Friday March 29th, 2024
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Fuck You… Please

Our resident BITCH has long-held a shameful secret. She is, at heart, terribly polite. In this week’s installment of her chronic issues, Sally Sampson explains why she’s only just learning to tell people to fuck off... please.

Staff Writer

You often hear mothers screeching, hissing, imploring, threatening and coaxing their children with one particular phrase. We all have memories of our own mothers and fathers running around after us as children, doing everything they could to get it to take root in our minds and eventually form the basis of our characters.

You know what I’m talking about. If you listen now, you can hear millions of parents speaking it in unison all over the world:

‘Say Please!’

My own mother used to go to any lengths to get us to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to every living and non-living thing in our immediate surroundings.  She would instruct us once in an amiable tone of voice and if, for some insane reason, we decided to defy her (like we’d been playing on the swings, had hit our heads and had gotten concussion as a result), my mother would give us what I like to call the STARE!

No superhero in the world can be in the presence of the STARE and not buckle. Even Superman’s knees would knock together if faced with the laser-beam intensity of my mother’s unblinking eyes and ruffled eyebrows. And while the STARE alone is something to be reckoned with, when coupled with the SCOWL, you need to run for your life!

Despite the fact that my mother’s superpowers were predominately effective in making our internal organs turn to mush in less than five seconds, they did get the job done! I always dreamt that if social services showed up at our door as a kid, I would run to them and quickly tell them about the STARE and SCOWL abuse we’d been subjected to for so many years. That was, of course, until I realised my mother would probably just have turned her powers on them and they’d have been as helpless as we were.

Social Worker: Did you know that section B, paragraph 7 of the penal code prohibits the use of the aforementioned STARE and SCOWL method in the presence of minors? We’re here to take away your children, as a result of the unfit environment you’ve been raising them in!

Mother:  “SAY PLEASE!!!!!”

Social Worker: Ma’am, do you realise the seriousness of the situation at hand?

Mother: * STARE AND SCOWL*

*Social worker leaves crying*

End Scene.

And while I’m behind being polite 101%, I think somewhere along the way, with the extreme measures taken by our environments to ensure we grow up well-mannered and courteous to one another, something goes wrong. It’s hard to pinpoinexactly where things go wrong, but I just know that they do. And that ‘something’ went wrong with me as well!

Whilst this may ruin my reputation as the hard-core BITCH you’ve always known me to be, I’m going to let you in on my issue anyway, because I’m not used to withholding anything, particularly with the undiagnosed verbal diarrhoea that I suffer from.

Here a-goes:

I have a hard time saying ‘NO’!  Particularly to the people I really need to be saying ‘no’ to the most.  

You know what I mean?

The people that never call unless they want something from you.  The ones that make you do all the work and then take all the credit for it. The people who manipulate you and use your emotions against you so they can get what they want.  Those bastards you’re always there for even though you’re not completely sure they even know you exist! The people who end every text with ‘Thanks a lot babe for being such a friend. Couldn’t have done this without you. Would love to see you sometime in the future. Lots of love! x’.

Those fucking people!!!

And I can’t really blame those people, because I’m the fucking dumbass that keeps on complying every-time they bat their fucking eyelashes and say ‘please’, with a half-assed unconvincing smile that would have even Kristen Stewart calling them bad actors. Some don’t even speak to me face-to-face… like EVER. They just call me on the phone. And I scurry along like a good little girl and do whatever it is they need doing, because, I tell myself, I’m a good person and as long as my heart is in the right place, that’s what matters. Basically, I’m full of shit and even though, I’m always going on about how I don’t give a crap about how people perceive me, I still want people to like me… EVEN if I don’t like them! Don’t worry, it’s not just you! My therapist is still trying to work this one out as well!

There are many indeterminate and vague reasons for this, but I do believe that one of the obvious and integral causes behind the root of the issue lies in the word ‘please’. To please by definition means to act or to cater to the pleasure or satisfaction of someone. And throughout our lives, we are not just ordered to say ‘please’; we are also taught that it is vital to be ‘pleasant’! I guess it’s no surprise that the root of the word ‘pleasant’ is the verb ‘to please’ as well or more specifically, it comes from the French verb plaisir. And the word ‘pleasant’, of course, means to be socially-acceptable and friendly. So as children, before we know it or are old enough to understand the conditioning process that we’ve been subjected to, our every natural instinct to be loved, desired and accepted becomes tangled up with an overbearing need to please. i.e. We have an acute longing to satisfy and to cater to the needs of everyone around us because that’s what we think is going to get people to like us.

 

At a young age, we are NOT taught to DISTINGUISH what kind of people we should focus our attentions on or invest our time in.  And in all fairness, you can’t teach that to a two year-old or an eight year-old or even a 15 year-old! That’s something that life teaches you overtime. However, we can teach our children that being liked is not the most important thing in the world and make it clear to them, from the beginning, that not everyone is going to like them, so they need to just be true to themselves and do what they know to be right! It is easier said than done, I know, and I’m still learning the lesson myself, as you can tell!

A couple of years ago, I went to a female empowerment workshop held by one of my favourite people in the world: writer, actress, activist and humanitarian, Eve Ensler (author of the Vagina Monologues) and this issue of pleasing was tackled there as well! There was a whole segment in the workshop that just dealt with how women and girls, in particular, at a very young age, are indoctrinated with this overwhelming need to change, adapt, compromise and dull themselves in order to please those around them. And that’s because we don’t want to appear threatening or unlikeable or BITCHY! I was in a room full of women and girls all of whom were bound by compulsive urges to be likeable, but like me, were trying to break free of the chains that were preventing us from standing up for ourselves and daring to have a voice… even if it meant not being popular.

I’ve come really far in that respect and since that workshop, I am far more aware of when, why and for whom it is that I lie down and become a floor mat. But yes, I am the first one to admit that I’ve still got a long way to go! I’m still learning that I don’t need to use my softer, higher and ultimately less threatening vocal register when talking to certain people just because I’m afraid of provoking them. I’m still learning that I don’t need to smile like Spielberg is filming when people have just been rude to me.  I’m still practicing that when someone, I know for a fact, doesn’t give two shits about me calls up and wants me to do something for them, that it’s okay that I say ‘no’ to what they’re asking me to do without having to make excuses or be all apologetic about it.

And one day I’ll get there. One day, I know, I’m going to get that phone-call from that person who treats me and my emotions like we’re a drive-through brothel and I’m going to muster up my courage, acknowledge that I don’t really give a crap what they think about me, take in a deep breath and say:

“No! That doesn’t work for me. Now go fuck yourself….PLEASE!”