I was one of those late bloomers (it’s a joke in our house that I still seem to learn some things about being a grownup later than everyone else…). In my 6th and 7th grade years, the girls I knew were divided between dealing with the embarrassment of having breasts and bleeding, and dealing with embarrassment of not having them. Of being left behind. And I had short enough hair when I was that age that I was still getting called “son” by the occasional inattentive or distracted stranger. It did nothing for my self image, and I’m sure it’s one of the reasons I began to grow my hair as a teenager: to prove that I could, even if I couldn’t seem to do any of the rest of it “right.”
I never wanted to be a boy. But when I look back on my childhood, I realize how lucky I was to have been given many of a boy’s freedom’s: it was the South in the late 60’s/early 70’s, and most of my girlfriends were pretty overtly gendered by their parents. Of course it rubbed off on me — peer influence is one of the strongest forces in the human animal, both the doing and the being done to. At my friends’ houses I sat mystified on the sidelines of discussions about training bras (I swear, I am not making this up. Do they still do that?) and shaving and eyebrow shaping… but at home I was allowed to be non-girly, smart, to read whatever I wanted, to ride my bicycle as far as my legs would take me (although I gave my dad a bad moment one day when he was driving on one of Tampa’s busiest 6-lane arterials and saw me madly pumping along on the sidewalk, on the wrong side of the street from home).
I never wanted to be a boy: but since I had the chance to act like one for a while, I wish now I’d been better at it. I wish I had learned boy skills, not just boy autonomy. I wish I had learned to give a punch in the stomach as well as take one (my welcome to the neighborhood present from a gang of boys when I was 6). I wish I’d learned to treat getting hurt like getting a bad lunch — an oh, well kind of thing — but instead I was so physically timid that I wouldn’t even learn to swing by my knees from the trapeze, as much as I longed to. I wish that I’d learned to get right up in other people’s faces and get mad, tell them to knock it off, instead of just keeping quiet or resorting to interminable hedging as a way to protect myself. From what? From bad words or bad thoughts or maybe the occasional shove on the playground? What would have been so bad about that? I wish I knew then that those things are easier to learn at age 8 than 48.
Nicola and I have both written about how much we love and appreciate our neighbors. All of them except one set of folks on the street behind us, who made our first two years here occasional hell with their fucking noise. They seemed to have no conception at all that sound carries, and that playing their radio outside at volume 11 might actually not be other people’s idea of great entertainment. They started having outdoor parties every weekend. They started inviting people over who got drunk in the backyard, yelled and screamed, called each other motherfucker and bitch, until 2 in the morning. And all of it carried into our house as if they’d hung speakers in our living room. It was a nightmare.
I absolutely hate confronting people about this kind of thing. I do it, but Christ, I hate it. I’m not the least confident person in the world, but this twists me up something fierce. So I would get up and go over there in the middle of the night and ask them to dial it down, and they would for 20 minutes, and then it would start to creep up. I called the police, but they often had better things to do on a Saturday night (which I totally understand and support). And I started to get so stressed about it that it literally made me sick.
Why couldn’t I just be a boy for ten minutes? Walk over there, say Shut the fuck up or I’m calling the cops, come home. Why did I need them to actually understand that they were having a hideous impact? Why did I need them to want to behave better? If I were a boy, it would be enough to actually make them behave better, whether they wanted to or not.
I did do this once, in our previous neighborhood. The Young People who were renting 6-to-the-house across the street thought they were still living on campus, so they had loud screaming punk rock parties out in the front yard every weekend. We complained, they didn’t really care, it went on. One night I just snapped. It was pouring rain, and I threw on the minimum of clothes and stalked over there in my bare feet, righteously pissed. The Young People were crowded onto the porch: they took one look at me and fled inside. That was a rush, I gotta tell you — they ran away from me! That’s what it’s like to be a boy, you can actually scare people away!
One Young Man stayed sitting on his porch because he was too drunk to stand up. He made the mistake of arguing with me that he had the right to have a party in his own house. And I just… went. I yelled, I swore, I threatened him with the police, and I ordered him back into the house. And he went.
And I went home in the rain so shaky that I had to take drugs to sleep. Not scared, exactly, but profoundly unsettled. And that wasn’t a nice feeling, at all.
The next day he came by to apologize. By then, another of my neighbors had organized a letter from the five houses around the Young People to complain to them and their landlord. I told him to expect the letter; and he was genuinely surprised to hear that people around there didn’t like him a lot. Jesus.
The neighbor thing here worked out, pretty much. We had bonded so well with our wonderful neighbors in our own cul-de-sac that when I remembered the previous letter experience and asked them to sign a letter with me, they agreed. They supported me when I emailed the police. And the police turn out to have a Neighborhood Team, with wonderful officers who take disturbing the peace very seriously.
One of those wonderful officers called me when my email was forwarded to him. “Kelley,” he said, “I’m going to take care of this for you.” And he did, that same day. And I was grateful because someone else was making the Noisy People be quiet; a thing I couldn’t seem to do myself.
All has been well until this weekend, when we were greeted on Saturday morning by a blast of music so loud that I thought my ears would bleed. I went over to my neighbors across the street (we’re now talking hundreds of feet from the Noisy People), and the radio was as clear as a bell there too. Really loud.
So I sucked it up and came home and called the Noisy People to complain, since I had their phone number as a result of the whole police intervention thing. I had to leave a message because, I assume, no one could actually hear the phone ring.
About a half hour later, one of my cul-de-sac neighbors stopped by to let me know that he had heard the music, got pissed, went over there, told them to turn it down or he’d call the police, and walked away.
They turned it down.
Why couldn’t I have done that with the obvious lack of stress that he did? And if I had done it, would it have worked? I don’t know. The Noisy Person called later and we had an awkward conversation, but at least we talked. That was important to me, sure, but is it actually better? Will it make a difference? I don’t know.
But sometimes I wish I were a better boy.
I am that better boy and I want to tell you, it’s not as easy as you think it is. Over the years I have been the one to complain about the noise, the smell, the feral dogs, the get your freaking crap off our lawn, don’t throw glass near my house, you idiot kids. I do not hesitate to throw myself into the fray.
However.
It’s not easy. I go over, say my piece, call the police if needed, deal with the police if needed and deal with the irate intoxicated neighbor who would rather yell than just turn the fucking stereo down three notches. I handle that all, then go inside my house and shake.
I shake because of adrenaline, because the cops around here are not wonderful and insist you file a report that labels you as the difficult neighbor, instead the neighbor who would really just like to sleep past 6AM. I shake because sometimes the numbers are against me, the circumstances are scary, or simply because I wanted to strangle someone and couldn’t.
If you get the issue dealt with, you’re doing just fine. I don’t know anyone who can handle that kind of situation without getting riled up.
Cheers,
Erica
This is oh so true. In the fifties and sixties, women and girls were routinely put in mental hospitals for expressing legitimate anger at the way they were treated. No wonder we were scared to get angry, and still are. If we get angry at a guy, we can risk battery or even death. Or even worse, being treated as less than human. In grade school, I sometimes fought with boys physically. After that, I only fought with words. I really like the idea of neighbors reacting as a community which responds as boys and girls together.
I suspect that you may be right – men can do that kind of thing with less stress. But I’m not so sure that’s a good thing. For reasons Erica mentioned, but also because of the way many (certainly not all) men process emotions. I think it would be better if everyone could be more like you – (the Leader’s Manifesto as applied to social life) instead of the other way around.
I’ve had my issues with this too. I can get very grumpy about other people infringing on my peace and quiet. It’s always something it seems. Loud parties when I have an early call time, construction on my one day off, gardeners at 6:30am after I’ve been up til 3am. My first year here I called the police a couple of times. I was not about to get out of bed, get dressed and tromp next door when I had to get up at 5am. The police did the trick for awhile. Once a couple of years ago on a Sunday morning (after weeks of illegal construction) I printed out the pertinent local ordinances regarding construction noise and took them next door. After some heated arguing, they agreed to stop. It was worth it, but my adrenaline was pumping, and I felt a little guilty when they brought me chocolates the next day (oh, they knew the building was illegal).
Nowadays, I’ve come to accept it as a fact of city life — one of the parts I really hate about it. Unless I’m trying to sleep, I just crank up my music or tv louder. And I know that there have to be times when my music is annoying to them. I purposely don’t ask, and they don’t tell. A big part of me wants to live out in the middle of the country with no one around for acres and acres. A big part of me really doesn’t like people all that much. At least people in groups.
Even when they are not being overtly loud, they annoy me. In fact right now as I’m typing this, I’m sitting outside. I can hear them talking (they are Armenian as many in my neighborhood are – with huge extended families speaking very loudly in a language I don’t understand and ignoring the crying baby). It really pisses me off when they ignore the crying baby. But my friends tell me it is not a reason to call child services..
I say bravo to the neighbor across the street. Just let him keep doing it.
And maybe there’s a “Neighbor’s Manifesto” in your future? 🙂 It could help. But sadly, there will always be assholes in this world…
I find it interesting that you see it as natural that a guy you would be able to “make” people so something. As a guy, I’d actually feel like it would be more likely that another guy would use violence back. If you don’t look like Vin Diesel or something you don’t get some automatic power over other guys.
Yes, but guys seem to feel its their responsibility to do something and to step up.
Ah, Barbara, well, I think it’s my responsibility to step up too… I just wish it were easier for me.
John, I don’t think all guys can make people do things. I know better. But men are more generally socialized to exert their will on other people more directly, and without as much internal stress, than women. I’m not sure I’d call this gender norming “natural” (grin), but I do think it exists.
Maybe I’m wrong — maybe everyone gets riled up in these situations, as Erica says, and just hides it better than I do. But I don’t think so.
Erica and Jennifer, thanks for the stories. I’m sorry it’s hard for you too — I would love for someone to just wave their magic wand about it.
Check out Marshall Rosenberg’s book on Nonviolent Communication (“NVC”). It takes some practice, but it works. John is right. Men respond to physical threats. If you want to play that game of intimidation, then you had better have all the alpha male characteristics and be ready to back them up with physical violence. No civilized person wants such an outcome, however. Least of all with some drunk guy who has had his fragile ego bruised and feels compelled then to fight just to defend his lame-ass manhood…all flaccid three inches of it. Don’t sit at home and get angry…that’s not a solution…the way forward is through communication, maybe not at 3am…maybe the next day at 3pm…in person not on the phone. And don’t go alone…take a few folks from the ‘hood with you and just go talk to the NPs.
I tried for 40ish years to be a better boy (or man). Then I gave up, changed my name and my sex and accepted that I fit in much better as a woman.
Hey, Scully. I know you’re right, and in fact I am all about this kind of communication in conflict situations with people I know, at work, and in situations where I don’t feel… hmm, what’s the right word? Where I don’t feel already steamrollered by rudeness, by a basic lack of mutual understanding. I tried too many times to talk to these folks at 2 AM, and not enough at 2 PM, for sure. But the basic “fuck off” reception I got at 2 AM disinclined me to the 2 PM conversation. My bad… but there we are, that’s the cycle.
I am brave in many ways, but this time my courage failed me alone. It took my neighbors to help me find it. I’m grateful for that lesson in community, since I am too often inclined to go it alone.
Dianne, I can understand wanting to be a woman. Me too. But I still wish I’d learned/been taught to take up as much space as men do.
I grew up surrounded by strong women and mostly “meh” men, so I don’t really associate assertiveness with boyness. At home, my mom was the one who always made sure things got done, she fought all the hard fights with neighbours and just about anyone who wanted to take advantage of her or us, she was/is the toughest person I’ve ever met. I don’t know if that influenced me to have assertive, strong (and often also ill-tempered) women as friends, or if they tend to choose me in a move towards balance because I’m usually very calm and slow to anger—unless I’m having one of my rare extra-crappy phases when even a rainbow can set me off). For a long time, I was the one breaking fights—thank goodness I was physically fit, or I would have ended up in the hospital several times.
From having shared so much time with all those tough women, I know just how hard life can be for them. Anger that moves you to stomp and shout and punch at least 4 times a day can’t be healthy. Oh, many of them ended up with migraines after a fit. I’ve also lived with a couple of angry men and they didn’t fare any better. One of them was a piano player, and, when he got mad, the best he could manage to keep himself from hurting people was to punch the wall or furniture. Later, when we were alone, he’d just bawl his eyes out over having messed up his precious fingers.
I feel for those who are very explosive. The few times I’ve been that angry, it wrecks havoc in my body and leaves me feeling wretched for a whole week, sometimes months. It’s easy to see the toll it takes on others. This is the reason why, in every relationship I’ve been in, be it with men or women, I’m the one who volunteers to speak to the noisy neighbours or complain about whatever because it’s easier for me to do it. Most of those things don’t get me worked up, yet I must look scary enough that people listen to me.
Right now, I’m also the buffer between the angry people from outside and the angry people at home. Our apartment gets blamed for everything that happens in this building, probably because we’re the only same-sex couple, or because we don’t look like we have the money to live among yuppies, or because we’re actually aliens and just look and sound and probably smell so different from everyone else. Or we simply look like we have fun. So if there’s a party two doors away, we get the angry knocks. If there’s a neighbour on our floor who plays the piano past 11pm, we get the knocks from those downstairs, too. I’m the one who answers, because E is already looking for the baseball bat to greet them (before I head to the door, I hide the bat where kids can’t reach, lock E out on the balcony and give her some extra-strong, sleepy-time pills). When I open the door, the angry person doesn’t wait for me to even say ‘hi’ before she (they’ve always been women) starts yelling at me for about 5 minutes. I just nod, and nod, and nod. When they finally shut up, I say, “the party is two doors that way, good luck.” After they blurt out “oh, my god, I am so sorry,” they ask if the noise doesn’t bother me. I shrug, say it doesn’t bother me (it really doesn’t), and throw in how I once lived right on top of a ten-lane avenue and the only window that didn’t open onto the street picked up all the sounds from the family downstairs and they had three very high-pitched children who were always fighting and making each other wail. The tale seems to both horrify and calm them down, so by the time they finally walk away two doors from ours, their knock doesn’t sound that angry anymore.
In my private universe, I like to think that having the angry ones go through the karina buffer puts them in a better head space from which they’ll be more capable of explaining and conveying how upset they are without pushing the noisy person into a defensive mode since they’re no longer operating on full aggressive. Or maybe I’m really doing a disservice by winding them down from the adrenaline push they needed to get their point across. Hm. So complicated. Whatever the case is, I agree with Jennifer that a “Neighbour’s Manifesto” is in order.
There have been, still are, times when I don’t mind getting in people’s faces. I just don’t think about it. But that’s because long ago I figured out the possible consequences, i.e. a fight, and I was okay with that. Sometimes I even looked forward to it. People sense that. Unless they’re crazy and/or drunk, they hesitate. Mostly.
I don’t do that anymore. Much. Being a crip means I’m almost never in a situation where it’s likely. With the neighbours, for example, I can’t walk over to their house because it’s inaccessible to me (it’s across the ravine or a very long walk around the block). But every now and again–in a restaurant or a club–I forget I’m a crip and prepare to get in someone’s face about their boorish behaviour. Mostly K spots it coming and talks me out of it–but every now and again it just sorta…happens.
Sometimes it’s very satisfying.
I am all about this kind of communication in conflict situations with people I know, at work, and in situations where I don’t feel… hmm, what’s the right word? Where I don’t feel already steamrollered by rudeness, by a basic lack of mutual understanding.
Hey, Kelley, maybe you’re being too hard on yourself? I think you’re a far better communicator than I am, for example.
You know what sets me off, gives me the shakes, anxiety attacks and so on? Watching E sit through two seasons of that Tila Tequila reality show. Ugh!!! I’ve told E it just makes me homicidal to have to stomach that at home, to think, “Oh, fuck, I married everything I hate about gringo culture. Why? Why? Why?” It sounds funny now that I write it here because it is so ridiculously small. But it isn’t when I’m living it; it’s hell, really. I’ve asked E to please watch that stuff while I’m at school and, please please please, try to talk about something that is not Tila Tequila and how many people she necked with on the last episode by the time I come back home…
Whenever E overdoses on mundane reality TV, it sets me off in such a way I have to go for long walks and avoid home as much as possible. Once, I even locked myself in the closet (studio apartment here, only privacy is the closet or the bathroom or the balcony–there’s neighbours on the balcony, so only closet or bathroom) to cry in silent frustration during some other reality-TV binge of hers.
It’s crazy, eh? That I can be so level-headed with the noisy and angry people of the world, yet this one little domestic thing that probably has to do with me being a cultural snob… I can’t handle!
NicolaI’ve reacted with instant physical violence twice in my life, and they were both very satisfying experiences. I can easily see myself becoming addicted to the rush of a fight, but mostly I don’t care enough about stuff to react in the visceral and immediate way I’d need to in order to avoid the filter of reason from kicking in and spoiling the fun.
—-“I wish I had learned to give a punch in the stomach as well as take one (my welcome to the neighborhood present from a gang of boys when I was 6). I wish I’d learned to treat getting hurt like getting a bad lunch — an oh, well kind of thing — but instead I was so physically timid that I wouldn’t even learn to swing by my knees from the trapeze, as much as I longed to. I wish that I’d learned to get right up in other people’s faces and get mad, tell them to knock it off, instead of just keeping quiet or resorting to interminable hedging as a way to protect myself. From what? From bad words or bad thoughts or maybe the occasional shove on the playground? What would have been so bad about that? I wish I knew then that those things are easier to learn at age 8 than 48.—-
Heh. I never figured it out either, till it got ugly. I used to characterize myself as “pathologically pain averse.” I guess that explains a lot. I got over the inability to confront but I never got over my aversion to it. I still get shakey when it’s really bad. I was never a very good “boy” either.
Reading some of the other comments, I think I ought to add something. It seems to me that a lot of Boys grow up learning to do this confrontational thing as a kind of game. There are, as with anyh other social interaction, rules—unspoken, unwritten, sometimes seemingly hard-coded into the DNA. If you don’t know those rules, thing go wrong. It depends, I suppose, on the results desired etc etc.
I have known guys (and a few women) who can walk into those situations—noisy, drunk, inappropriately-behaving neighbors—and sort of alter the situation through a combination of bravado, the right code words, and an understanding of what it is their confronting. I see cops do this all the time. It took my the better part of 15 years of adulthood to figure this out. Before this, it was an All or Nothing situation, and, occasionally, bruises followed. It’s as if a game is being played between the asshole and powers of good behavior and the moves are arcane.
I still can’t articulate those rules, those moves, but when I have to do something like this now, I don’t have to hurt anyone. (Which is a good thing, as I am getting older and like it or not I don’t have the same spryness or resilience I used to.)
This is why bullying is such a serious issue to me. In grade school I never figured out how to be one of the boys, and subsequently got picked on mercilessly, until the point that one day I exploded and the results were unpleasant for everyone. To them, you see, if was a game. For me it was do or die, or so it seemed.
I suppose there is still in all this that adolescent gameplaying crap on the part of the Noisy Neighbor, who can’t imagine that you don’t know the rules of the game he’s playing. “Oh, it’s just a little music! Oh, I didn’t mean nothing by it! Oh, it’s just one night a week! Oh, don’t be so sensitive!”
Reacting to this, having to deal with it, because you aren’t playing a game, is upsetting because it causes you to be something you don’t want to be. That shift in personality is unsettling, disturbing, and shouldn’t be necessary.
Sorry, I’m rambling. Maybe my point is in there somewhere.
karina, Kelley, Nicola —
There’s a right way and a wrong way to deal with conflict (or so I’m told). In the neighborhood where I volunteer, it’s completely acceptable for two girls to get into a fight over what’s perceived as “disrespect.” We try to teach them to be “assertive, not aggressive.” Not sure it works, but it’s worth a shot.
I personally hate conflict, and avoid it at all costs. When I was growing up, my mother was aggressively territorial and outspoken. There were continuous squabbles with neighbors and their kids. This went on for 45 years until her death. I recently came across a couple facebook posts from kids (now in their 30’s) in my neighborhood. Twenty years later, she’s still remembered as “the witch of Shady Oak Ct.”
I live in a unit (flat) in a block that, because of the design, augments sound when residents talk on/near their balconies. It’s hell living with noisy neighbours especially when said neighbours are noisy at night. I’ve had shouting matches with them, called the police, posted notices. Half the time that works.
The worst thing about having to deal with this is the struggle with frustration and impotence – mine! – that I can’t just have a face off. Why not? Because a block of flats is a small place and some of these neighbours can be malicious, and I really really hate confrontation.
I too get the shakes – not so much for fear but for me to step out of my comfort zone. It’s stressful doing something and also when I don’t do anything.
Since then, we’ve installed air-conditioning and it’s heaven to be able to shut out noise and sleep in a controlled climate 🙂
Mark, thanks for articulating the boy part. You’re right, if it’s a game it’s a very dangerous one. Parties are so noisy because drinking causes people to get irrational and possibly deafer(shout, turn up the music). Arguing with an irrational can get you in a lot of trouble. Still, it’s only human to gird your loins and try to stop the gross disrespect for others.
I was drinking beer with a group of women last night, and this subject came up because one of them won a small claims case. She said, exactly her words, “I wish I’d been in more fights, or even just one fight, when I was a kid. Winning this means so much to me because it’s the first time I feel I stood up for myself.” Of course, my mind came back to this post. Everyone who hadn’t been in a physical fight agreed with her, agreed that they couldn’t help but think those experiences would have taught them how to stand up for themselves better. So I guess this is a shared sentiment up here in the North?
The conversations I remember from similar gatherings in Mexico had women voicing the opposite: “I wish I hadn’t grown up with so much violence; I could probably handle things better then, without getting so angry so fast I’m yelling at someone before I even realize it.”
Perhaps it’s about wanting balance, wanting options — wanting multiple skills, so that I can talk if that’s best or fight if that’s what the situation needs. and I think Mark is right about “knowing the rules” — certainly for me part of my being unsettled and unconfident in these situations comes from not knowing what cues I’m missing, having no real template. Many of my social and communication success is based on my ability to read the cues and respond to them: it’s one of my skills, to often know “the right thing” to do or say even in unusual situations.
But this skill fails me when I have no direct experience to draw on. If I’d had more experience of direct fighting, overt conflict, as a child, I think I’d have more skill now in reading those cues, and maybe they wouldn’t scare me so much.
Don’t know. Still thinking. Thank you all for this conversation, which I’m enjoying very much.
Yes, balance.
Yes, being able to choose how to react from a place of confidence and according to the situation.
We keep thinking 🙂 I like having thinking potlucks.
karina — I think the sentiment that about being in fights shows you how to stand up for yourself is situational at best. I was in a LOT of fights as a boy, and what I learned was that, at best, if you stand up for yourself things will go from bad to worse. (In addition to being verbally abused, you will be physically beaten, for example.) At worst, you will also be punished for standing up for yourself. (So, verbal abuse, physical beating, a week’s detention and additional punishment at home for fighting in school.) What I learned was to try to be invisible and endure the abuse.
Dianne, I’m sorry you’re experience has been so hard and painful. I often think that it must be emotionally more challenging to be a boy/man than a girl/woman in our society. At least women grow up acknowledging their feelings while men are expected to be a mass of toughness. I’m glad some of that is changing.
The child I once was can relate to wanting to be invisible and enduring the abuse as a way to survive. I used to be bullied all the time in elementary school for being the nerd with home-made clothes and darker skin. Though I’m just an average-height adult now, I was one of them kids who grew up quicker than others and also very sporty. When I did fight back, the bully ended up in such bad shape I felt awful for hurting him and I decided I’d be better off just ignoring any other bullies. I also became very good at keeping any problems secret from my mom; I hated having her stand up for me or push me to stand up for myself when I wasn’t ready—it made me feel helpless and ashamed instead of supported and loved (I have no doubt she had the best intentions).
After grade 6, I was lucky we moved and I transferred to a junior highschool where everything changed. I had a chance to start from scratch and, while I couldn’t help being the nerd again, I made a point of not putting up with abuse of any kind since the start. Also, by then, I had been singled out, an outsider, alone for so long I didn’t care about people’s judgements anymore. I had realized there would always be someone who disapproved of whatever I did, regardless of what I did, regardless of whether I did it right or wrong, so I’d be better off just making myself happy and to hell with anyone who had a problem with it. I’m sure there’s more to why things changed and how I changed, but I can’t download it from memory and process properly right now. I’ll be back later if I get any insight.
I hope life as a woman has brought more kindness, or some sort of safe haven, to your days and nights. Here’s a hug I send through the pixels and optic fibres of the webz.