it out there like that" and just has his own problems (like creeping on some of the women on cast at one point - and being called out for it, as well as propositioning a fellow (female) cast mate who turned him down). Whatever. At least M helped me feel better about the situation - his take on it was that it could've been a case of not wanting to be caught staring/leering and getting lectured about sexual harrassment.
She was right about that one. Except no one told me how to deal with someone making me feel as though I'm being privately judged for how I was dressed the other night. Especially when that someone was the guy that I tried to get together with before M and I got involved.
Some back story - this was for Rocky Horror, and I typically dress pretty casually: t-shirt or sweater and jeans. Nothing suggestive or particularly sexy, unless it's a theme night or Halloween. This time, we were doing a fundraiser for a fellow cast member whose family recently lost their home in a fire, and the fundraiser was going to involve us being given money as a vote for who should wear silly underwear for the duration of the show. I was willing to join in - but panicked and backed out by the time that I got to the theater. Still, I was there in a low-cut top with cleavage on display. And any time that the guy walked past and I made eye contact - he walked past like I had the plague. Or as I told M, it's probably the first time that my tits were a repellant to someone. The whole time, he (the guy - not M) had me feeling like someone's Disapproving Dad, ready to shame me for baring as much as I did. And what really made me feel that way was the fact that the only time he actually talked to me was at the end of the night when I had my jacket on and zipped all the way up.
I don't know why it bothered/bothers me. Maybe it's because I felt like "I thought we were cool, even though we didn't work out. What the hell is this?" Or maybe he's just like "...fucking dyke putting it out there like that" and just has his own problems (like creeping on some of the women on cast at one point - and being called out for it, as well as propositioning a fellow (female) cast mate who turned him down). Whatever. At least M helped me feel better about the situation - his take on it was that it could've been a case of not wanting to be caught staring/leering and getting lectured about sexual harrassment.