Springer Home Cinema

Copied from notebook, Tuesday, October 7th...

My best friend openly refers to me as a whore sometimes. It makes my head spin to think about it. I like to think she's not trying to be malicious. But she's just so ignorant of how it makes me feel. When I confront her about it (Shannon's idea, not mine):
She'll say, "but you know I don't mean it that way."
What other way could you possibly mean it? 'This is my friend, the whore?' What is that?!
She'll say, "Well its the truth, you know. And the truth hurts, doesn't it."
Who the hell are you to tell me what I am? Its the truth from your perspective! You are not me, and frankly you haven't even been around in the past couple years to even know what kind of person I am. So don't you dare try to say that the truth is, I'm a whore.
I am not looking forward to "discussing" things with her. Because it won't be a discussion. It won't be anything!

What I Have to Say:
1. Start by saying that I am not here to be angry at you (Cassie). I am here to explain how my feelings have been hurt and to find out whether or not you CARE that you have hurt me.
2. Try to come to an agreement on what was said. (a) She said on Sunday, and I quote, "You're the biggest whore I know! Ha!" (b) Implied that she'd hate to be me and explain my sexual background to someone I was going to marry (c) Told me once that I would love Istanbul because there are guys there who love to have sex with tourist girls and have "stamps" for each "country" they sleep with.
3. Discuss how what was said makes me feel.
4. And why these feelings mean I can't be your close friend if you continue them. I need to be able to share secrets with you and not have you throw them back in my face maliciously later. If I can't trust you with information that you might hold against me, then I can't be your friend.
5. How do we repair this? (a) I need an apology and an acknowledgement of the fact that you have hurt me and do care. (b) Don't EVER use the words "slut" or "whore" in my presence again. (c) We can both commit to saying positive things about each other. I commit too!

People have been calling me things my whole life. Whether its because I look a certain way, or I believe certain things, I was ostracized from a whole damn school and religion because people were judging me based on a handful of ugly things I did and a handful of beliefs I had that they didn't agree with.
I left that environment and didn't come back for that reason! I don't need to take that shit again from one of my own friends!

Wednesday, October 8th...
I am disgusted to even discuss it, but Cassie, who has sorta kinda been my long distance best friend, started defending her label of "whore" for me last night. That, well, maybe whore was a bad way to put it, but that what she really meant was "promiscuous," and that everyone knew I'd had a lot of promiscuous sex and that she was "totally right even if it wasn't politically correct."
I balked.
I shot upright in my seat and exploded at her.
"You don't even know! You haven't been around for the past two years!"
She shifted with this holier-than-thou look on her face, and I couldn't believe that anybody had ever convinced her of anything, much less voting Democrat instead of Republican this year.
"What it comes down to is whether or not you did all these promiscuous things? Are you trying to say you didn't? Because you told us about it. We know you did them. And now you want to go and say you're not promiscuous? Come on."
"Why is it any of your business about my morality? Making a judgement about my morality is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!" I was shaking and my heart was beating a mile a minute.
"Um, you TALK about it with us!"
"That's because as my friend I trust you with that information! I trust you not to use it against me!" I don't think she understood what I was saying, so she changed the subject. I have no doubt now that she does not even know the meaning of friendship.
"So you're saying that you haven't been promiscuous? Because that's what this comes down to."
"No, it comes down to you hurt my feelings and you just don't say something like that to someone's fucking face!!!" I really got going then.
"Okay, so now we're takling about what I can and can't say to you?"
I blew up.
"Fine you fucking whore, fuck you! I guess I'm not your fucking friend anymore!" And then, heart hammering away in my chest, shaking, I stood up and grabbed my purse, tried to grab my lighter and knocked over Shannon's ashtray in all my bodily momentum to try to get out the door.
With disgust, Cassie said, "Where's your shoes?"
"Fuck you!" I yelled, and I slammed the door.

Out at my car, I realized that while I didn't have my shoes, I didn't have my keys either. Thank god I had a spare in my purse, and thank god I had my phone.
Barefoot, I drove home shaking and not knowing whether I should cry or continue to be shocked at my Jerry Springer-esque display. So I continued to be shocked until I got home and my mom got mad at me for leaving my keys where Carrie might steal them and for putting myself in the situation anyway. Then I cried really hard.

You know I actually thought all this time that she really had a heart, and a rational mind. I didn't think she actually intended to hurt peoples feelings. But bullying is what it really was, just straight bullying. And I know there are thousands of reasons she feels like that about me. I'm not bad looking. I get hit on a lot. I've had lots of boyfriends. We were always really competitive about how much talent we possessed. But I shouldn't have to sit here and rationalize it. It was wrong.
Still, I've already rationalized the shit out of it.
Here's my brief analysis.

Mind you, she was drunk when she said it. But I don't blame the "whore" comments on drunkenness. What I DO blame on drunkenness is the part where we started talking about Middle Eastern men being bad lovers. That was probably a bad call. Cassie alluded to her own Middle Eastern love affair with her former boss at a restaurant she worked at around two years ago.
I guess I shouldn't have said anything, but I looked over and noticed her husband (who, what the hell, right? was at the table with us) shooting daggers at her with these calm I'm-going-to-kill-you looks. So I said, "Oh, so he knows about that?" and gestured to her husband.
"Yes of course he knows about it."
"Okay." Maybe I looked smug. I didn't mean to, though. Seriously.
"I'd hate to be you though, and have to tell somebody about all the stuff you've done."
I probably looked slightly bewildered at that. But I was mostly just trying to make a decision about what to do and whether or not to stay there.
"Thats a pretty hurtful thing to say. I mean, do you think about how that could hurt my feelings?"
"Well, I don't know, I mean, you are the biggest whore I know."
And that was where it all started.
Make your own judgement calls.
She would probably say it went some other way. Where I just started attacking her about stuff from a long time ago. But its funny what memory can do when you're hurt by something.
And on yet another side note, I really think she must love her husband a lot. If she's that upset by someone refering to this thing that happened, then she must really care about what he thinks and feels.
But she does always have to be right. She never concedes anything even when she's wrong. And that night it really made her look bad. I wonder what her husband thinks. I wonder if he ever gets to be right. I'm really sad for him. And for the other people I've heard her talk bad about who probably don't know she even thinks that.
I'm just glad to be out of there.