Things Women of an Arbitrary Age Should and Should Not Do

I keep seeing clickbait posts from various sources (that I won't give the satisfaction of linking to) outlining all the things women (always women!) should and shouldn't do, wear, and have after certain milestone ages like 25 or 30.

Apparently, women of a certain and arbitrary age shouldn't wear cheap makeup, buy the clothes we like, decorate our homes to our own aesthetic, enjoy our own hobbies, or have any fun or joy left in our lives. All for the sake of being a proper adult.

Here's the thing: shut up.

I'm 31 years old, and I wear cheap makeup because that's what I can afford. I have concert posters hanging in my bedroom because it makes me happy to think about those events and the fun I had.

They're not even framed! I reserved framing for my own photography, which I also have hanging because it makes me think of the fun events I shot and a hobby that I love.

I buy shotglasses as souvenirs because they're cheap and small, which makes them easy to transport and display. I also have a handful of vinyl bobbleheads because they make me think of stories I like that bring me happiness, plus they're cute.

Here's my list of what people of any gender should and should not do at any age:

• You SHOULD decorate your home in whatever way makes you happy.
• You SHOULD NOT pass judgment on others for hanging the art they like, framing it or not framing it as they see fit, or anything else superficial.
• You SHOULD do whatever hobbies make you happy as long as you aren't actively harming another living creature.
• You SHOULD NOT judge anyone else's hobbies.
• You SHOULD wear clothes that you like and that make you happy, while keeping in mind occasion appropriateness and work rules (sucks, but those do exist).
• You SHOULD NOT make rude comments or judgments about others' wardrobe choices.
• You SHOULD take care of yourself in the best way that you can, keeping in mind that this means different things for different people based on abilities, life situations, and priorities.
• You SHOULD NOT assume that others' priorities about their own health and happiness are the same as yours.
• You SHOULD NOT apologize for your fashion choices, lifestyle, weight, gender identity, sexual preference, hobbies, health priorities, living situation, career choices, or anything else that is not harming others.
• You SHOULD NOT expect others to apologize for or explain any of those things.

That's it. I honestly don't give a squirt if you want to play video games, wear $1 lipstick, decorate your place like the inside of Austin Powers' jet, or rock the word "juicy" on your ass. Whatever makes you happy.

Don't Fat-Shame. Really, Just Don't Do It.

Seriously. Just don't fat-shame.

There's no point to it. It doesn't make people magically thinner. Being magically thinner wouldn't make people magically healthier. It doesn't make you superior. It doesn't do anything positive.

All it does it promote bigotry. It makes people hate themselves. It reveals that you are an ugly and small-minded individual full of prejudice.

It's worse for fat people than actually being fat. It's degrading to mental health. It promotes stereotypes. Stereotypes have real implications.

It leads to fat people being hired less. It leads to fat people hearing rude comments shouted at them from cars. It makes people feel awful.

It hides behind some veil of "helping." People who fat-shame get away with it because they think they're encouraging fat people to de-fat themselves. And apparently de-fatting is the be all and end all of...something.

But it just causes pain. It leads to depression and isolation and prejudice. It causes nothing good and everything bad.

So just don't do it.

Welcome to the Thunderdome: Apartment Hunting in NYC

I'm moving! Finally!

For those who don't know, I have been staying with my parents for a very long time. Save for a month living with a roommate in Queens who I subsequently had to escape from (I will probably post about that some time), I've been stuck in their apartment for the past five years.

But on Saturday I paid the deposit and picked up the keys to a place in Prospect Heights. I'll be with two roommates (and two cats), from whom I've gotten a really good vibe even though I don't know them. The bedroom is fairly spacious (by New York standards) and the shared space is pretty clean. Plus, there's a decent-sized patio.

How did I find such a gem? Luck, mostly. Apartment hunting in NYC is a blood sport, and you have to have equal parts patience, perseverance, and good fortune. After scam email replies to Craigslist inquiries, brokers who never called me back, and panic attacks about sky-high rent, serendipity came in the form of a listserv message.

The ad for a room came across a local feminist email list I am on. The neighborhood was where I want to be; the rent was reasonable; I knew we'd have ideological similarities; they have pets. So on a whim I replied.

I took my parents to check the place out, and we all got a good vibe from the space, the neighborhood, and the people. I had to wait to make sure friends of the third roommate didn't want it, and then I got a text saying the room was mine if I was still interested.

Now I'm packing. Technically, my lease starts May 1, though I have an exam that day. I'll probably move in gradually over a few days or weekends, and let's hope this one doesn't turn ugly. (I genuinely don't think it will. I had gut feelings about the other place that I ignored, and I did not have them here.)

Say My Name Say My Name: Asking For Help Without Being Rude

As someone who has worked several retail and customer service jobs, I've seen a whole range of politeness. Some people are absolutely delightful, appreciative, and sweet. Others are, well, less so.

One of the things that can really set the tone for how an experience between a customer and an employee will go is the approach. How you ask a worker for assistance is extremely important, and will shape how helpful and polite they are to you (to a point, sometimes people are just in a bad mood or are coming off of helping someone else who was horrible).


The way you get their attention is vital, as are tone of voice and use of questions instead of declarations. If you shout from across the store, the employee is not going to be happy about it. If you don't actually get their attention and just start loudly asking questions, they may not even realize you are talking to them, and when they do, you'll have to start over. If you demand things instead of asking nicely, they will be less inclined to be helpful.

Approach the employee. Yes, this means walking over to them, not shouting from twenty feet away. Say "excuse me." If they are already helping someone else, say something like "when you're done, can you help me X?" If they are free, just ask them politely for whatever you need. Use a calm tone of voice. Say "please" and "thank you." If they can't find something, or they can't do something because of store policy, don't yell at them. Chances are, they did not implement the policy but they have to enforce it whether they like it or not if they want to keep their job (I wrote about this recently). Act like you are grateful for their help, not like you are doing them a favor by allowing them to run around doing things for you. If they tell you there is nothing left of an item/size/color, believe them. Chances are, they've recently been in the stock room looking for that and they aren't trying to pull a fast one or get out of working. Thank them for their help. Basically, just exercise common courtesy and don't treat them like they are beneath you because of where they work. 

Some places track the success of their employees. If the cashier asks who was helping you, that's what they are doing. In places like this, get the person's name. If you aren't sure whether or not the place will do this, just make a mental note of what they look like and what they are wearing, so you can describe them to the cashier just in case. If they did an especially impressive job, tell someone, preferably a manager.

Remember: working customer service is a demanding and frustrating job where employees often get condescended to and pushed around. You can be the difference between someone going home happy or crying to their roommate/friends/partner about how much they hate life and want to quit their job.

Courteous Eating: When Your Friend Has Special Dietary Needs

Disclaimer: I'm writing this from the perspective of someone who does not have allergies but has been a vegetarian for many years, and who currently eats vegan as much as possible.

It can be pretty tough to figure out where a large group is going to eat together. This gets harder when one or more people in the group have some kind of dietary need, like allergies or Celiac disease, or are veg*n (that's a combination word that lumps together vegan and vegetarian). And when you have a craving for a place that doesn't meet those needs, it can be frustrating.

But you have to adapt. As a general rule, people who will eat anything can have a meal that eliminates something. It won't hurt you to not eat nuts because someone is allergic, or to have a single gluten-free and/or veg*n meal. Really. I promise. But when the table is flipped it can cause serious problems. People with allergies, including gluten, can have severe health implications. Even people who are veg*n, even though it is technically a choice, can get sick from eating meat or dairy if their body is no longer used to processing it. It's just rude to deny someone health and comfort because you have a craving.

Trust me, being on the other side is awkward. I have felt very guilty in the past because I made my friends go to a couple of places before we found something I could eat. I don't want to make people I care about suffer, or be inconvenienced, but at the same time I am not going to compromise myself or sit there hungry. One would think that a compassionate person would never make their friend starve to satisfy their own desires, but you'd be surprised how many times I've had people argue about where we're going when I've said I can't eat somewhere.

We already do our best to be accommodating. As much as stupid jokes might fly around about veg*ns being smug and annoying, most of us just want to have dinner without conflict. So if someone says they have a need, even if you don't interpret it as such, honor it. Check ahead if a restaurant has veg or gluten free options, or if they can make things without allergens. And no, I don't just mean a side salad or "you can probably pick the chicken off." I mean food. I mean an entree. One that is made without meat/gluten/nuts/etc. It's just the nice thing to do, and trust me that your companion will appreciate it.

You can go out for a nut-encrusted steak with a side of gluteny bread tomorrow.

The Importance of Friendships, In Whatever Medium You See Fit

I have about 150 really close friends, and I've only met about a dozen of them.

No, really. Out of respect for privacy I won't say too much about most of them, but I'm in a particular Facebook group full of really amazing people that I consider better friends than many people I currently know in real life (sorry).

The group has been around for about two years, and in that time I've gotten to know these (mostly) women really, really well. I know, I know. A lot of people think you can never achieve the full bond of friendship through a computer. They could be anyone, posing as 20- or 30- somethings to infiltrate this band of buddies and then pounce when we let our guard down. They could be another incarnation of the Craigslist killer. They could be 14-year-old boys. They could be they could be they could be.

They aren't. I trust them all implicitly. Many of us have met in real life. Who has met whom depends on geography, but between living in a place lots of people visit and doing a little traveling myself, I've met many of my friends; even shared a hotel room with a couple of them. I have not been murdered, and no one is 14.

But that's beside the point. What matters is that I have a large group of people I feel close to, who are at the same time encouraging, supportive, hilarious, passionate, smart, and kind. They will call me out when I mess up, but support me in efforts to fix my mistakes.

I wish everyone could have access to friends like that, whether online or in real life. Having a support network is vital to success. And yes, you can get extremely close to people using a computer. Before I had met anyone in person, I still felt like this was a tight group. I don't feel any more distant from the people I have yet to see face-to-face. Everyone is important.

Phone Calls, Anxiety, and Picking Your Battles

I hate the person who yells at waitstaff for a mistake the kitchen made. Or the person who yells at a cashier for upholding a storewide policy they didn't create. It's that whole "don't shoot the messenger" thing and it's incredibly rude and short-sighted.

It can be really hard not to immediately unload your frustrations on the person who is sending them your way; I get that. But it's not alright to do so.

This comes up because of something that happened (or, really, didn't happen) this week. I was running low on my prescription, and I called my doctor's office to get them to call a new set of refills into my pharmacy. I get really anxious when I make phone calls, and I have to psych myself up to do each one, so this wasn't easy. The first time I called was Wednesday, and I had two or three pills left, which I told the receptionist. My doctor wasn't in the office that day, but would be the next, so if she couldn't get someone else on staff to sign off, she'd call it in Thursday.

As of Friday morning the pharmacy had nothing. So I called back. Left a message. Waited a couple of hours, checked with my pharmacy and still, nope. So I called again. It was an answering service, who said maybe the doctor was just out to lunch, so I left another message. I took a shower, had lunch, read a little, and about two hours later I called again.

It was the answering service, who this time said maybe they had closed early for the holiday weekend. My frustrations bubbled up, and I came very close to unloading on this poor woman named Bambi who had answered the phone.

I started to, saying "yeah, well I've been trying to get this done since Wednesday." But I stopped myself, because there was no point in yelling at Bambi. She worked for an answering service; she has no control over what my doctor's office had been doing (or decidedly NOT doing) all week. So I just  said there was no point in leaving another message, thanked her, and hung up.

The merits of walking away (or hanging up) can be great. Beyond being concerned for others and general courtesy, when you yell at someone, you make them less likely to help you solve your problem. To use cliches, why burn a bridge or shoot a messenger when you don't have to? When something can't be fixed, excuse yourself, work on a new solution, and maybe just complain about it to your friends. That can go a long way.

By the way, my pharmacist was nice enough to give me four pills to get me through the next couple of days. The battle resumes Monday.

Polite Call-Outs

Sometimes people we know say terrible things. They may have a deep-seated prejudice they need to address, or they may simply be privileged enough that they don't realize certain things are hurtful.

There may be times when you cannot speak up (to your boss or the person who donates tons of money to your company, for example), and that's OK. You can't be expected to put your livelihood in jeopardy. But when it's a friend or family member, you may want to call them out.

First off, make sure you have some knowledge on the topic. If they challenge you, there's a chance you may need examples or arguments to back you up. You don't need to do a dissertation, but reading a few websites and learning some talking points can go a long way.

Next, you need to be sure to be polite and firm. People won't generally respond well if you are too argumentative (I realize there's a sort of double standard in making sure you're polite when the other person was offensive, but if you want them to listen it's for the best).

Clearly state what the problem is, preferable with "I" statements. "When you said X, I felt Y because Z." This may be where they push back and you need to have some more information in mind. But it's also perfectly acceptable to tell them to do their own research. You can't be expected to educate everyone, and it can be exhausting to try.

If the person accuses you of being the "PC police" just remember that there's nothing wrong with that. "PC" just means someone who prefers not to use language that can hurt and oppress groups of people, and that's a whole lot better than the alternative.

10 Things You Don't Have to Change or Apologize For

There are so many things you have to either change or suppress about yourself to get ahead (or just get by) in this world that it can be overwhelming. But there are many things you should never, ever apologize for, or change for anyone else.

10. Your hobbies. 
As long as you aren't hurting anyone, what you do in your free time is your own business.

9. Where you were born.
It's important to learn something from your home town, but you can't change where you come from.

8. Your taste in music.
It has no bearing on who you are as a person or employee.

7. Your accent.
Related to where you were born, it's a part of you, and people need to stop stereotyping based on speech.

6. Your socioeconomic status.
There are so many factors that contribute to that and it's cruel for anyone to hold it against you. Just make sure you stay aware of your privileges.

5. Your health.
Physical or mental. You have to take care of yourself, and do your best to demand your work and friends respect your needs.

4. Your marital or family status.
Whether you tied the knot at 19 or are still single at 45, it's your business alone. Same goes for kids. Whether or not you have or want them is none of anyone else's concern.

3. Your race.
Obviously.

2. Your gender identity or sexual orientation. 
Anyone who asks you to hide or change that is a bigot.

1. Your body.
Height, weight, shape, color, and so on. No one should be discriminating against how you look.

Swearing isn't Always Bad, Really

I'm writing this from the place of someone who is very rarely bothered by profanity. The only words that are upsetting to me are the ones that are designed to harm and oppress specific groups. But those are slurs, not swears. Your generic, run-of-the-mill four-letterers and f-bombs are really nothing.

So it always takes me by surprise when full-grown adults are appalled and shocked at the sound of other full-grown adults using curse words in non-hateful ways. I actually read a review on Goodreads saying the person had knocked a star off because the book in question had swearing in it (not even that much, by my standards). Come on. They are words, used for emphasis and conveying a certain point. They can add zest to a conversation. And no, they are not an indicator that you don't know how to express yourself.

(I don't know where this came from, other than someone screencapping Facebook.)

Some of the smartest people I know are also giant potty-mouths. Conversely, I've met some pretty puritanical people who were of, let's say limited intelligence. There is simply no connection (at least not anecdotally; maybe there are studies demonstrating otherwise).

Being an adult means being smart and responsible about your language. Of course you should be cautious about it if you're dealing with children, and use your best judgment when you're at work. But as long as you aren't using language to hurt and oppress others, there's nothing wrong with a few "bad" words. There's no need to clutch pearls and gasp at the sound of a curse, either. If you want to improve the language of others, start thinking about the parts of our speech that contain ingrained racism, sexism, ableism, and other hate, and work to reduce those instead.

Pretend You Aren't an Introvert (Sometimes)

This is something I need to keep reminding myself. As a fairly extreme introvert, I'm perfectly happy spending an evening in. Or every evening in. But nothing ever changes if I always do the same thing.

I do need to meet people. The human experience includes friends, relationships, colleagues, and acquaintances. I can't advance my own life if I live in my little cell of a room.

So this is just me, saying I will get out more. I will go to concerts, or conferences, or little parties (I don't like the big ones). I will make an attempt to talk to people and not just stand in the corner (except maybe at the concerts where talking is nearly impossible).

I will not become a hermit.

Internet Arguments: Not Always Bad

I know! We've probably all been told to get off the computer and stop arguing with strangers. It's a waste of time, they say. You'll never change anyone's mind, they say.

A lot of the time that's completely true. Often when you get into a bickering match on an online forum, you're just going to get frustrated and spend a significant chunk of your day fuming to yourself over something some random person in East Jesus, Iowa, said about the Affordable Care Act and nothing productive will come of it.

Image credit: xkcd.

But. But! Sometimes they work out. First of all, they can actually be a good way to teach yourself what to avoid. Maybe you realize that half of your high school class hasn't actually outgrown the privileged mindset of their wealthy suburban upbringing the same way you have. So then you decide to remove the bulk of them from your friends list on Facebook. And now you only see things from people you actually want to stay in touch with instead of rolling your eyes and self-involved, judgmental drivel. I may or may not be speaking from experience here.

Secondly, sometimes you can strengthen friendships. Just like how deep heart-to-heart conversations in person can make you feel a tighter bond, so can online discussions. Without revealing too many details, I have a lot of friends with whom I mainly communicate via social media. I've gotten into arguments with them. Sometimes big ones. But we come through, and usually after the air has cleared and everyone has assessed their feelings, we've exchanged messages and come out closer than ever.

And last but not least, you can actually learn things about the world if you are willing to listen. Yes, sometimes you will be bickering over something stupid and the person you are fighting with will be completely obtuse. Those are the ones from which you should just walk away. But something you are the person who screwed up, and the argument is because of your defenses. If that happens, you have a chance to learn. Think about what people are saying. Think about what you said and how it may have been hurtful. Think about what you can do or say in the future not to have a repeat of this incident. Do that. Congratulations, you just grew as a person.

So, no. It's not always worth your time to have internet fights. But sometimes it is. What we should all be working on is knowing the difference between a waste of time and an opportunity. That's how we grow, and how we grow up.