cramps

My cramps are better and worse now that I have the copper IUD.  Better in that I don't seem to need as much Ibuprofen as I did before.  Worse in that the pain is different, deeper, more cervical than uterine, a bruise held fast by a pin, a clamp on my Fallopian tubes, a nauseating ache that spreads to my ribs.  My new GYN suggested that I get the hormonal IUD instead but based on past experience I am terrified of progestin which sent my depression into a tailspin.

The insertion was terrible.  It went smoothly but the pain was bad.  They said it would be.  It's strange being a woman and realizing that half the population has no idea how it feels once a year or every other year to fit your heels into hard plastic stirrups and spread your legs awkwardly into the position you were trained never to assume since girlhood, hitch your pelvis to the farthest edge of the exam table and lie back on crinkly wax paper with a giant napkin draped over your lap and watch over the slope of white paper between your knees the foreheads and hairlines of strangers who are fishing around in your body.  The napkin makes all the difference.  You can crack jokes and they can laugh and banter back and it's all safe and removed because of the napkin, like they are in another room and it's not your genitals they're looking at, prodding, scraping, while they talk to you, like you are the woman sawn in half on a stage and your bottom half is entirely separate from your top.  In your head you're wondering who signs up for this as a career and hoping you washed well enough and worrying that your labia look weird but knowing you'll never have the courage to ask, while outside you're complaining about the weather.

Getting the IUD hurt.  Having never been pregnant I'd never had much of a reason to think about my cervix but forcing it open to get the little plastic T in was painful.  I felt like I'd been skewered with a hatpin and then punched with cramps.  I sipped air slowly while tears leaked out the corners of my eyes and my hands ached from clenching them hard against the wax paper and the GYN and her assistant told me how well I was doing.

A month later I went back.  Something was wrong.  I don't remember what it was -- some sign you were supposed to watch out for in the first six weeks after insertion.  What I remember is after the exam.  I had gotten dressed and was sitting in the chair next to the door waiting for the GYN to come back.  I was tired.  My relationship was falling apart.  My new job was stressful.  And then the office assistant came in to talk to me.

My white blood cell count was high. It was maybe an infection from the insertion but they wanted to run tests for chlamydia and gonorrhea.  I started to cry.  For a long time I had suspected that my boyfriend was cheating on me.

When the tests came back negative I was almost disappointed.  It would have been simpler if they hadn't.  I was miserable in the relationship but I didn't want that to be the reason I broke up with him.

In the end it was the reason I broke up with him.  Unhappiness is reason enough.  Now he and the infection are both gone, and my cramps are better and worse.

Dear Men on Online Dating Sites

In the course of the last few weeks trying to get to know some of you, I have come to realize that perhaps boys and girls attended different Dating 101 courses.  Either that or a bunch of you are mystifyingly stupid.  So I thought, for courtesy's sake, I would bring you up to speed on some misinformation you appear to labor under.  Because I am frustrated and annoyed, I am not bothering to be polite, because you should know better.  Like honestly.

How to Earn My Resounding Silence

1.  Comment on my physical appearance.

Please, go ahead.  Say anything about the one profile picture I posted.  Say "Hey beautiful" -- that'll hit me right in the naughty bits, because all I care about is how I look; it'll also hit me in the brain, because it's so winningly clever and definitely displays your interest in me as a person, with my own thoughts and feelings and agency, and not as an object you're trying to talk out of her pants.  Say "nice hot" because without your approval I am lost.  Say "cute pic!" because I am a child and you are a child and in a kingdom by the sea children who love with a love that is more than love say "cute."  Say "you make me wish I was 30 again" especially if you're in your fucking 60s because damn that makes me feel so valued and not at all grossed out.  Say "why don't you have more pictures posted?" because I am a couch that someone is attempting to sell on Craigslist.

By all means, continue to demonstrate that you don't see me as a human being, just a sex dispenser for you to stick your dick into if you do your coding right.  Show me that the most important facet of me, to you, is the package I come wrapped in.  That helps me immediately dismiss your value as a human being to me, and move on with my day.

2.  Make your first message a lengthy dating resume.

I don't give a shit that you like long walks on the beach, or that you say you're caring, supportive, and funny.  I could say that I poop in rainbow colors and can fly on the first night of the full moon and it doesn't mean jack shit if I can't back it up with evidence, which comes through knowing someone, which comes over time.  Also, you're not applying for a job.  And even if you were, only shitty resumes say "responsible forward-thinking self-starter" and just leave it at that.  "Oh, you say you're responsible?  YOU'RE HIRED."  No.  Prove it, asshole.

I dunno, maybe instead of throwing all your credentials at me you could try something crazy like just talking to me.  Feeling like an HR exec shuffling through a thousand shitty resumes does not put me in a lovin' mood.  Or even a chattin' mood.  Jesus.  Fuck off.

3.  Assume that because I responded to you once we are now boyfriend and girlfriend.

If mentioned that I made meatballs last week and your response is "ME TOO I LOVE MEATBALLS OMIGOD WE SHOULD DO A SPAGHETTI COOKOFF WE ARE CLEARLY MADE FOR EACH OTHER AND ALSO I HAVE FREQUENT FLYER MILES" I will quietly and casually run like fuck in the other direction.  Do I really need to explain this?  Dude.  Cool your fucking jets.  I think maybe you're planning our wedding and naming our children and we haven't even met face to face yet.  Has there been some dramatic gender role reversal in the last ten years?  I feel world-weary.  I also feel like setting my phone on fire.

4.  Push me to meet you in person immediately.

Because that always ends well and doesn't look in the least creepy, desperate or suspicious.  No, I'm not grabbing a coffee/sleeping with you.  If it isn't promising over online chat that we'll get along, rushing onto the IRL meeting isn't going to help.  Also makes me wonder what you're after.  Back off.

5.  If you don't hear from me for two days, send me whiny-ass messages about it.

This takes the cake.  From the age of about zero I have absorbed the cardinal first rule of dating: DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES APPEAR NEEDY.  Like, that's pretty much it.  Don't look needy.  Now granted, this can be a misogynistic-as-fuck way to dick a woman over with impunity, but if you have no reason to expect anything from another human being, then, I dunno, don't expect anything from them.  You're on an online dating app.  We've never met.  We've had one mediocre conversation.  Maybe two.  A 48-hour window of silence on my part is not a reasonable time frame to start sending me messages that say "I don't get it. :( What did I do" or "Did you change your mind?" or "Why aren't you talking to me?" or "Don't you like me anymore?"  Well, I don't NOW.

God.  You would never survive as women.  How do you know why I haven't responded?  Maybe a parent died.  Maybe work has been crazy.  Maybe I'm just tired.  Maybe it's not *gasp* about you at all.  Although, now that you've insisted on making it about you...

...Consider that maybe, just a thought here, you might not want to appear really fucking self-absorbed and entitled.  "Hey, haven't heard from you for a couple of days, how's it going?  Here's a funny story from my day" is WAY more appealing than "wahhhhhh where did you gooooo I'm lonely and desperate please validate me I'm such a great guy."  (I have a great skeptical-disgusted face that goes really well here.)

I'm frankly just shocked that this isn't common sense.  I can't even tell you how many of these kinds of messages I get.  Oh, my god, I don't owe you anything at this point, and you don't owe me anything, and if you don't hear from me for an extended period of time, send a casual follow-up, and if there's nothing after that, cut your fucking losses (since they're not even losses, because, again, WE ARE STRANGERS) and move on.  Be a goddamn adult.

Or not.  I mean, if you want to show me your wet-diaper self, you go right ahead, that makes my choices narrower, but simple.


So, in short: Behave like the stereotype of every person another person wouldn't want to be with, and you will succeed excellently in never hearing back from me.  A lot of you are off to a great start so far.

God, dating is the worst.