And I'm a lioness when it comes to you
If they say a word, it'll be the last mistake they get a chance to make.
-- Forgetters; Too Small to Fail
One of the things I have a problem with is being overprotective of my friends.
Not in the parental "Don't do that! It's not safe!" type way, but in the way that inclines one, immediately, to remove the fucking face of anyone who hurts or messes with their friends. Even when it is completely unasked for and said friend, arguably, does not need protecting.
Is it a bad trait?
My inclination is to say that it is. The polite me says that advocacy is listening to what a person has explicitly stated needing, and then moving toward that goal. To do otherwise is to lack boundaries, meet fire with fire, to - perhaps- be a brute.
I get away with it more because of looking like a thin white lady. I always have. When a guy in high school sent a girl friend of his to beat me up, I pushed past her to go at him. When a girl in middle school was picking on a friend of mine that was half her size (and still taller than me…), I stole my brother’s rings, wrapped masking tape around the base of them so that they would fit on my fingers, and walked directly up to her with my ringed fist hidden behind my back and told her to pick on someone her own fucking size. (It was such a corny thing to say. I had obviously gotten it from some after school television special. It did, however, work.) When I got into a fight in elementary school with some girl who was being a jerk, we grabbed each other’s forearms and dug our nails into each other. Then I kneed her in the box and she went down. Game over.
As I moved into adulthood, I recognized the legality of such an approach and moved my crosshairs elsewhere. It didn’t take much, really. I hung out with 99% men and apprenticed by watching their covert-yet-scary-as-shit threats of sliding into a person’s car when they weren’t there, cutting their seat belts, and leaving. I know that women get a bad rap of being cunning and malicious, but I will tell you first hand that you know nothing of the inner world of men like I do. The only difference, anecdotally, is that they don’t tend to talk about it.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve gotten all four of my tires slashed at once before. I’ve had people put up fliers with a list of names of people who should kill themselves (My name was on it. What can I say? We were organizing something women-centered on the cusp of the 2000s. What did you think was going to happen?) If I deserved it seems debatable, but I would never play entirely innocent. I know what I’ve been up to.
But is it a bad trait?
Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes when I’m here, sitting in the proverbial penalty box with a proverbial split lip, I’d say it’s worth it. Sometimes I overstep, and that is obviously not cool. So I sit in the penalty box and wipe my lip with the back of my hand: In part to rid the blood; in part to hide the smirk of satisfaction in knowing that that motherfucker will not mess with my friend again.
Be well; be loved,
k.
(image: Colin Farrell on the set of Alexander in 2004)
