Tough Shit

Let me preface this. I was that girl in school, the easy pickins, the one guys would try to make bets on to get her to go out with them because I wouldn't go out with anybody. My first motto was no and my second was 'how bad do you want your ass kicked?' before smiling at them and letting them discern if I was joking or not.

I purposefully spent a majority of my time around men. I never fit in with the girls.

I just silently sat around the girls at school, looking rather dumb with my thumb up my ass because I couldn't share their interests and I think they sensed it and I was cast out further from their cliques till I disappeared into the fray of sweaty teenage bodies.

Now... I'm not saying, smack a guy in the face, but you're going to have learn the tango. The lingo, the dance of how to get em' by the gonads and really serve up a taste of their own medicine.

I've had a classmate - unfortunately to my knowledge doing drugs - attempt to pop up from the desk I flipped him off of, it was my desk and I asked nicely twice, and he rolled his eyes at me and ignored me before taking the guerilla stance like he might sock me in the face. I was always ready for the hits, but they never came. Fat bluffs on meaty arms and even meatier heads.

I met guys the size of The Mountain with softer hearts that flowers in sunlit fields.

I met girls who chased into the fray, who liked to break their hearts on guys who were just looking for a notch in their bed and then I'd shake my head. My dignity was always number one and if I left no openings on my body, then it was all verbal sparring that I had to concern myself with.

So here, you can see how - clipped of the true vulgarity I could have and probably would have seen - I might handle it as I am now a little more articulate than I did then. I just wasn't a word smith and it's hard to jab back at an idiotic remark that's probably more composed around 'that's what she said' and 'dumb bitch' which is so often quipped. I think my favorite is just playing the edge of the paper till the other person can't mentally spar because their eyes are filled with rage and their cheeks full of the yell threatening to burst through. The end of the argument.

My advice, keep everything playful. Just above flirting as a harsh reminder that if he wants to get at you or even have an interest in your persona, he might need to up his A game a little and stop being vulgar enough to get you to spar with him a little more in a fun manner. In a friendly one. That may not happen, but for men... Let's keep this between you and me... From someone who hangs out with a lot of them. They're big ol' sacks of emotion, they just put better masks up because society likes men to be tough, so when you got him good. You'll know.

Do your best, kiddo. You got this. <3

___________________________________________________________________

I looked him up and down, a sly smirk on my youthful face. "What, you lookin' at me?"

"Nah, I don't like dumb bitches."

"Eeee- scathing," I retorted, rolling my eyes at him as if that was the worst I heard. "I'm sure if we checked our grades, we'd see who the real jackass is, but I'm sure it'll have to be something. Something to save your fragile ego."

And I know he might turn red in the face, might pop up from his seat to thwack me in the head. I expected it and if he did, I'd be smiling at him even after it was all said and done.

"You're a real-"

"Oh, before you speak."

"AH!" he screeches at me. "Can't h-"

"AH!" I screech back at him, devolving into a fit of laughter. "Fucking Christ, my ears are bleeding."

"Crazy bitch."

"Mm, maybe, but not for you. If I did, I think I'd have to dig my eyes out of my head first and blot out the scent of Axe. It's Axe, right? God. Pathetic." And so I might turn, and he might tug at my thick hair - thank God I straightened it to perturb some of the more curious hands that liked to wrap their fingers in it and yank - and my hands would be swatting at him. I'd be glaring, grinning sinisterly and ready to pounce on him in a knock-out drag out fight.

"I wouldn't." I warn.

"What are you going to do?"

"What are you going to do? Hit a girl? I'm sure that'll be a good image for you. Keep trying."

"Mm, I'm good. I think I'd rather-"

"Oo, 'fraid not. I've seen better. Again. That Axe, my good bud. It's a menace to the room. It assaults my nose." And he might start yammering on, my hand echoing in a sort of funny pantomime, fingers to thumb, fingers to thumb in a rigid and comical motion as the other hand might prop my cheek up and my face tilt into my hand, my eyes close till he gives up. "That's what I thought, prick." And we'd dance again tomorrow or the day after, till he either gave up or I decided to find something better to tune him out with. It really never changes and I know this, but I know one thing... I'm ready to scrap. I'm the scrappy kind of girl, the one that boys all 'oooh' and 'aaah' at when you clack one of their 'buddies' just right in the face or serve them up with some quip good enough to make him shrivel up in that awkwardly short school chair. Would the office write me up? Eh, maybe... But I chat with them often. We talk. I talk. The faculty know me. Would I lie? Never. Not in a day. I am just that kind of girl. I am just that. I am very fine with it.