Girls thread cont.

I am not allowed to receive mail at work (and we are prohibited from dropping personal mail in the office outgoing mail bins - the mail room supervisor sent out an email to all staff with a lost of people's names and their mail (plus the unidentifed personal mail) with instructions to retrieve said items immediately) so I have things sent to Jeff at work or I pay $5 to have them sent to a UPS store front. :/

For large parts of Bklyn, the nearest "UPS hub" is like out the fuck by the airport or something. (Which btw isn't even in Brooklyn, it's in Queens.) So if no one can answer the door at your house during the day, you are kinda screwed. I didn't realize they charged extra for getting yr package from a UPS store but I just looked them up and they're all FRANCHISES, so I guess they have to make a profit somehow?!? Blerghgghh

UPS now has a website called myups.com or something where you create an account and you can then authorize them electronically to leave packages on your stoop. I've used this like 5 times already. It's great.

same here -- hub is out in the burbs, relying on neighbors always sketchy but better than trying to find one's way to the burbs

Hahahahaha packages on the stoop, that's a good one.

?

Cause ppl would swipe it them, you mean? I guess I've been lucky.

OutSIDE? All day??

yeah ¯\(º o)/¯

tho the ppl on the 2nd flr will put stuff inside the first door if they get home first

I'm glad that has worked out for you. We do that in MI, of course, but it would be a bad idea anywhere else I've lived.

me too
i barely trust my neighbors

Yeah maybe I shouldn't do it but I've been doing it a bunch lately and haven't had anything go missing yet. The street gets a lot of traffic too so I guess it's sort of surprising. Hmmmmm. I might not do it anymore.

Re getting packages: Sometimes your building's mailboxes might be in a foyer or lobby, in which case the mailman will have a skeleton key thing to get in there and can leave packages on the floor. This does not help for UPS/FedEx, though, and it also does not help if your mailboxes are outside of the building and there's nowhere to leave anything.

Oh yeah, the UPS hub is… I don't even know because when packages have ended up out there I have found it more efficient to let them send the item back to the retailer and order it again (or not) than find my way to it. Jesse has mad ethe trip and barely lived to tell the tale.

We live in a three-flat now, so no foyer and we're on a busy street and while I have occasionally successfully received packages (when I've forgotten to change the delivery address), I've also had stuff stolen. Our old apt was in a courtyard building w/ a locked gate and sometimes Fed Ex/UPS would literally throw things over the gate into the yard, once right into a snow bank.

here to report that on my picturesque street in not currently sunny Toronto, we leave notes for the post office saying 'yup, please just leave it at the door, thanks' (he generally wedges it between glass & solid door) and that's never been stolen but someone did once dumb a tomato plant over and steal the 10 cent plastic container it was in! :P

That said, I live in a triplex with my landlord and one other apartment, usually people I know (or soon do after a month or two living near them)!

Unrelated. Ladies, I have encountered a frustrating phenomenon with a couple of guts I know, and I'm wondering if it's a "thing".

My husband, and my close male friend are both very keen to have me listen to/watch/read things they get into. Which is normal, and I'm totally on board with. Love new things! If they find out I haven't seen x movie or read y book they will seek to immediately correct it.
But whenever I share stuff I'm into, both of them, without fail, will not read/watch/listen to my own exciting thing I have to share, unless I badger them into it & even then they're like "meh, it's okay."
I've called them out, like wtf is this "you can't teach the teacher bullshit you're pulling on me." Not that I need them to give me validation of things I enjoy, but how come my shit is never as cool as their shit, when I *know* it is if they weren't so quick to dismiss me? Is it a dude phenomena in general? A personality type? Do any of you have this with significant others?

I dont know why it bugs me so much...but I've always love sharing my passions with my friends...it kinda hurts to feel like a lame girl with my "little" things, you know?

lol *guys, not guts. haha

My husband does that too! I chalk it up to him being dumb and not realizing my AWESOME. :P

i've had friends like that of both genders -- try to limit my enthusiastic foisting to people who have shown that they specifically would be interested in that thing. just because i'm super into it doesn't mean that anyone else is likely to be.

I think that's sad, veg, and I'm sorry it makes you blue. It might be a "dude" thing, quite possibly? Because there's a def recorded phenomenon in which girls/women will invest themselves into stories, hobbies, things with male characters and/or directed at men, but boys/men on the whole do not return the interest in things with female characters/directed at women. Maybe yr dudes have internalized this kinda thing?

I've heard lots of stories from girls about guys doing that to them, but it doesn't seem to happen to me. I think possibly I avoid it through the 'honorary dude' status that sarahel was talking about upthread.

Yeah, I think I may have been similarly fortunate because I don't feel like this happens all that often with me.

there's no official ban on it here. my main embarrassment is that the last time I did it, I had to return three pairs of shoes multiple times, because the sizes were all wrong, and then the new sizes were still off, and it looked like i was just getting a daily influx of shoes...:) i used to be in charge of the mail for my center and NO ONE ever got non-work packages delivered except for me! i can't speak for the wider college (i work at a university) but now that i'm not on mail anymore, i feel awkward doing it--i would feel less so if at least one other person used it for these purposes!

xp -- that used to happen with one of my ex-roommates (female). the last time i had it was with the wire, with a married couple i was friends with, and once they moved away i've stopped recommending it to them. they were very resistant to watching!

that last post had a lot of exclamation points. i don't normally talk like that...

xp - tbh i am probably the one who does this more frequently

I used to be one of those girls that said "All my friends are guys, I don't really like girls" which I cringe at now but it was true to an extent. For a long time my closest friends were almost exclusively guys. This has changed a lot over time in part because I've met some awesome and amazing women but also because I let myself realize that not all girls suck and I've become a lot more open to female friendships. Anyway, I think part of the reason that was the case is that I've always been into a lot of "guy stuff" in terms of pop culture interests? I don't know. I've also been pretty privileged insofar as that I've known a lot of really great and amazing men. Plus, if I thought someone was dismissing something I was interested in based on my gender I would be really fucking pissed off.

And they would know it real quick.

I like lots of things and try to be interested in stuff but I'm definitely NOT into some things, too--just no time. But then, I think the important thing is for people to share ideas and be excited even if the specifics aren't both their kettle of fish?

For honesty's sake I try not to patronizingly give the vague impression that I'll try their thing if I know I'm not going to. If I'm doing a good job, the person is going to know that I'm not into baseball or knitting or w/e but will tell me about it anyway because I'm into them and it's fun to talk. I want people to WANT to tell me things!

telling is different than foisting imo -- telling is "omg i am excited about this thing!", whereas foisting is "you gotta hear/read/see this" and then the person is like did you did you did you and if i didn't want to read/see/hear or w/e i just feel bad and like i have to make something up

i've been on both sides of this is what i'm saying
also not sure this has anything to do with male/female friends so much as it does about people having realistic expectations of what their recommendations will yield

See I've always been honorary dude, and my awesome friendship with my husband is based on loving things like military history, horror movies, football. The things I try to introduce fall in that realm of stuff I *know* he digs. Same with my friend. I dont, or try not to, go off reservation with them.

It seriously feels like it's because it's ME showing them, like in their mind that's not the arrangement, or it implies some kind of weakness. Like, no we have to show YOU.
And my husband's not a macho dude, thats what's so confusing.

v=dh4zcFEf6No

Yes, that sounds annoying VG. I would not like that at all.

Sometimes I get really excited about something and will start to tell people about in great detail when I notice their eyes sort of glaze over and I realize, "Hey, maybe this isn't really their thing". I can get overly enthusiastic about stuff and have to remind myself that not everyone else will be as into whatever it is as I am.

I think Laurel has a good point re internalizing certain norms. The situation feels really familiar to me, but as I'm thinking about it, I can't think of any recent examples. Jeff's pretty game to try new things.

I used to be one of those girls that said "All my friends are guys, I don't really like girls" which I cringe at now but it was true to an extent. For a long time my closest friends were almost exclusively guys. This has changed a lot over time in part because I've met some awesome and amazing women but also because I let myself realize that not all girls suck and I've become a lot more open to female friendships. Anyway, I think part of the reason that was the case is that I've always been into a lot of "guy stuff" in terms of pop culture interests? I don't know. I've also been pretty privileged insofar as that I've known a lot of really great and amazing men. Plus, if I thought someone was dismissing something I was interested in based on my gender I would be really fucking pissed off.

― ᶘ ᵒᴥᵒᶅ (~curious orange~), Wednesday, December 7, 2011 5:35 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink

THIS IS EXACTLY ME. Though I think a large proportion of my gaining female friends is down to the fact that at school/during teen years they perhaps felt more of a compulsion to conform to the stereotypical 'girl' thing in order to be popular, whereas I knew I wasn't ever going to be popular, so I might as well be myself and just hate/be hated by everyone. On the other hand, I still have moments of rage towards my female friends, such as when we organise something like a book club, and because it happens to end up entirely female it stops being a book club and starts being a "let's talk about shoes and handbags" club. That is not what I signed up for. I mean, even here, which is a GIRL STUFF thread, I feel rejected and disappointed when conversation turns to make-up etc, like it's done just to remind me that I'm not a real girl and never will be.

It seriously feels like it's because it's ME showing them, like in their mind that's not the arrangement, or it implies some kind of weakness. Like, no we have to show YOU.
And my husband's not a macho dude, thats what's so confusing.

I actually have experienced this with one guy friend in particular years ago and iirc it was really obnoxious. I just didn't really think of it as a gender-based thing but what Laurel and Jenny mention about internalizing certain norms/roles could very well have been a factor the more that I think about it/this person in particular.

you're always a woman to me (and billy joel)

Oh god what was I enthusing about to somebody recently and the person was almost gnawing off a foot to get away and I knew it but I like couldn't stop enthusing. I can't remember but it was hilarious to both of us.

VG, that sounds like it's just a well-worn role. Your husband presents the pursuit and you accept it. That sounds like the kind of thing there is a way to fix and approach and I can almost hear the advice column language for it in my head but I can't articulate it.

Also any time you want to talk horror movies, holler.

Aw, Emily - stop!! You are so a girl (and to me that means that you're something awesome and amazing). Also, LOL that I posted what you were OTMoney-ing and that I'm also one of the ppl who posts most about make-up and shit. I wasn't always so into that stuff but sort of became more so over the years. Anyway I don't know what my point is here - I just thought that was funny.

Amanda started an ILS offshoot thread - maybe we should make better use of it since makeup, etc isn't just for women and not all women give a fig for makeup.

Hm well my eyes glaze over when people talk about difficult/experimental/noise music and records and that kind of thing, but those threads are ABOUT records, so...admittedly the No Boys Allowed thread is different, and more of a mix.

Also I'm going to Sephora at lunch to use my coupon and so I will need to tell the Internet about it.

Haha, yeah, I realised that as I was posting it. I mean, I certainly don't think people should stop posting about make-up in a GIRL STUFF thread, I just get paranoid and then sad, because that element of corporeality and bodily representation is just something I've never got to grips with.

xpost to ENBB, also relevant to jenny.

Is it the $15 off of 50? I used that last weekend to get some Christmas presents!

we're all in the same gang

$20 off!

$20!! Lucky!

do you ever find yourselves on the flipside, where a guy will get into something because you recommended it, and then when telling others about said thing will totally write you out of the picture of how he came across/got into this awesome thing? My ex would do this regularly, and it bugged the shit out of me.

Yesssssss

Also professionally.

*rage*

And that's one where I have a hard time standing up for myself because I was taught (one might even say SOCIALIZED) to be modest and let my accomplishments speak for themselves, lest I be a tacky braggart.

my xroommate did that ALLLL the time.

Haha my boss does it, and she is a she. This is just an asshole characteristic.