Defending Her Honour

I have this friend.  She and I hung out a lot in 2006-07.  She’s kind of intimidating, as far as girls go.  She’s probably intimidating as far as most guys go too.  I like her because she’s quite a bit different from me on the surface and really interesting.  She curses up a storm (I don’t, at least not out loud), she drinks heavily (I don’t), she chain smokes (I don’t), she spits in public (I think that’s kinda tacky, especially when women do it.  I think it’s kind of gross when guys do it too, but I’m a bit more apt to give them a pass on it. Yeah, judge me), she is really into guns (I’m not).  She’s really into sci fi and fantasy too (I’m not).  We do share similar views on politics, religion, and ethics.  On most other topics, though, we’re very different.  And we have very, very different taste in men.  This is actually good, even when one of us is already married.  When we went out, she tended to want to go to bars (remember that drinking habit), so I spent several nights out at bars with her.  We never thought the same guy was attractive.  Not that I was looking since I was married, but despite wearing a wedding ring, guys will attempt to pick you up in a bar.  It’s one of those givens in life.  I tended to get approached by the clean cut type; she got approached by the ones that, well, had 100 tattoos or were too high on my personal skeevy scale. 

Again, my friend is a little more than rough around the edges.  There must be a type of guy who likes a girl who spits, drinks in excess, plays World of Warcraft, chain smokes, and cannot say one sentence without swearing.  I can’t see an average guy’s mom being too happy if he brought my friend home to meet them.  For instance, if my husband brought home someone like that, my parents-in-law would be horrified.  Absolutely horrified.  I’m a bit too much for them as it is – you know, how I don’t know my subservient place and all.  They have a hard time dealing with the facts that I don’t shop for shoes and clothes all the time, that I do the finances, that I’m not moving across the country so my husband can get a very small pay raise, that I don’t cook dinner for my husband every night, and that I don’t want to have twelve kids.  My friend would really, really put them over the edge. 

Even though I like her, I find her intimidating.  She's kind of crass.  There are those friends that you can tell the truth to in a completely honest way.  Then there are those friends who you kind of have to dance around the truth a bit.  Then there’s her, who I was afraid would kick my ass even if I danced around the truth.  Since I’ve never felt completely comfortable around her, I wouldn’t call her a great friend.  Now that I’m a mother, I don’t really foresee us spending a lot of time together because I’m not that jazzed about my child being around swearing and smoking.  And I’m really not interested in the bar scene anymore. 

So we’ve kind of distanced ourselves from each other; however, we’ve remained friends through Facebook.  I like to see what’s going on with her.  She’s at her same job, still working on her master’s degree, and she’s dating someone.  I think it’s been about a year and a half now that she’s been seeing him, and they moved in together about 6 months ago.  Even through FB, she’s still intimidating.  There’s a lot of angry undercurrent and plain anger from her.  Of all my FB friends, I find her the most intimidating and not really sure what to say/how to respond/what tone to take.  So I usually don’t say much when she posts anything.  I do like posting comments to what people say ordinarily and even trying to make them laugh, but with her I’m just not really sure where things will go and she'll tell me to go to hell.  So if I do say anything to her, it’s generic things like “Yep!  Me too,” and “That sucks.”  Just enough to not be thought of as a creepy lurker who never comments on her stuff, but nothing substantial enough to ever get my ass kicked.  :)  

So today she posted something about how she wished people would smile at her work.  I think nothing of it, la dee dah, then about an hour later she posts this rant about if people start conversations with other people on other people’s statuses, she’s not going to defend them.  Hmmm?  So then I go back to see what caused the controversy because, yes, I freaking love controversy.  Especially when I’m not involved. 

What had happened is that a guy responded to her status saying that if she took off her shirt, she’d probably see a lot more people smiling.  Then my friend’s boyfriend just laid into him, swearing and calling him all sorts of things in 2 separate responses.  Then the guy who initially commented said for the boyfriend to take it easy, he was sorry and just trying to be funny.  And then it got even weirder when the boyfriend didn't back off and continued on his rant saying he would beat him up for hurting his girlfriend’s feelings (which implies that she sent in her boyfriend to do the tough guy thing).  My friend didn’t say one thing during this whole FB conversation between the two guys except when she posted her next status about not defending other people who provoke conversations. 

I thought the whole thing was odd.  Maybe it’s a gender thing, but I might (depending on the mood I’m in) say that to someone in a joking way.  Of course, I’m a girl and might be able to get away with saying that to another girl just on the gender card.  It just doesn’t seem what the guy’s comment was that bad, from my perspective.  And I've seen this girl in action; she can put people in their place.  If someone said that to me in a comment, I would have laughed it off and made a sarcastic comment back like “You wish  :)”.  I dunno, maybe I don't get all hypersensitive.  I do tend to dish it out, but I think I can take it right back, at least most of the time.  And never would my husband bounce in and threaten to kick the guy’s ass.  Of course, there could be history with this situation and a lot more context there that I don’t have. 

But of all of my FB friends, she is the one person who I thought who would be the least likely to send in her boyfriend to do her dirty work.  If she was truly offended, why couldn’t she have just said “not funny”? Based on how the guy responded when the boyfriend pounced on him (the “I’m sorry, I was just joking” response), he probably would have immediately apologized and said it was his lame attempt at a joke.  Done, problem solved.  But noooooo….we’re up to 30 some comments on two different statuses, upset boyfriend defending her honour (I like the British spelling, so there!) while she huddles in a corner.   I dunno, I just find it odd that 1) she got sooooo offended by the comment based on what I know of her and 2) she chose to go that route.  Maybe she’s just the type who likes all that testosterone fighting over her.  Or, again, there might be some context that I don’t know about. 

Just thought the whole thing was odd and overblown.