Hello.
A brief table of contents this week:
Intro
Essay: Boundary Setting and Releasing
10 Things to Fill You Up
I hope you all are enjoying your Sunday. Thanks so much to those who DMed me to say they enjoyed the podcast. It meant so much since it’s a new avenue for me and one in which I was prettyyy vulnerable. Ha, what’s new, right?
Let’s get into it.
Boundary Setting and Releasing
As I write this, I am sitting at a coffee shop parklet. For the first four minutes I was the sole occupant of a picnic table, staring down the barrel of two hours of parking, two hours of blissfully uninterrupted newsletter-writing. Then, horror of all horrors, a 50ish-year-old man wearing a tech vest, bad jeans and try-hard sunglasses descended upon my table. “Mind if I scoot in here?” Though I would have good reason to say no (covid), and though I could tell he was the needy, chatty type (in line, he’d ensnared someone in a lengthy conversation about their dog’s breed), I found myself saying “sure...”
I scooted, bowed my head toward my laptop, and got my headphones out just in time for him to say, “Is this normal weather for this city?” Within minutes I’d learned he owns a cannabis business, leads focus groups, has a brain “like a computer,” has had just three girlfriends in 25 years (congrats?) and, worst of all, that he “interviews” women before getting into a relationship with them. There was also a question as to whether I’d learned anything about myself during lockdown, which was just a ruse for him to go on about his new cooking hobby. He shared every ingredient of his favorite protein waffles and accompanying “healthy pudding.” Terrible. All terrible.
During the whole conversation, if you can call it that, I took many uncomfortable sips of coffee and managed to mention the deadline I was working toward. Polite smiles notwithstanding, it would be clear to anyone attuned to social cues that I was not interested in carrying on. A laptop is an indication of concentration, a form of armor, and it’s ballsy if not fully bizarre to bulldoze through it.
Just the other day I found myself humoring another bothersome character. In his defense, he was a child. I was nannying for my 1-year-old niece when the neighbor boy came by to drop off some flowers he’d picked for my 5-year-old nephew. Adorable, right? He threw them on the porch stairs as he exclaimed that my nephew was his best friend, which, okay, is legitimately adorable. So I kept chatting with him about dinosaurs. But really, I needed to get my niece started on lunch. I told him as much, said goodbye and headed inside.
Throughout the meal he took to rapping on the front door and hucking camellias at the porch, an ironically aggressive approach to thoughtfulness. Luckily, my brother-in-law was there to pop his head out to say we were having lunch and my nephew would play with him another day. Poof. That easy.
Telling people how to act and specifically, drawing boundaries with strangers, is a flavor of confrontation I care not for. It so rarely happens in the adult world that it always comes as a shock to me, and therefore I don’t get much practice at it. So, I freeze. I go along. I hope for it to be over soon.
I do not like this about myself. It seems like a weakness of character. Beyond that, it makes me feel duplicitous that my actions (smiling, being outwardly “nice”) fall out of sync with my feelings (dying inside). This falsity fills me with self-loathing, even though they’re the ones acting a fool.
To complicate matters, this week my partner and I discussed how I could stand to be a little more open to the social nature of his work. He works for a whiskey brand and knows just about everyone at every bar and restaurant. When we’re out and about, there is inevitably someone who approaches us to talk shop or just talk life.
It’s one of the few times our respective yin and yangs conflict – he, the extrovert, is always down for a chat, and I, the introvert, do not love small talk. Sometimes I try to be game and stay engaged. Other times I find myself floating away, confused as to who this person is and why we have to talk to them for so long. He usually lets me be me, but this week he pointed out that my reticence sometimes comes across. Gah, you mean they can see me?? I’ve been found out.
So, it would seem that the way I manage my barriers needs work: building them to be sturdier when it comes to suffering fools (or at the very least, pointing to the barrier’s existence), and dismantling them when it comes to folks who deserve to be let through. It helps to know that I’m not the only one who struggles with these life-long behavioral hacks. I’m also trying to give myself a break and be aware of the external reasons I might struggle with boundaries – women famously deal with an internalized pressure to be accommodating, and all genders can struggle with fear of not belonging.
It’s also tough to know just when to accept yourself for your own shy nature, and when to push through and challenge yourself to grow. When it comes to the latter, I certainly see the benefit of stretching beyond your comfort zone. It’s the more evolved approach, if foreign and momentarily excruciating.
What a simple, yet difficult challenge – to speak your truth and communicate when something isn’t working for you and, conversely, in the right scenario, open yourself up to being seen.
10 Things to Fill You Up
Sara Li’s recent op-ed for Teen Vogue: “In the Atlanta Shooting, We Can’t Ignore the Link Between Racism and Classism.” The news this week has been heavy and heartbreaking, and Li responds with an analysis of the long standing societal myths surrounding Asians in America. She shows the very real danger of respectability politics – that “the difference between who is respected and who isn’t could be the difference between life and death.”
“The Bachelor Season Finale Recap: The Bitter End,” by Ali Barthwell for Vulture. This was a historic season of The Bachelor, as the show featured its first Black bachelor. “They tried, y’all,” Barthwell writes of the franchise, which, *surprise* –proved to still be racist in many ways.
It’s an odd feeling watching a show you know is problematic and watching it anyway. Barthwell gets that. She’s one of the funniest writers out there, and she’s great at balancing being legitimately invested in the storylines with not taking the series too seriously. I love the way she shines a light on the show’s micro-moments as if to say, “Wait, what?? Did y’all see that?” I was glad to have her shepherd us through this clusterfuck of a season.
Oh, and her p.o.v. on the downfall of Chris Harrison gave me life:
“I think the biggest and clearest lesson is: Chris Harrison is utterly useless. This sentient quarter-zip cotton-blend sweater completely lacks the aptitude and enthusiasm to effectively host this television program in this moment. How have we been bamboozled so deeply by a man who thinks that furrowing his brow and pursing his lips is a substitute for showing emotion and giving advice?”
“My Parents Got Sick. It Changed How I Thought About My Marriage,” a brilliant piece by Mary H.K. Choi for GQ that unflinchingly looks at the ugly-beauty dichotomy of intimacy.
She breaks down the pandemic’s annihilation of at-home sexiness with a comparison of good naked vs. bad naked:
“Sheltering in place is bad naked. It is deeply and intensely unsexy watching your romantic interest cope. The constant exposure to less-than-telegenic micro-expressions. An intolerable aspect of yourself clocked in your spouse. The sweatpants. A cozy but misshapen ‘housecoat.’ …Whatever it is, after a while, you just don't want to fuck it.”
Girls Night In’s “How to Set a Reading Goal and Stick to It This Time,” a thorough breakdown of what it takes to become that idealized version of yourself that reads a book a week.
The return of slouch socks, and in particular this lavender pair from Bona Drag.
Bullseye with Jesse Thorn’s E-40 interview, a replay from 2019. Though he was one of my favorite rappers growing up, I found I knew very little about his story. This was a fun interview that celebrated his influence and, of course, his linguistic prowess and playful take on slang.
“Britney Spears Was Never in Control,” a piece by Tavi Gevinson for The Cut that blew my brain wide open. Beyond Britney, she dissects the power dynamics in relationships between older men and younger women, plus: sexuality, privilege and control. It was a lot, and I loved it. I have more to say, but for now, I’m saying it to my therapist. :)
I also really enjoyed Haley Nahman’s podcast episode, “Beyond the Gray Area,” wherein she and a couple other editors discussed the essay’s ideas.
The itch to travel, an impulse I’m feeling more and more these days, thanks to the spring weather and this Mexico City mural coming across my feed.
The feeling you get when the right Zoom gathering manages to give you the same feels as an IRL hang. The other day, I joined a virtual meet up on Patreon for supporters of Strangers, a podcast I’ve been listening to for nine years. Hosted by Lea Thau, Strangers is unique in that it’s become more of a community than a one-sided broadcast, truly living out its tagline, “Strangers no more.”
I joined the call just planning to listen but ended up talking about myself a bit as well as learning about the lives and struggles of others. I even made a connection with someone I had a lot in common with. She lives in Toronto. Hi Sophie! (Ha, she now subscribes to this newsletter).
My recent story for The Sacramento Bee about how analog hobbies are reconnecting us to ourselves amid pandemic isolation.
Extra Thing: I’m going on a trip to Tahoe this coming week! I can’t wait to be somewhere that is not my house. We’re staying at the very stylish Coachman Hotel. Maybe I’ll share some film photos like I did for our trip to Big Sur.
My friend and I were reminiscing about how we stopped by the hotel for a meal a few years ago and how, by the looks of how many photos we took there, it looks like we stayed for two weeks! Oh, the things we do for the gram…
Thank you so much for reading. Have a great week!
Vanessa
Love that your reflections on boundaries were grounded both in your personal experiences and feelings, and in the larger context of the pressures of being “nice” and wanting to belong. Super relatable, and thought-provoking, as always!