I'm working, do you mind?

Note:

I'm not going through and editing this, and I'm very sorry for the lack of expression. It's a rant/vent that I needed to get off my chest, and I don't really want to revisit it anymore. It's just going to make me angry, and that's never good.

Hopefully you understand, and vaguely enjoy it. I don't speak for every single woman out there, but I speak for the ones I know and, obviously, for myself.

I've mentioned before that I work in a deli.
Previous 'careers' - or, ways to scab money - have included bookstores (currently employed, and previously employed, in this glorious world) and cafes.
I tend to argue the fact that of all the places where you're most likely to find cynical women - though correct me if I'm wrong - are in the retail and hospitality sectors, and, more often than not, in bookstores and in cafes. Retail in general just makes you mistrustful of people. Apparently, retail and hospitality is the perfect place for men to access the mating grounds, as it were, and select their most likely mate.
Unfortunately, they really don't consider how it appears to the woman.

For some reason, I've encountered many a man approaching me and waggling their eyebrows suggestively. They'll 'subtly compliment' my body. They'll make a reference to the two of us, as though we are ultimately paired. Then, when the obnoxious loud voice that dominates my head finally attaches itself to my mouth, I object with a mixture of horror and disgust.
Curiously, the man persists until someone intervenes.
In my head, I call this the Collins Syndrome. Man finds woman, man propositions said woman, and when she refuses, thinks this must be a joke.

As I must therefore conclude that you are not serious in your rejection of me, I shall chuse to attribute it to your wish of increasing my love by suspense, according to the usual practice of elegant females.

These guys are completely unaware that they are irritating the women they come across. Of course the woman has to find their attention flattering. After all, they are taking time out of their day to compliment the woman. What else does the woman live for, if not to be complimented by -
Okay, my sarcasm hand reaching into the air is making it increasingly difficult for me to type.

Men who come up to women in their place of work and repeatedly hit on them:
Why do you do this?
Is it not enough that we have to be at work, and in generally crummy retail environments? Picture my deli. I have to come in at a horrific hour of the morning, slice cold and generally oddly-scented meats, handle sixteen raw chickens, and also serve a variety of customers. These customers are usually accompanied by screaming children.
I don't want you sauntering up to me - yes, you, a man I don't know beyond serving you the occasional meat pie - and making some sort of pass at me.
The fifty-year-old obese bus driver who tried it first repulsed me. It's never okay to come up to a woman you don't know, a woman young enough to be your daughter, and inform her that she's so sexy you're distracted from your shopping. How well did you think she was going to take it? Really, you thought she wasn't going to tell her supervisor and refuse to serve you? It's disgusting.
And now there's another guy who thinks it's his right to come up to me and make comments. "You've got such pretty eyes. Oh, are you blushing now?" Not blushing because I'm flattered, mate, I'm blushing because I'm freaking embarrassed and a whole lot of incensed. Today, whistling at me suggestively and referring to me as "gorgeous", as though that's my name. "Hey gorgeous. Can I have a pie? Excellent, thanks, gorgeous." The scowl on my face and my completely flat tone is not saying come hither. In fact, it's telling you that if you keep up with this, I'm going to get pretty peeved at you.
I'm being paid to be nice to you. I'm not doing it because I like you; in fact, my feelings for all you men who look at me like this and treat me like I'm there to be ogled border on the edge of loathing. If I'm not polite to you, and if I don't offer a smile, I will most likely be fired. I am not flirting with you. Look at the eyes you find so darn appealing - they have jack-all warmth in them.

When I was 16 and working in the bookstore, a man approached me after buying twenty books in individual transactions. It was approaching Christmas, so it wasn't as though it was quiet, yet this man (who was married; my mother was good friends with his wife) leaned on the counter with his final purchase and leered at me.
"Is there anything else I can help you with?" I asked, aware that my boss was lurking.
"I'm going on a cruise," he said.
"That's nice."
"Yup. You know, you're really pretty."
"I have other customers to serve."
"I'd like it if you came with me on that cruise." He grinned at me in a disgusting way, eyeing me.
The man's wife had been my teacher when I was in year 2.
"So, how's Yolanda going? Mrs Chesworth?"
My boss was wiping tears of mirth from her eyes as the man slunk away, scowling at me, after muttering about the different names I clearly was.

Fifty-year-old man now doesn't come near me, after my supervisor exchanged harsh words with him.

This new guy? If he tries again, I'll tell him off and see how it goes.

Seriously, guys. We're here to work. We're not here to simper and feel grateful that you bothered to bestow attention on us. No matter how stunning you are, I'm not going to fall over at your pathetic attempts to lure me into your clutches while I'm at work.
Also, why are you all so old? It's so tacky.
Call me whatever you want, guys. But it's frankly disrespectful. It's like you're just lusting after anyone, no matter what. I'm another conquest. You're not bothering to get to know me - rather than commenting on my looks all the time, surely you could just pluck up conversation to begin with? But none of you ever do, and none of you ever realise that hey, I treat every customer with that smile and with a conversation. It's not special for you. In fact, for most men I'll turn it down.
It's just sad that since I was 15 and first went to work, I've been told by every woman - "if a man asks you if you've got a boyfriend, always say you do. They won't leave you alone otherwise".
Come on, men. Be better. You're giving the decent ones amongst you a bad rep, because the more of you that come up to women while they work and make suggestive comments, the more cynical we're going to be when we come across you outside of work. Men, I adore you all, you've got fantastic qualities and quirks. I just don't appreciate the creepy work-approaching shenanigans.

The post where Tash is tired and lacking a social life more thoroughly than usual.

"Believe me, men are either eaten up with arrogance
or stupidity. If they are amiable, they are so easily
led they have no minds of their own whatsoever."

Housekeeping:

1. But isn't this about books? 
   I'm trying to keep it about pretty much everything this year. Thoughts, feelings, everything - leading up to whatever happens next year.
   Ergo, books can come, and books can go, as can most everything I write about.
2. Why isn't this going on the other blog?
   Because those poor suckers have to deal with many of my tired posts, and I want something on here besides books.
3. But -
   Stop. Asking. Questions. *intense stare*

To the post!

***

From a young age, I was told that men (on the whole) are not complex creatures. The way of the man is simple to understand, especially to the mind of an intelligent female. After all, how much to them could there be?

Sitting on a chair at my grandmother's place, legs dangling down and not touching the floor, I was eating a sandwich as she told me about the differences between men and women.

Men could eat two sandwiches. Women could not.

Men were meant to work. Women were not.

Men were allowed to go and drink, eschewing parental responsibility. Women were not.

This was, she said, because men did not need much to make them happy. Food, drink and work - this is what kept men happy. And so, gently tugging the extra bread roll I'd reached for from my hands, she told me that I shouldn't worry.

Mi Natashita, she said, you'll always be able to understand them.

Truth be told, I am no closer to figuring out men than Lizzie Bennet was. I suspect it is not uncommon; after all, humanity is inherently complex, and it stands to reason that men - the gender that currently is just over 50% of the world population - would follow this formula of complexity.

Google can't help me understand men either. Correction,  Google thinks it can help me understand men. But when you click on articles and get the following:

It kind of lessens your faith in the whole 'let's figure men out' scenario. At least when it's provided by Google.

It's not that I don't socialise with men - I highly doubt that women can't figure out men for this reason. In fact, I have a group of guys I turn to when there's something one of their gender has done that cannot be rationalised. Occasionally, they get stumped. 

"Yeah, that's just odd. I've not seen that before." What? How have you not seen it before? 

"Okay, I've only ever seen a guy do that once before." Why did he do that? "You think I asked? I backed away."

But with a source like that, and my group of friends being predominately comprised of males (drama effectively lessens by 60%), I theoretically should have an okay understanding of how the male brain works.

I have a fairly solid understanding of how the female mind works. As much as it pains me to admit, my entire reasoning behind female actions has been tainted with a very strong dose of cynic. Yet men...

A couple of nights ago, I had all but decided Lizzie Bennet was bang on (or, I should say, the screenwriters for Pride and Prejudice Class of '05). Men were stupid. If they were not stupid, they were arrogant. If they were neither of those, then they were just sheep-like and really a waste of time.

And, with all the enthusiasm of Danae from Non Sequitur in her attempts to become invisible, I decided it was to the nunnery I was going. In the nunnery, there were no men. There were no idiotic reasonings I had to follow. In the nunnery I was probably only expected to pray, sew, and -

Oh. Dang. There are vows-of-silence nunneries.

Be that as it may, I decided I should wash my hands of all the general weirdness. 

And quite possibly start my own convent, where I could yak all day long, still text and use Facebook (without being evicted), and eat KFC.
Would be an excellent convent.

However, that does not explain the fact that for some obscure reason, I still find myself yearning for a man. There's a vaguely specific one at the moment, but he's so far outside the realm of possible that I should, ideally, forget about him. Pining away for one unavailable man is just ridiculous, pathetic, and an extreme waste of my time.
I say ideally. Ideally never occurs, because I'm one of those humans who is all "YAY PRETTY PRETTY FLOWER OH FLOWER IS BEHIND A BARBED WIRE ELECTRIC FENCE WITH LIGHTSABERLIKE NETTING I MUST HAVE FLOWER", and in my excitement I end up losing my limbs up to my elbows, and they scuttle away and I am left handless and flowerless.
... that makes so much sense, Tash.
I asked Nate about my inability to get over the flower behind lightsaber fences, and he replied with the following:

"Because love is blind, and I'm talking more the 'go to get a drink at night and stumble around clumsily' type of blind"

It's comforting he didn't say "because you're an absolute idiot".

Re-reading from the beginning, I realise I've completely diverted from the point of this post.

The point of the matter is, men currently confuse the heck out of me. I'm sure you have your reasons for doing things, men, but I for one believe signage is appropriate. I probably have written about signs somewhere, but signs are the greatest invention ever. Or they would be, if we just put them into action. Sophie Kinsella shares my views:

Like I said, there should be a different system... It could involve hand signals, perhaps. Or small, discreet stickers placed on the lapel, colour coded for different messages. 

 - The Undomestic Goddess, pp 249

If we just held up signs, we'd be totally cool. We can hold up signs to explain our odd behaviours, our views towards a relationship with others.

YES, I AM INTERESTED IN YOUR ADVANCES. PLEASE CONTINUE WITH YOUR DULCET TONES OF FLATTERY.

YOU'RE EXTREMELY NICE. BUT... I JUST... FRIENDS?

UM, YEAH, YOU'RE FREAKING ME OUT. PLEASE DON'T COME ANY CLOSER. I HAVE DOVE DEODORANT IN MY HANDBAG, AND I WILL USE THIS AS THOUGH IT IS MACE.

I'M NOT ACTING LIKE THIS TO CONFUSE YOU, I AM MERELY ACTING LIKE THIS TO GET MY HEAD TOGETHER.

Etcetera, so on, so forth.
But unfortunately the world has not gotten on board with such things, and as a result, men and women will forever be unable to understand one another. At least, I fear I will be forever plagued with this.
Maybe it's just some innate knowledge you're born with, much like the ability to apply makeup effectively, except you can't learn it from YouTube and you can't get someone behind a counter at DJs to make it all work in your favour.

I have always heard from men that women are confusing. That we say one thing, and mean another. True, to an extent. I have been known to say "Yeah, I'm fine" when really meaning "One day, you will pay. I don't know how, or when, but expect it". I'm sure that my fascination with fashion is astoundingly odd, and the fact that during a rational debate regarding something like politics, literature or feminism with a group of men, I can instantly be distracted by a sale or a beautiful shoe:

But you men... my gosh. What's with the whole 'pleather-being-chased-around-a-field-while-wearing-abnormally-short-shorts-qualifies-as-sport' mumbo jumbo? How does rugby even work? AFL is even more confusing, and really? Why does random tall man in red uniform need to kick that through those posts? What is the point?
(I understand women enjoy these sports as well, but the men in my life are all - or mostly - obsessed by this.)
And apparently you guys don't really do the whole D&M thing. I mean, yes, it took me years to get to that point... but surely part of you wants to, right? How do you vent? This deeply confuses me.

My brother once told me, when one of his female friends was weeping over her boyfriend never confiding in her - or, very rarely - that guys won't go to their girlfriends first, or don't usually. I don't know how right he is, but that's another enigma of Man. Man, you are weird. ('Man' being used as gender and as exclamation of exasperation.) I can understand if it's an issue about the girl, but...
Oh, I don't know.

Men, you confuse me.
I don't expect this to ever change.
In rebuttal, I'm going to eat cake.