Chapter 151: All you women independent throw your hands up at me (or slit your wrists)

I was talking to a friend, who would prefer not to be named(I promised our conversation would not be shared...I lied, but the least I can do is not mention who he is...ever), and he told me that I was too independent for him, though some guys may like that. I don’t understand; how am I independent? I don’t feel too independent. I feel very much dependent, or at least I would like to be dependent, but I haven’t been given that choice. I feel like being labeled independent is like receiving the kiss of death. You’re branded with a brand that is eternal, life threatening, and is impossible to remove. How do you de-emancipate yourself? How does one become dependent? How does a single girl who doesn’t want to leech off of her parent’s leave home without being some level of independent? I’m baffled, so much so that I just asked a bunch of questions in a row and I’m pretty sure they all ask the same question. There’s a literary term for that I’m certain of it.

Who knew that the worst insult someone could give me would be to call me independent? My parent’s say it with pride, “Yeah, she’s all independent, living on her own…err…with three roommates. But she has her own car, doesn’t live at home, pays her own bills, has good credit. She’s not a strain on our resources or those of our economy; yup we’re pretty proud of our little pumpkin face and how far she’s come from the little girl who wouldn’t leave the basement at night unless someone was carrying her.” On the flip side, a potential mate is thinking, “durrrrr.” Who knows what the hell he’s thinking except that I’m too independent. A girl who owns her own car, gag me. She does what? Pays bills on time? That’s too independent, give me a girl who can’t control her finances enough to pay a monthly bill, that’s the kind of girl I want. Like I can’t keep track of my bills!? Pa-leaze, I caught on to that quicker than I did tracking my period. …That was a very independent woman statement wasn’t it? Damit.

I mean all the things that I do are normal adult activities. I try to have confidence, or at least to put on the façade of having confidence because I’m told it’s all about confidence. I try to look nice to impress people – all this past week I worked on not being me so that maybe I could have a chance at not dying alone. Unfortunately I may have been cementing my propensity to be independent. Damn myself. I can change my looks; I can work on changing my personality, but my independence? I never even saw that as a threat, it snuck up from behind me, that stealthy little devil.

It upsets me because I don’t foresee overcoming this handicap, they don’t have support groups for people perceived as independent because independence is like a nirvana for many people in this world. They don’t have sessions where you can learn techniques to lower your level of independence, which is probably why I can’t think of anything I can do to fix this growing problem. I can’t Google, “How to become less independent”. Well, I can but all I get are articles on how a man fell in love with a female assassin and a 16 year old asking how to become more independent. See…there it is again, that bias against independent people. Where’s their support, I mean, our support? I’d almost rather that he told me I was fat, it would hurt and it may be difficult, but eventually I can fix that. But who knows, maybe “independence” is really just a menial cop out….as it should be.