June 29, 2006

• Accusation

  So at work, I’ve developed a few reputations. One of them is that I’ll
  do anything on a dare. It started with freeze dried bloodworms. They’re
  bland, and they give you cottonmouth. Dog biscuits – they taste like
  diet, sugar-free human cookies. Swallow a goldfish whole – don’t chew
  it, because it’s nasty, but it’s ok if you just take a big gulp and
  swallow it whole. They call me Brave because I’ll put my hand in a cage
  of toads, lizards, or snakes. Ironically, it’s the “cute” animals that
  bite worse.

  The second thing is that I’m smart. I can rattle off more scientific
  names of plants than Hollywood stars. I can explain the differences
  between South American cichlid water chemistry and Tanganyikan Lake
  chemistry. I can look at a schematic for building something and
  actually build it.

  And the third thing is that I’m a bit of a prude. Yeah, I know. Me!
  People stop telling dirty jokes mid sentence if they see me walking
  their way. I can tell there’s a difference between how the boys talk to
  me versus how they talk to the other girls or each other. And they ask
  pardon if they cuss or say something Freudian. It’s…. flattering. And
  I would say that it’s smart of them.

  Because nowadays, the slightest slip of sentiment can be miscontrued as
  Sexual Harrassment. Trust me, I’ve seen it in play. It switches the
  dynamic of power from the men of the workplace to the women. Because it
  is very, very hard to disprove.

  So I’ll tell you now that we lost some people because of Scandals and
  Accusations. People lie, and you can never tell what the absolute truth
  is unless you yourself were involved, witnessed, acted. And then again,
  there is the truth of someone who sees it from their subjective point
  of view. And workplace romances are doomed to suffer, smother under a
  blanket of stealths, allusions, secrets. And the passion that longs for
  the air of revelation burns itself out, or else feeds on gossip and
  gasps of those who wonder, who envy, who suspect. Something that could
  have been beautiful elsewhere gets twisted in this forge and in the
  instances I’ve seen, have led to accusations.

  Which is why I keep my distance. I let them call me prudish, reserved,
  conservative. I walk away if names and actions start to connect because
  I don’t want to know. I have been in the middle before, and it is
  terrifying for the naive and optimistic to see the horrific side of
  people’s petty selfishness and angst, and the means with which they
  achieve their awful goals.

  • 2:41 pm
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