Ditch the Bitch – Double Standards in Adulting

I got my feelings hurt yesterday. I’m a grown ass woman and yet this high school level shit still bugs me. I guess it’s something one never outgrows. Something happened this weekend with a colleague, and usually when working together we get along.

Except for last night.

I am at a conference this weekend. The first time I have been away for a weekend from my children since the divorce. It’s a leadership summit for the veterans group that I am involved with on campus, and it’s very good. I came to the conference with the other cabinet member from our group, and usually, despite that I am thirteen years older than him, we get along.

After the conference ended at 9pm, we were supposed to meet up again after a short break to finish working on the presentation for tomorrow. I went back to my room and waited for him to show up, setting up my computer and pulling up all of the information we had completed during the workshops that day.

As five minutes turned into twenty, I began to wonder what was keeping him, and that’s when my phone rings. He says that he isn’t showing up because he is going out drinking instead. “You knew this was going to happen, right?” he says. Did I?

Did I know he wasn’t going to show? Maybe part of me did, most of me hoped we would complete the presentation riding on the momentum gained at the end of the conference.

I also didn’t think he would ditch me. I foolishly thought that I could tag along to go out drinking that evening after we got done working. I guess not.

I tried working on the presentation on my own, but it was no good. Demotivated and worn out from the day’s activities, I got in my PJs and called it a night early.

Later, as I sat alone in my room sulking, I noticed my phone was blinking. There was a snapchat (what a worthless app btw), and a text, sent from the bar he went to. I replied to neither.

When I am alone like this, surrounded by the silence of my hotel room, I am aware of myself and I wonder what it is that other people see when they look at me. Just curious. Not obsessing, I swear. This is the only time I will spend reflecting on that, the rest of the time, honey badger just don’t give a shit.

Yesterday was rough. I was sleepy. Slightly hung-over from the drinks had in the hotel bar hanging out with all the participants after the meet & greet the first night. Super tired from the pace of the itinerary, more intense than I was prepared for under those conditions. I got kind of bitchy about half way through.

After lunch, the douchebag from the hotel bar sat down next to me with his nasty onion loaded sandwich that stunk and made me nauseous and the idiot in the row in front of me kept tripping over my laptop cord and was making it sound like it was my fault his clumsy ass couldn’t manage to step over a cord that was laying FLAT ON THE GROUND.

That shit enrages me. Let’s talk about the douchebag for a moment, because it wasn’t just his sandwich that was getting on my motherfucking nerves. In the hotel bar, he had hooked up very publicly with one of the other female participants.

The guys I was hanging out with very vocally began to talk shit about her cruising for dudes. She wasn’t being subtle that she was looking for takers to get laid. I was kind of insulted by how she approached my group, because when she sauntered over (have I mentioned I have a slight prejudice against blondes?) all the guys immediately gave me their backs and I was clearly excluded from their “conversation” with her. WTF.

Once done cruising, she came over and introduced herself, adding insult to injury with the intro that we both served in the Navy which just added to my dislike of her, for reasons too numerous to explain in this post.

Later on in the evening, she was at a table surrounded by five candidates, one of them being aforementioned douchebag, and an hour later had selected him, was making googly eyes and pawing all over each other. In the middle of the bar. Gross. Get a room—wait, you’ve got one! You’re just not using it.

It was reported to me that fifteen minutes after I left the hotel bar that she got hollered at in front of everyone for acting like a skank by some random dude, and she ran out crying, the douchebag chasing after her.

Same douchebag who then showed up late to the conference, not making an appearance until after lunch with his fucking onion sandwich. The sandwich he proceeded to leave out on the table next to me. The sandwich he never fucking ate. Fucking asshole!

Let’s talk about the fact that he remained silent and let someone just insult her, apparently that’s okay. She’s not worth defending, just worth sleeping with? What a jerk. I may not have liked her, but where’s the fucking chivalry? Common courtesy? WTH.

So yeah. I got real bitchy after lunch. Which my fellow cabinet member did comment to me about, albeit very discreetly, during the conference. I did not think that it warranted getting left behind. Especially based on his saying to me that I should have known he was going to ditch me?

At this point I am mad at myself for caring. I am mad at myself for letting those conference idiots get so under my skin that I let down my guard. I was mad at myself for making the unhappy discovery that sharing my personal beefs with my campus partner was not safe from censure.

I am not still mad at myself because it is clear to me that he’s just another guy judging women with a ruler he does not use on himself.