no boys allowed in the room!!!!

For serious, and not just indulging my ladyboner...

I guess this conversation has been good for me, because it's helping me to see it from both perspectives. And realising that I have been a flaker as much as I've been flaked on.

I mean, yeah, I can hold up the whole "bipolar disorder: it's a hell of a mindfuck" as a kind of ~excuse~ for mine own flakiness. (And it is an excuse, not a justification.) That it can be more complicated than "this person just doesn't want to spend time with me any more"; thinking of the places that I have been when I've had to flake out of social plans, and trying to be more accepting when I don't know what's going on in the other person's life.

I guess it's because I tend not to do slow-fades. When I Stop Being Friends with someone, there's either a definitive Falling Out, where we stop speaking, and that's it, the friendship is over. And looking back at these, it's often not even about The Thing which triggered the fight, but just about the fact that our lives were heading in really different directions, we had different priorities that just no longer aligned, sometimes in really catastrophic ways. (e.g. if my friend that I always used to go out for dinner with suddenly gets hugely into dieting and weight watchers and huge massive exercise campaigns and fat-shaming, right around the time that I discover Health At Every Size, you know, this is a very fundamental lifestyle incompatibility issue.) Dropping out of the music scene, and deciding "you know what, going to bars and clubs and staying up all night to watch shitty indie-rock bands really isn't my thing any more" also leads to lifestyle compatibility issues with people to whom that still holds a huge importance. I just haven't yet found another Thing which leads to friendships in the same way because I'm not into... vintage clothing swaps or craft fairs (*shudders*) or whatever else women my age seem to do around here.

I guess that's why it's easier to focus so much on the People That Moved Away, because there's just this artificial end point, rather than the feeling that the friendship just ran its course. I am weirdly good at long distance pen pal intense friendships with people I have never met, and oddly bad at maintaining a long distance email correspondence with people I used to see every week who just moved away. The former is just a different beast, it doesn't have the expectations to bear.

It's always that functional thing, though, with the issue of "who makes the plans" and "who does the inviting". And it's supposed to be a taking turns thing. But after I've invited a couple of times, and been turned down, I really start to feel "the ball is in your court, if you want to see me, you'd suggest something" and then they don't. I guess they don't want to see me after all. I don't blame them. I'm an extremely uninteresting person with very limited interests who is not very fond of speaking to people. I dunno, it's like a game of tennis, where how many times after serving a ball and them not returning it do you give up serving and go wander off and do something else. But also to remember that if someone has served towards me, and I don't return it, the onus is on me to go off and pick up the ball and lob it back to them instead of moaning that I have no friends.

I guess I need to get more interests. Or more gender appropriate interests. Or... I dunno. Stop typing now and go out.

I mean "have loads of other female friends for a back up plan" is a great back up plan when you have... loads of other female friends?

Where do you get them? Is there a shop where you can go and pick some up? No, I didn't think so.

I'm sorry.

I really should just learn to shut up. The reason I have no friends is because I'm a boring old woman who does nothing but whinge about how she has no friends. The end.

I really need to suggest something to do to look like her effort is being reciprocated but I am so bad at thinking of things to do!

"Hey, I really liked hanging out/that movie/doing needlepoint with you. I'm not a great event planner but if you wanted to hang out again, I'd totally be down."

??

http://www.mikesblender.com/japangrish%20friend%20shop.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WnErRg9Sy6w/URKhpFLpC9I/AAAAAAAAB24/DpI6uXXRt_0/s640/IMG_1081.JPG

http://ahandcraftedhome.blogspot.com/2013/02/oh-hello-friend-store-visit.html

I think I'm about to break out in hives. -blessings, io

Never mind. I won't trouble the thread with my boring loneliness again. I'm boring myself at this point.

I'm out.

Boring loneliness is the only pal I've got these days -- several days this week were an exception, and I saw a nice handful of people and that was fun. But last night there was a show I wanted to go to, and I was ok going alone bc it was gonna be rill good. Everything said 3 bands, starts at 9. I got there at 9 because literally every other venue I frequent has shows that start at +/- the advertised time, give or take 30 min.

Let me tell you about my evening: I drove way across town, i drank 1 beer and doodled on a napkin while failing at small talk on two separate occasions. 90 minutes passed, the place was filling up and there were lots of groups of friends. i was still sitting there drinking my water. I sneezed, the dj said bless u. i said thank you. A girl who had a long story to tell about her boyfriend's fake lack of ambition asked for my seat and i wound up sitting at the end of the bar 90 minutes after the time i had been led to believe was the starting of the show and thought fuck this. i haven't paid my $10 yet, time to cut my losses and get a good night's sleep instead of being surrounded by these people who can't even be bothered to start a show on time. i'm used to waiting, but i'm not used to everyone being so standoffish. i think that's lame.

anyway, it was a minor disappointment but mainly because i wanted to see this band and i have tried TWO TIMES and both times been hornswaggled (?) by shit like this. Last time it was virtually the same thing. Anyway, since I thought it was an amusing coincidence and it's something i would tell one of my friends, so i will tell this thread. i'm glad to still have y'all to talk to!

also io this is the band (the first one) i was trying to see that time i met you out at chi kev's bar -- remember that? how there were too many people in line and all that? uuuuuugh.

Haha, LL, yes, this is pretty much why I don't go to shows any more (unless they are the sit-down kind with an assigned seat where they start precisely at the time advertised). It sounds so tedious that you end up irritated before the band you want to see even go on.

I spent the afternoon in "my" apple orchard, drawing and reading. Apple blossom smells amazing.

I mean, I'm accustomed to a wide variety of shows/settings/ degree of lateness but this seemed to bother exactly no one else and I found myself wondering about professionalism. I don't really hold dear to the notion that late/sloppy = romantic fun, esp since its not fun for the musicians who may or may not be responsible for the delay. I just think it's lame. Lotsa far out there shows start on time. So what happened? Why did no one seem to notice?

Anyway, I'm not going out of my way to see a show at this place again.

I don't really hold dear to the notion that late/sloppy = romantic fun

I have spent over a decade combating this with varying degrees of success ... I've said before that before I was a member of this co-op show space, I ran a non-profit arts space that did a lot of music shows, and before that I started and ran another non-profit arts space that did a lot of shows -- anyway, after almost 15 years of this, I know and I'm sorry, and I'm sorry and ... well, that is how I met most of my friends

yeah -- i sympathize! i wished i was one of the people having fun and talking with friends and not caring that the show was late. only i was just me with my water. i'm trying to meet new people by being there and going out and whatnot, it's just man. it's difficult. i don't know how to begin.

oh i have definitely been in your position! and maybe even worse, i have been the person working the door, or sound, or the person responsible for paying out the bands at the end of the night and closing up, so what I had planned on being a night where I get to leave at midnight, ends up being a night where i am stuck there until 2:30/3am

like when I go to shows where I'm not working for the venue, i always reassure myself with the joyous thought that if I'm not having a good time, I can leave whenever I want.

that's part of why i was kinda grousy about it -- the musicians were probably under the impression that they would play at a certain time, and that's work and to have your working conditions be so variable/unpredictable/at the whim of people who may or may not even care about what you're doing is just -- it's wrong! that's why waiting for the place to fill up before the first band goes on seems like it adversely affects the headliner/later bands as well as the people who support them (both patrons and venue support). it's unprofessional. and like i said, i understand that people are in love with the mystique of knowing when the party "really" starts but i dunno. i'm never really on the side of the people who are there primarily for the party, y'know? i wish someone would give me a job -- at least i would have something to do!

i am trying to meet people, and that's got to be worth something, i'm not letting this one incident squash my mojo or anything. i do regret my failure to extend one of the small talk attempts. it's just hard always being the person who talks first because if i didn't, no one would talk to me at all. this is a proven fact! oh well. it's a new day. who cares.

i haven't met anyone outside of work since i can't remember. life is over.

Argh, see I always thought that was the job of the promoter (or the club manager or whoever) - to get the bands on in a timely and orderly fashion. But I guess that might actually be a London thing, because most venues have such an early license, if everything has to be over for last call at 11pm, then it's much more urgent to chuck the first band on at 8.30, no ifs ands or buts.

I do remember back in NYC, thinking we were going on at 9pm, and not going on until 10.30, which sucked if you had to get up and go to work in the morning. I mean, no one likes going on to an empty room, but good god, audiences don't learn to come on time, if the bands always go on late!

I dunno; not being facetious, honestly, I'm just wondering if this is a cultural difference? Like, is it really possible to go to shows and meet and befriend strangers? Maybe that's a midwestern thing. Good on you for making overtures, though, LL. I'm just trying to think if I've met people at shows - and I have totally have, but usually, because this is London, they were people who were already known to someone I sort of knew, and was introduced. Having an actual job to do at a club (especially if it's The Door) has, for me, been a better way of actually meeting people.

I really wish I still did that. But on the other hand, being in bars and clubs when you're not drinking is a special kind of torture. I mean, I used to get paid for doing the door at Sonic Cathedral with... a bottle of wine. Which really helps on the talking to strangers front.

I guess it's kind of weird or else I'd assume it would've been more successful. I go bc I want to see the band that's playing, firstly and mainly. If I'm waiting, I'm open to the idea that I'd have a pleasant conversation with someone about something. It has happened. But at this place, the vibe was not amenable and the 3rdmost band hasn't even started. People weren't even in the venue itself, but crammed in the bar outside. This was the situation 90 min after the announced start time. I had a lot of time to pass.

OK, yeah, talking to people in a bar is way easier, especially if you're kind of crammed in. It's almost rude *not* to.

bars and clubs here (at least in the SF Bay Area) tend to advertise a time an hour before the bands actually start so that people will show up early and buy drinks, because the bands are really a vehicle for selling drinks, after all. they tend to adhere more to schedules because of last call, and wanting the bands to be done with enough time before last call so that the people seeing the bands can buy more drinks.

the warehouse and house shows are the "worst" when it comes to timeliness because they are operating illegally in the first place, or at least their alcohol sales operation isn't legal. When I took over the arts non-profit in SF, shows were operating on warehouse show time, where they'd be advertised as starting at 8:30 but nothing would happen until 10, and I did as much as possible to enforce a "show has to start no more than 45 minutes after advertised start time" policy. If the bands don't want to play until 10:30, then say the show starts at 10, rather than 9 or 8:30 ... too many people are insecure and don't want to appear "uncool" to their fellow "scenesters."

That seems really sensible to me!

Harbl otm

A lot of the time a late start is more prosaic than "ooh, we're cool and mysterious, nobody knows when we will start", though. Like, if there have been problems with soundcheck, or if the main band has had to travel and had transport/traffic issues. I'd never expect/want the show to start earlier than half an hour after advertised door time, you've got to allow people to turn up and pay in and get settled, but 90 minutes does seem like it's either a technical issue or something weird.

Like, is it really possible to go to shows and meet and befriend strangers?

When I was younger this was how I met most of my friends. But then, I was younger, the gigs were usually sparsely attended, and I almost never struck up conversations on first sight - it'd be "oh, I've seen you at x, y & z so might as well actually talk to you before we get stuck in the awkward recognition head-nod limbo". Nowadays most people I meet at shows are friends-of-friends so it's a bit different.

shows were operating on warehouse show time, where they'd be advertised as starting at 8:30 but nothing would happen until 10

I guess warehouse things are different, but my experience is limited. I wouldn't mind getting down somewhere for 8:30 and just drinking until the bands come on at 10, but I'd like to know beforehand. Seems like a lot of people request exact stage times on facebook events now, which is probably a little annoying for the promoters (because you don't know if things are going to run smoothly or not) but actually pretty useful.

i'm glad to get all of these different perspectives -- i had never really thought about it from the bar owner's pov. i guess i should remember who's in charge of/pays for the building, right?

also yeah warehouse things are different -- mostly because they're not establishments with ads and permits and whatnot, right? this is a bar/venue est 2007 or so, a place where someone somewhere expects to make a profit. i had never thought about the priorities of that person before. our priorities are at odds, hence my frustration.

I rarely go to shows any more because of the sheer number of hours you have to stand around for. I don't mind so much if there are a couple of support acts but if I just want to watch the/any band I rarely have any idea what time that will actually be. Worse still are gigs that are 'club nights' leaving the main show til really late - I went to one such one in SF and by about midnight the main act wasn't on or due to go on for ages and it was a week night and I just left through sheer exhaustion.

Yeah it might be weird but I'm grateful for the whole British pubs shutting early thing now because it makes gigs usually finish at a sensible hour.

When they relaxed the opening hour laws a few years ago there was a brief burst of enthusiasm where every pub and venue applied for a late licence and the support bands wouldn't go on until 10 and it was no good for people who had a last bus to catch (me then) or are not good without sleep (me now), but soon everyone got bored of jumping through the late licence hoops I guess and now local gigs are actually p. good at wrapping up by 11:15, which works for me

though there's still often the thing where the publicity says "doors 8" and you arrive at 8:30 and the doors are shut and you have to prop yourself in a corner downstairs avoiding eye contact and trying not to go upstairs every 5 minutes just in case you're missing something (you're not, you'd hear it through the ceiling). and then you finally get let in and you realise there's still nothing to do and now there are no seats and it's too dark to read the local listings mag for the tenth time. that's bad enough for 20 minutes, 90+ is horrible.

I used to go to shows at this lousy dive called Don Pedro's in Bk and the listings wd be for 9 and no one would play before 11. Because I usually have a book with me, I think I sat on their couch and read for an hour and smoked the rest of the time away and learned not to get there until 11. This was only on weekends bc I had a day job, but they probably ran the same way the rest of the time.

Also I went to shows there and elsewhere for a really long time alone and no one ever talked to me even though I saw the same ppl pretty regularly--I assume the girls weren't interested in me because I wasn't one of them (thin, fashiony, a certain kind of '70s garage glam or sexy punk vibe on display). And the boys weren't interested because I wasn't one of the accepted girls, nor thin, fashiony, sexy, or likely to have a substance abuse/self-loathing problem that would lead me to put out. Felt awkward but liked the music, kept going anyway. Years later, the wheels of social circles spun into place and I connected with a lot of those ppl through mutual friends and realized I didn't like any of them anyway. :)

I'm sorry for your lousy night, LL! Although your telling of it is good and funny, thank you.

Yeah, I mean, the whole "late licensing hours" thing really doesn't work in Britain if the public transport doesn't fulfil its end of it. There are always complaints if gigs overrun and people have to leave before the last train/bus. NYC's insane gig hours are supported by a 24 hour public transport system. The rest of the US, I guess you're supposed to provide your own transport (which I guess makes selling drinks harder if everyone is driving, so I guess that's why they make people sit around for hours first.) There is no point in having a gig that goes on until 1am when everyone leaves at 11.30 to catch the train home.

I used to just take a sketchbook everywhere when I went to gigs with unpredictable start times. I went through a pile of sketchbooks yesterday and was astonished to find so many drawings done while waiting for gigs that I had completely forgotten about. (Kinda shitty when drunk people sit at your table and spill beer all over your drawings, though.)

Hey grlz thred
I don't even try to go to concerts anymore for the reasons listed; I am a punctual L7 with a real lame bedtime.

I thought I would share a funny thing that happened on my vacation to visit my sister, her husband and baby in Tejas – the baby was getting a baby blessing (a Mormon thing).

She'd invited some family to the blessing and lunch after, as well as ~8 married couples, their friends, some of whom had babies, too.

There was a buffet-style lunch – I sat on a loveseat to eat but noticed a couple needed a seat so I invited them to take the loveseat. The husband opted to go to the living room and the wife to the kitchen table, which is when I realized every single couple had done that. "Sorry, I didn't realize men and women weren't allowed to sit together!" I said, and everyone laughed HARD, the kind of hard laugh that comes when everyone is a little scandalized. I stayed in the living room because that much testosterone in one place needs to be broken up by some estrogen, and: they definitely didn't want me there. I would try to participate in their conversation, which was all about Star Wars, so EASY to contribute to, and I was totally ignored. *BLINK BLINK PAUSE* It was amazing and the provocateur side of me enjoyed making everyone so patently uncomfortable simply by sharing innocuous opinions about Lando Calrissian.

My sister later explained that every time they have their friends over, the women hang out in the kitchen, and the guys in the living room, no matter what. Also, that it's kind of a cultural thing for Mormons to not have mixed gender friends, especially between married couples. Her husband is pretty gregarious and open-minded (or he wouldn't like me so well), but after he got married, some of my sister's female friends simply refused to converse with him. "Is it from being overly jealous?" I asked. "More like...overly cautious or careful," she said.

I found it all pretty fascinating!

I am a big repper for mixed gender friendships but lately I have fewer and fewer and it is from jealousy issues. I can't hang out with a guy without his girlfriend having a meltdown. It's annoying. It doesn't have to be that way and hasn't in the past but it is the current situation for sure.

i applaud your provocateurship and willingness to confront this inane phenomenon. I have had friends give me the "better safe than sorry/caution" line of reasoning and it never sounds any better than it did the first time.

as for the other thing, i've never inspired a jealous tantrum, but i am for sure cautious about taking up someone else's husband's/father's time/energy. as i know well, my friends' company is not always mine to have. that said, i've lost friendships over the years that i think may be attributable to the above line of thinking, which makes me feel like people think i'm some kind of predator. and i am not!

"Sorry, I didn't realize men and women weren't allowed to sit together!" I said, and everyone laughed HARD, the kind of hard laugh that comes when everyone is a little scandalized.

Scandalous handmaidens of Satan have all the fun.

Scandalous handmaidens of Satan have all the fun.

<3 !

It was amazing and the provocateur side of me enjoyed making everyone so patently uncomfortable simply by sharing innocuous opinions about Lando Calrissian.

<3 <3 !!

which makes me feel like people think i'm some kind of predator. and i am not!

Yeah I know! It's wacky. All my friends were boys growing up. Not so now. It's good that I have lots of female friends now but sad that mixed gender friendships can be such a briar patch. OTOH you have some good points.

None of my friends were boys growing up -- I didn't know any til 8th gr, and didn't have a purely platonic and real friendship with a boy until i was 19 and met my friend d, who is still my super close friend today. my mr and i both have close friends of the opposite gender/sex/whatever and it has never gotten in the way of any of our lives. to think that people are so scared of it that they physically separate from one another socially is just -- it's a bleak way to look at humanity and a punishment to endure for the rest of your life. it's also a clear sign that we have absolutely nothing in common.

That last point is key to me: When I find myself in a environment where men and women separate (this is almost always split between a domestic chore space and a leisure/tv space, WELL WHADDYA KNOW), I know that I have to get out of there before the inevitable patriarchy-induced meltdown.

also there was a portlandia skit that was kinda like that bc the men and women were separated only the women were all like "you're rockin that look" and the men were all "and here dear sir jolly good lol" and it was insufferable
i didn't realize until recently that carrie brownstein studied sociolinguistics

Um, not to be the lone voice of dissent here, but aren't we in a... um, gender segregated space right here?

(I'm not disagreeing that the situation Crabbits describes sounds pretty ridiculous. Just saying that gender segregation isn't always due to... patriarchy.)

Yeah I appreciated that my brother-in-law at least TRIES to treat the women who visit his house like equals, even if they reject it! He said he gave up after many times of trying to integrate. I liked that he was willing to teach me how to play Ticket to Ride or hang out with me as an equal. But maybe because I am family and 'safe.' Or maybe because I am already going to hell – a joke I made many times, e.g. when I ate their coffee and tea flavored chocolates for them. It got the best, most conflicted laughter.

xp lol

good point BB!

Upon finding out that he had started working in the same part of town I did, I said to a male friend, "Oh, we should grab lunch sometime!" and his fiancée, whom I had just met, having been friends with the male friend for awhile, said, "You don't just ask my fiancé if he wants to go to lunch!" I got where she was coming from because there was some weird dynamics wherein the male boyfriend was still carrying a torch for one of my close friends (which, god, everybody just grow up already) so she was pretty insecure about the relationship but it hadn't even occurred to me that I was getting near a line much less crossing one when I asked. Hell, Jeff was there, too.

She stopped talking to me entirely after I declined to fly back to NC from Chicago during my first semester of law school to attend her bachelorette weekend, which was taking place in a cabin and would have involved only me, the friend for whom groom carried a torch, and her sister. But she and the dude are married with a daughter and seem really happy so I think it all worked out for everybody.

xp - i will add that my friendships that i assumed ended because of the fear-based line of thinking could also be that the person was super sick of me! i will never know.

My family used to do the post-prandial separation in which women hung out in the kitchen and did dishes while the men went into the living room to watch TV but my grandmother is too old for that shit now and she hangs out with the men. That was 100% due to patriarchy but at the same time, some of my most cherished memories of my family happened during the women's time doing dishes in the kitchen.

But and I'm just being an ornery bugger here, you could argue that this gender segregated space IS due to patriarchy insofar as the fact that we feel a need for the thread is because we want a "safe space" to talk about things without worrying about menfolk chiming in or shutting us down, so the whole need for the dynamic is rooted in patriarchy.

Here is my and my friend group from HS – we made albums and movies together, and had all kinds of fun. I miss them dearly:

https://scontent-a-lax.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/t1.0-9/10150769_10152002227011428_5996624387758037761_n.jpg

Weirdly my best friends were 2 gals and also mutual friends with these guys, but they thought the guys had immature interests and stupid activities, so I hung out with them separately. I didn't get it even then!

...The fact that we wanted a women-only space on ilx during the era of the primacy of would smash threads and rape joeks WAS because of patriarchy. I must be misunderstanding you because you are way way smarter than me and this doesn't seem confusing.

xp oh I see carl got there already (she usually does).

We got Ticket to Ride a couple of months ago! It's good!

"More like...overly cautious or careful,"

Relevant:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BlIjrwmIUAA5V3y.jpg