I hate it when somebody, especially a male somebody, calls me sweetheart. I hate it when a male somebody, especially a male somebody in a position of authority, a male somebody who I can't stand up to because it's not in my best interest, calls me sweetheart when all I really want to say back to his term of non-endearment is "Don't ever fucking call me sweetheart you asshole." Instead I say nothing, because I know that retorting, making some silly, snide comment, a task that I'm good at, would surely hurt me, and although it wouldn't physically hurt me, it could hurt me financially. But the term sweetheart is degrading, and it's insincere and it's obnoxious. Still it's something that us "sweethearts" deal with on a semi-regular basis. In the state of California that would be sexual harrassment, at least according to my friend L. but here in New York, where it would also be considered sexual harrassment, I'm not going to do anything more about it because, without saying more, I just can't.
And yes, that gets my panties in a bunch.
And then I come home to a very nice holiday card from my grandmother - a woman who has known me all 31 years of my life - and she spells my name wrong not only on the envelope, but on the card, and on the small, but sweet check that she's written for me. How can she, after knowing me her whole life, spell my name Jayme, and not Jamye? I was born with the awkward spelling, it should be the only spelling she knows. And I'm upset, because not only did a male call me sweetheart, but my grandmother can't even spell my name right.
And then, in the nicest gesture yet, she also mailed an identical check to Jonny (the boyfriend) but because we grew up with different religious backgrounds, she decides to point this out in the memo line of each check. While I get a Happy Hanukkah (she can spell that correctly), he gets a Merry Xmas, and I feel as if she's trying to tell me that there's something different about us, and that she knows it's because he's not Jewish..but I'm not all that practicing myself, so why does it matter anyway? Or maybe I'm just reading into things, after all, I haven't been the same since I was called sweetheart by some male authority figure this afternoon.
Posted by jamye at December 19, 2021 08:55 PM