Who's the Patron Saint of Vanity?

Because, fuck em! FUCK THEM!

So, I'm a woman. I started out as a girl. I like to wear jeans a lot. I look pretty good in a dress, but I don't wear them that often, because I get attention from men that masquerades as an attempt to engage my person, but it's really just sexually charged exploratory probes, and i don't know how to disengage that without being mean. There's some kind of gendered role tap dance of predator/prey, or pursuer/pursued that conflates with female gender education. We learn as little girls, or at least we did when I was a little girl, to reign in our sexual appetite, otherwise we become one of "those kind of girls."

I'm a big fan of "those kind of girls" who held on to, and accessed their sexual agency from youth. But, they're not the point today. Today, I'm talking about women who have been socialized to engage men, and signal that they are interested in men, by allowing men to pursue them. That's what it means, or at least what I was taught, to appropriately express interest in a man. You can allow him to pursue you.

But! We're suppose to put up some kind of resistance, even if it's light. "I don't mean to sound sleazy, but tease me. I don't want it if it's that easy." (Who was that, L.L.? I just remembered- Tupac.) So, men learn that women who continue to engage them, even if they throw off their advances, may in fact be women who are communicating some level of sexual attraction.

Well, I like people. I like people a lot. And, when I wear dresses, I forget that I have identified myself as a player in this ritual. So, when I'm nice to someone who appears to be interested in being nice to me I get confused when they can't, or won't, unhook the sexualized aggressive component.

And, so there is this dance (tap dance doesn't capture it, I'm thinking of ballet, but it's something along the lines of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon meets capoeira, because the two players continue to spin off of and dance around each other, rather than retreat off into the heights of bamboo trees to catch their breath.) this dance of expressing escalating interest, and me expressing escalating disinterest- while still remaining engaged.

Until at some point, out of frustration and exasperation I have to say or do something mean. Clear and consistent rejection of sexual interest while remaining engaged doesn't seem to work for me, and the only out I feel left with often is to say something abrasive, and then I feel like shit afterwards. So, I don't wear dresses that often, although the world feels really nice in a dress.

I don't know how that started, except that I'm a woman. And, I'm kinda vain. Kinda, like a snake kinda doesn't have any legs. And, for some reason, God only knows why... my hairline is starting to thin out around the edges.

WHAT!?!?

Yes, I'm a woman in my thirties, and I'm needing to give consideration to my hairline? Who the fuck was suppose to tell me this? Someone dropped the ball here. Mom? Grandma? Aunt Clair? (I don't really have an aunt clair, but it rhymes with hair.)

Uhm, girls aren't suppose to have to worry about their hair getting thin. That's one of the many wondrous things about getting to be a girl. Shit.

So, fuck you Saint, whoever you are. Hera?