One of the rather less well-known facts about having a shitty upbringing is that you get so used to being treated poorly that you have no fucking idea how to deal with people who don't. It's like a regular old-fashioned culture shock, like the one I had today about people celebrating Ash Wednesday by smearing schmutz on their faces. (Greatest comic ever written about this phenom: Sex, Drugs and June Cleaver. Even my Catholic mother likes this one.) Simply put, when you get used to being treated a certain way, anything else seems completely alien and even when the way you were treated is really crappy and the way someone is treating you is normal or quite nice, you suffer a complete system failure because WHAT IS THIS MADNESS.
I got used to being treated really shittily. You know how, if you get angry with some people, they put their arms up in a 'DON'T HIT ME!!' pose? That's me. I'm so reflexively expectant of violent negative backlash that it's a reflex to guard against it. I tended to get blamed so much for shit I didn't do that I apologize now for everything--and I mean everything--that goes wrong, and got used to being forgotten in favour of everyone else on holidays. (Nobody remembered my birthday--including my parents--for about ten years. It doesn't even say my real one on my driver's license. It says August 13th because it happens to be National Lefty Day and close to my actual birthday.) If I didn't absolutely need something for my continued survival, I was made to feel selfish and greedy if I asked for anything. I really have no fucking idea how to accept gifts. My knee-jerk reaction to someone wanting to be generous is to go, "PLEASE DON'T!" and do everything in my power to talk them out of it.
I mention this because over the weekend I had a two-day nonstop argument with the boything over whether or not to buy me a kilt.
Now, I'm a bit odd for a girl because I love, LOVE kilts and wear them all the time. Technically it's crossdressing and I am quite proud that I have found a way to crossdress and still wear a skirt. Part of the reason is that I adore all things tartan. I have no particular affinity for 'family' tartans (which are, incidentally, a nineteenth-century invention to aid tourism in Scotland, a place otherwise completely lacking in tourist appeal unless you like rain and sheep), I just love plaid in general. Especially unusual colours, like purple. Anyway, I got a kilt ages ago and I wear it (sometimes even with a sporran--yes I am odd) but the site where I bought it recently introduced a line of royal purple tartans and make them in shorter miniskirt lengths. I don't like shoing off my legs but I wanted a mini kilt because a) it's purple, b) I want one, and c) it's shorter and harder to mistake for being a school uniform kilt. The one I have is knee-length and thus looks like it complies with strict private school dress codes, which, coupled with the fact that I look like I'm about sixteen, leads people to assume I'm much younger than I really am and treat me accordingly. I'm closer to thirty than I am to high school. Being explained to very slowly what a VHS tape is is kind of offensive. I was renting VHS tapes when VCRs were still the size of cars.
I mentioned this to Max, who finally got his workman's comp and backpay sorted out (he's out of work over two and a half years now), and he immediately wanted to get me one. He said he'd be on the lookout for ages for a kilt because he knows it's something I'll like. He actually begged to let him get it for me.
We argued for two days because I thought it was too expensive a gift.
On the one hand, my reality is tragically warped against my own favour.
On the other, it's kinda nice that this is the only thing we have to argue over.
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