Why Do You Do That?

And now, for another installment of "Steph's How To Not Stay Married 101."

Or, as it is also known, "How I Drive My Otherwise Completely Sane Husband Absolutely Bonkershit."

Last night was a pretty normal night for us thirty-something marrieds with two children. We had the great joy of showing The Fifth Element to the awesome spawns of my uterus (who now walk around saying "muuuuuuuulti-pass" at every given opportunity) and enjoying their reactions to one of our favorite movies.

After that, my husband and I watched The Chumscrubber which was an excellent movie that I must recommend yet warn at the same time that while it is very well-written, it deals with a hard subject for most to deal with (suicide) and I bawled my eyes out watching it. Disregarding that, however, it was still an outstanding movie.

Anyway, so by all accounts we had a fairly normal, uneventful evening. It in no way foreshadowed the dooooooom that was to occur later.

That's right. Doom.

This guy was totally cackling in the background.

So, eventually, as most of us old thirty-something marrieds do, we made our way to bed around 11 or so, he to sleep, I to read a selection from my never-ending stack of "To be reads."

And that's where the night went straight into the pooper.

We were having a simple conversation about my book, that reasonably tangent-ed off into the ridiculousness of the Twilight series (of course) to which I made the comment that I wanted to tell all of my single lady friends that are FREAKING the shit out over this Twilight CRAP that it may be the sole reason as to WHY they are still single. Because they believe the crap in that book/movie.

Right?! I know, I'm SUCH a bitch.

So he responds, "Uh, you know my sister (who is single) loves it and is waiting in line all night to get tickets for it. Why would you say that? It's not like everything YOU like is completely and totally awesome. As a matter of fact, some of it is pretty damn lame, just so you know. Jeeesh."

Shit.

I forgot.

So, instead of just being a normal person and apologizing for my dick comment, I decided to ask him why every time I say something about anything, he HAS to immediately turn around and point out something equally annoying/stupid/silly/mean/pick your adjective, etc. that *I* do?

Like I don't know these things about myself, or something.

So, I laid into how he does this all of the time and it drove me crazy and how even the kids have picked up this behavior and blah blah blah until I sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher even to my own self...

Now, any normal self-respecting man who hasn't known me since the beginning of time would have looked for the nearest window to jump out of just to get away from my crazy.

But, oh no, not my husband.

He sat up in the bed, looked at me with the widest eyes, and said, "Are you serious??? You just spent almost an entire half an hour reaming me a new asshole about how I do EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE DOING RIGHT NOW?!?!"

So, that is when I completely lost my mind and became just irrational.

"Yeah, but why do you do that? Is it some kind of defense mechanism? Do you not realize you are doing it? What is it? WHY WHY WHY DO YOU DO THAT?!?!"

I know, you are totally surprised. Me? Irrational?

Yes.

We argued about that for a bit until finally he stopped and said, "Wait a second. This doesn't make any sense. You are bringing up all of this different stuff so what is it that is really bothering you?"

So, I replied that a few weeks ago when he lied to me that he had brought my books that I needed to send out for Paperback Swap to the Post Office and sent them out but 2 days later, I found them in the back seat of his truck, I knew that he only told me that he had done what I asked just to shut me up and not have an argument so we were having that argument we should have had weeks ago, tonight.

All because he got defensive of his sister over a stupid comment I had about the Twilight zealotry of late.

All is insane in love and war, my friends. All is insane.

And, I love every minute of it.

ALL HAIL TECHNO VIKING!

It's like purple mountain's majesty reflecting off of unicorns under cascading waterfalls of awesome.

Why Good Journalism Is Important

New post up on the News Wire, you can read it by clicking right here!

I would love to hear your thoughts!

How Far Is Too Far?

I don't think I will ever understand men.

No, seriously.

I have been married for twelve years so you would think by now that I would have them pretty much figured out...

Nope.

For example, what makes a man, who is a complete stranger to you, decide to pick up a phone and start sending you racy, suggestive texts knowing FULL well that you are not just married, but TOTALLY married...and he is married, too?

Welcome to the hell that is the online world, you say?

Four years ago, I would not have believed that.

After two weeks ago, I do.

A little history: I left MySpace.com for many reasons. One of those reasons, as I stated before, was because I had picked up a cyber stalker. I decided that I was going to use FaceBook much differently than I had MySpace in that my profile would be private and I wouldn't let it get as out of control.

It worked for awhile...

For those of you who are as deeply entrenched (but not obsessed! Nope!) into the online world/social networking/social media as I am, you probably have a Twitter account as well. I use Twitter mainly for promotion of my blog or whatever writing project I want to promote while my FaceBook is more intimate with about 80% of the people I am friends with being people I know in real life/family/etc. while Twitter is pretty much wide open like my MySpace account had been...

Then, I opened up my FaceBook a little more a few months ago and started accepting friend requests from people I knew on Twitter and/or sending out requests to those I know from around the blog-o-sphere/online/websites/etc.

I truly didn't think it would be a problem. I was cautious. I was careful. I wouldn't make that mistake, again.

Or so I told myself, anyway.

Because most of the people I had on my FaceBook likely already had my phone number, I thought nothing of putting it on there.

And here is where the madness begins.

Now, before you start thinking that I am this conceited, full of herself, egomaniac, I will have you know that I don't even think of myself as even marginally attractive. I have been married since the beginning of time, practically and sometimes, I forget that people do come online to date, or find dates, or whatever.

I am a gigantic information junkie so those kind of activities are not at the forefront of my mind when I come online. I have a tendency to assume (yes, I know when you do that it makes an ass out of U and ME) that this is what everyone else uses the inturdweb for...information gathering. Knowledge.

Ok, and sometimes shopping, too.

But, I digress.

About two months ago, I started getting these texts from a number I did not recognize. I ignored them at first thinking it was some kind of marketing company and I wasn't falling for that trick, thankyouverymuch.

Then, they started to get more personal.

So, I answered back with a "Who is this?" text thinking it was an old school friend I had reconnected with on FaceBook or something to that effect.

It turned out to be a man I had conversed with briefly on Twitter, who then friend requested me on FaceBook and I accepted.

I started to get a very, VERY bad feeling in my gut.

What did I do? I ignored it. Why? Because I didn't want to be accused of being an egotistical, conceited, BITCH that's why.

Yeah.

So, the texts were innocent enough at first, I suppose. A "good morning" here and a "what are you up to, today?" there...

Yet, I became more and more weirded out.

Then, about two weeks ago, the other shoe dropped.

I get a text from him telling me how unhappy in his marriage he is and if he had a "funny, sarcastic, gorgeous redhead" things would be ever so much better.

DANGER! DANGER STEPHANIE STEBBINS! DANGER!!

I responded by telling him that I was VERY married and tried to laugh it off.

Didn't work.

He spent the next twenty minutes texting me back to back explaining that he was married too and that is how he just jokes with his friends.

Riiiiight.

I am not buying that for a dollar. Not even half a penny.

He kept on with this story until finally he texted me and called me a few choice names and said that I was just like "the rest of them."

I have a feeling that I don't even WANT to know what he meant by, "the rest of them."

I was very shaken by the whole thing.

But the worst thing, the very worst thing, is how it made me FEEL inside.

I felt very small.

I hated that I had let someone make me feel this way.

I KNEW, I just KNEW, that there was something wrong right from the beginning and I ignored my gut instincts when they were screaming at me and practically banging me over the head with a cast iron skillet that he was a creep.

Yet, there I went, AGAIN, trying to be the "nice" girl.

Oh, I am just thinking too hard about it, I said.

Oh, he might have a job offer or something, I said.

Oh, and don't we think a little too much about ourselves Miss I Am The Most Gorgeous Thing On The Planet. You really need to get over yourself, I said.

Oh, he really is acting creepy but maybe there is some other reason he is contacting me, I said.

I'm pretty stupid when it comes to these things, clearly.

So, of course, I talked it over with a guy friend whom I trust very much and he basically confirmed that the guy is a grade A, first class, online creepo.

He said, and I quote: "Some guys truly get off on talking to women like that and making them feel inferior and small. He is a certified jackass and you should stop worrying about it and do NOT feel bad. He's a DIRTBAG!"

I felt much better after talking to him about it, as I often do.

I had started to withdraw away from the inturdweb and my friends because of the actions of some stupid creepy stalker jerk online. After talking to my friend, I now feel much better and almost laugh at how I let someone else, once again, dictate how I feel about myself.

And, of course, I am being MUCH more careful.






What are your thoughts on this kind of behavior, online or in real life? Have you ever witnessed it? Had it happen to you? How did you deal with it? What kind of solutions would you have used?

Tyson

I have a new review of the documentary, Tyson, up on FilmSnobbery.com. You can click right here to read it!

♥