Perpective is good

I don't react well to being condescended to.

Me and the rest of the human race, yes, but it seriously gets under my skin.

One time occurence, I'll let it slide. Maybe a few, depending on the person doing it and the situation. But somebody regularly talking to me like I'm a small, dull child?

That's gonna make me get effnic.

And that ain't exactly productive.

So at that point, when the words, "You know what, though? Fuck you" are constantly at the tip of my tongue (or fingers), I'll let the person know, as gently as possible under the circumstances, that their behavior is working on my nerves.

At this point, they can either a) change the behavior or b) keep doing the same shit.

And at some point, option b is going to put me on an express train past effnic and straight on to nigga.

Which really ain't productive.

And that takes us to a Jae Ha Kim piece I mentioned way back last October:

Sometimes you’ve just got to dump your friends. It’s like spring cleaning for the soul.

Dumping your friends is different from losing touch. The latter is passive action that happens because one of you moves away, or he gets married, or she has a baby and is too busy to listen to you harp about a Kate Spade handbag that you absolutely have to have. Eventually, you run into each other again, exchange new numbers and addresses and make an effort to renew your friendship.

Breaking up with a friend is a pro-active decision.  When you break up, you have no intention of reuniting again. It takes guts, because sometimes they’ll confront you. And then you have to be prepared to say four of the most difficult words in the English language:  “I don’t like you.”  Make that five.  “Anymore.”

I have way too much trouble making friends to go dumping 'em at the drop of a hat, but when you're spending more time and effort biting your tongue in response to their words than enjoying their company. . .

Anyway, that's my deal right now. Meanwhile, in the real world:

More and more females are being made to quit work or school or college. I spent last month trying to talk a neighbor's mother into letting her 19-year-old daughter take her retests in a leading pharmaceutical college. Her mother was adamant and demanded to know what she was supposed to do with her daughter's college degree if anything happened to her daughter, "Hang it on her tombstone with the consolation that my daughter died for a pharmaceutical degree??? She can sit this year out."

That's from Girl Power and Post-War Iraq, currently the top entry over at Baghdad Burning. Had the effect of reminding me that it's folks who would be thankful that the worst of their worries was whether or not to kick a friend to the curb.

And who knows? Maybe the friendship can survive one or both of us going nigga.

If it can't, must not have been that strong to begin with.