The One

I was introduced to another side of a co-worker today. Brenda is a highly religious, righteous, law-abiding citizen: as am I. Up until this point in time, Brenda and I have had a fantastic working relationship. But tonight…oh tonight…

Her, Ali, and I were sitting around, just talking while the clients were getting ready for bed, and Ali began speaking of some movies that he had purchased that he had yet to watch. We asked him why he had so many movies that he hadn’t seen yet. He said he had bought a large quantity from a store that had gone out of business, and now he was getting a relatively steady stream of bootleg copies from a guy he knows.

“Ah, ah, ahh!” Brenda shook her finger at Ali and told him that that was illegal. Ali, of course, looked at her like she was crazy and conceded with a “yeah” and continued what he was saying about the movies. He and I began speaking on bootleg movie quality (the big-headed S.O.B. that always wants to stand up and walk around in the middle of a movie, namely) and Brenda couldn’t resist chiming in to tell us that this was a sign that we were doing something wrong and if it weren’t illegal, we would get a better quality movie. Ali and I both sighed to show that we both realized that we had to have this conversation some other time, or Brenda wasn’t going to stop.

Note that this was merely the most distinctive of a day filled with little quips and reminders about the rights and wrongs of the world. From the moment I set foot within earshot of Brenda, to the second I bolted for my car to be away from her, she was a judgment powerhouse.

Here’s the twist. Through self-analysis, and the comments of some of those near and dear to me, I think I may be a Brenda for some people. I don’t feel compelled to say something every time I find out about something “wrong” that someone has done, but I do bring to their attention possible solutions to their problems and thoughts that I have on options that may give them some relief. Somehow, this gets construed as being a Brenda. I’m still not sure how this works, and it’s been going on for a while, so I have been tracking it for some time. The scenario usually goes as follows:

Dana comes up to me and says that his girlfriend just dumped him. Mind you, this is the fifth girl to dump Dana in the past three years. I think to myself, ‘That’s not a good statistic, what could the problem be?’ I think back and realize that all the girls he has gone out with are rail-thin, Latina, and love hanging out in bars. So, I offer Dana the solution of going out with curvaceous, non-Latina women who he finds in libraries or at sporting events.

“Of course!” Dana exclaims. “The women I want don’t want me, so I’ll go for some different women! Thank you!”
Three months later his heart has been fricasseed again. He tells me about the size 1 named Marita Gonzales that he met at Cheers that said she didn’t want to see him again.

I say, “Dana, remember us having the conversation about going after different kinds of women since the kinds of women you are immediately attracted to don’t like you?”

He replies, “What? Well, I mean that is a good idea but…she was ‘different’…”

And so I give up, the friend continues getting into the same situations that they claim to hate, but, in the end, I am the moral Nazi that people hide things from. Go figure.

I understand that sometimes people just want to be listened to, you know, get some things off their chest. My issue is, if you ask me for a solution, why not at least attempt to implement what we’ve worked on? 90% of the time, I don’t merely tell people what to do, we work on a solution together. I’ll make a suggestion, they’ll point out a problem or potential obstacle, and we’ll rework the solution in order to make it better adapted to the friend’s lifestyle. So this is a resolution that I merely helped you come up with.

I can understand having a problem with authority to the point at which you refuse to take people’s suggestions, but to refuse an option you came up with, that was tailored to your life, by you, overseen by an M.S.S.W. candidate is a little difficult to swallow.

Maybe I’m being too simplistic. Maybe there’s something I’m just missing. I guess I’ll just figure it out at you go along.


[P.S. – I ASKED ONE OF MY ‘NEAR AND DEAR’S IF THIS ACCOUNT OF MYSELF SOUNDED ACCURATE, AND THEY AGREED. ]