I get my share of backhanded compliments from well-meaning people who either don’t know any better, or just want to assert their perceived superiority. I don’t have anything against guys in general. As a matter of fact, I like them quite a lot, but 90% of the time I deal with this crap, it comes from someone of the male persuasion. That 10% that is probably from people who don’t know any better doesn’t often even register..but the rest of the misogynistic garbage makes me wonder if there was some kind of intergalactic idiot convention who’s attendees got lost on the way and invaded the bodies of people on Earth.
It’s no secret that I hate my house. I despise it. I’ve wanted out from underneath this money pit for the last 14 years. It’s not going to happen, because as much as I can’t stand it, it’s worth the land it sits on, and that is not enough to get me out of debt and in to something else. That doesn’t stop me from looking at other houses and dreaming every once in a while though.
A few months ago, that dreaming led me to the PERFECT condo in Salt Lake. Yeah, I know, I’m employed and own a house shaped stack of debt 150 miles away from it, but it was perfect, and I wanted it. The only way to look at more than one picture of this house was to sign up for updates with the realtor who had it listed. That led to an insanely excited realtor emailing me other properties on the daily until I finally answered his phone call to discuss my completely unrealistic weekend condo. We talked about this property, in my ideal location, and about how I just need it to become available in 5 years when, if all goes according to plan, I’m completely out of debt and can think of something like this.
I thought he understood that this was a silly dream, until he said “I can get you pre-approved for this and we can sell your house.” Well duh. Of course you can do both of those things, and to prove it, I let him run my credit just for the heck of it. About an hour later he called me back and said “WOW! You have excellent credit considering your situation.” Excuse me…yeah…the dude knows about my single parent, doing everything on my own situation, but seriously?! Nope. I’m not in the mood to play nice. I told him “Thanks, but I have excellent credit period. You could have left it at that. There was no need to insult me by adding ‘considering your situation.’ I’m not ready to buy a home at the moment anyway, but you can rest assured that I will not be using you when I am.” He had the nerve to text me the next day with another listing. I responded with a screen shot of my credit score and the page of another realtor at a competing company.
Another time, I was having my car serviced at the dealership where I purchased it. As the service manager was pulling up my vehicle information so he could try to sell me something I didn’t need, he scrolled through the records, looked at me and said “This vehicle is very well maintained for a girl’s car.” Um…excuse me. I didn’t even have to say anything. I watched his boss walk up to him, scroll through my service records, and then say “This car is very well maintained period. Whether or not it belongs to a girl isn’t part of the equation here. Ms. Foster, we’ll be doing your oil change and tire rotation for free today.” That is how you handle customer service! I wasn’t even offended at the time, but God bless that man’s supervisor for being offended for me, and saving me $50.
Today, I had the distinct pleasure of hearing how child support was a way for women to steal money from men and keep their children away from them. Seriously, these words were actually spoken to me…by a person who KNOWS I have raised a kid COMPLETELY on my own, with no financial help from anyone. This completely insane argument comes from someone who knows how much the measly $250 a month I SHOULD have had coming in would have helped. And no, I surely wouldn’t be making so much with child support that I never had to work.
It’s been 2 hours since that 30 minute lecture concluded, and I still have fingernail imprints in my palms from clenching my fists so tightly. During that 30 minutes, I heard everything from how women use child support as a way to steal money from men so they can have nice things and not take care of their kids, to how unfair it is for men to have to pay so much child support that women don’t have to work. It was even thrown in there somewhere that lawyers do shady things to make it so men are forced to pay more than is fair.
That conversation ended with this person saying “Well, that’s really just me venting, but if I had it to do all over again, I wouldn’t ever have kids, or get married.” Somehow I summoned the ability to keep my mouth shut instead of saying “Well, I know your kids, and even I can’t argue with that logic.” Somehow I fought off those tears…the ones that come when you’re so angry that you’re either going to punch something or cry. I’ll tell myself it’s because I haven’t cried since October 30, and this stupid conversation isn’t worth it. It’s really probably because I value my job, and my ability to pay for my own shit, because you know….child support is just a way for women to not have to work, and since my kid is 18 now, I can’t be living that $250 a month high life that I should have been living for the last 18 years.
So Happily Never After 