There is a warm place where Arnold Palmers are served. Condensation covers the glass, and you can feel ice rattling against it. The idle chit-chat of strangers can be heard. When someone tries to start a conversation, the other person is warm and receptive, and gives them the benefit of the doubt.
If a fight breaks out, it is understood that people will try to break it up; however, it would never get to that point. More than anything, this shallow party resembles a kiddie pool for adults. People are content; they are grown men with hard hats and arm floaties.
An encounter with ruffians
Some real ruffians, the kind who only find courage when they outnumber someone, showed up to a certain occasion. That occasion was my graduation party, which I was only informed of the very same day. This type of celebration was never held for my older siblings; they were products of fetal alcohol syndrome and didn’t get too far in anything.
I remember thinking, “Since we’re only going to have one of these, it would be quite rude not to show up.” Then I considered how thoughtfully they invited me to my own graduation party. I was not on the best terms with these people, but it was considerate to offer. Then I thought to invite a few people, and they said how sorry they were; they needed to know in advance. I thought, “Hey, you know, fair enough!” Then I went by myself. While I was curious who was going to be there, if not any of my friends or the people I love, just my family.
I touched down at a party where I knew no one. They didn’t know it was a graduation party. My sister begrudgingly introduced me. They didn’t know that she had a second brother. I raised the issue that I was her sibling, and she got defensive.
I’m the first to seek diplomacy.
These people thought it was a farce and proceeded to ridicule me. I was taken back; my first reaction was to stand there and just think, “Wow, how indecent these people are.” I proceeded to grab my belongings and leave these people, who said such indecent things to me. Not too long after my mother had a massive stroke, she begged for people’s help. Me and the people she invited to ridicule me neither listened nor dropped by. When we start these petty games of what polite society is constituted of and who is included or left out, we can’t surrender; it is of very little value when you surrender and have nothing to offer.
You want to cut a deal, pre-stroke, and pre-alienation of the person you financially need. This is why we should be cautious. During this time, my sister’s pay-pig left her because she kept cheating on him. Then she pivoted to gendering me correctly. She fell on hard times, and I didn’t understand that she wanted to run away. These games, where I could hurt them now, were no longer amusing. People only want to start fights when they perceive they will win; fights only end when one person stops beating the other, not when someone wants out.
It’s safer for some, off the deep end.
These people tried to put pressure on me by taking me off insurance, which for a trans woman is a death sentence. Locking me out of the house and treating me like a dog in a kennel. So when a person has a stroke, it doesn’t mean their cries for help should be listened to. If anything, she had less to bargain with.
I personally couldn’t look past my desire to be cruel, so I did the only moral thing. by abandoning my family in their time of need. Then I searched out an alternative: people who found me attractive, polite, and decent.
The risk of going off the deep end was less harmful than for people who needed me financially and simultaneously sought my destruction.
If Détente can’t be reached.
First, take a moment to consider if what you are demanding is reasonable. If your honest actions are met with bad-faith actors, don’t get stonewalled. If what you wanted they can no longer offer, then what is the purpose of the dialogue? Take your business or your personal life somewhere else.
We play these games to see if a person will fall in line or exile them for gain. It was unbecoming for my existence to be around those people. I was deemed unsightly; they were going to look for an issue or make one up. When they needed something, they would hide their contempt; it didn’t mean they changed.
When people love you for who you are, they will allow you to live with them; they will wine and dine you. If things get hard or if you lose your job, they don’t lash out at you and ignore you because there isn’t anything to offer them. When you do something for them, you get a lot of pleasure because you love them.
