June 03, 2005 - Arm Candy

Rumors and talk don't bother me. I even encourage people to talk about me and to make up some good stories. I enjoy hearing new theories and speculation about my personal life. Those are all stories and speculation and theories about me, and only about me. It's fun. It bites at the center of who I am (and who I want to be): a kid whose reality is what everyone perceives.

I have a lot of attractive female friends. I'm generally drawn more toward women than I am toward men, and my company reflects that. Most of the time, I'm generally finding someone particularly interesting, fun, safe, etc., and most often I find myself hanging out with women at festivals more than men. Maybe I don't like the need to compete with men. Maybe I don't like the company of other men. Maybe I just really like to hang out with people who are soft and smell nice. For whatever reason, I tend to hang out with women more often at festivals.

In the end, this is a function of me liking to meet new and interesting people. It's not about me looking for anything more than that. If a person isn't interesting and deep, I don't hang out with them. It's as simple as that.

Sometimes, I find the other person. Sometimes they find me. Sometimes I sit down next to them purely on accident. Sometimes they offer me a horn of mead at a bardic circle, show an interest in a topic I know a lot about, needed a ride to the festival I was going to, or just needed someone safe to hang out with.

And I love to hang out with all these people.

I love to hang out with them because they become great friends, because they're interesting, or perhaps because I feel safe with them.

Whatever it is, I'm hanging out with them because they're great people.

Recently, I've been informed that other people (including those who know me well) are seeing the women I hang out with as objects. The phrase that caught my attention and focused it was "arm candy."

I don't know who said it, and I really don't care. It's unimportant to me.

I don't know what caused it. I don't know when it started. At some point, though, people began to see these wonderful, intelligent, whole women as shallow, objectified extensions of me.

I suppose I might be a likely candidate to blame for this on the whole. I mean, for over two years I've been attending festivals with different women at my side.

Wellspring 03: Sharon
Summerland 03: Carmen/Meghan
Elysium 03: Priscilla
Trillium 04: Misty
Desert Magic 04: Linda
Wellspring 04: Judi
Summerland 04: Mazi/Julie
Walking With Fire 04: Monika
Trillium 05: Anna
DMF 05: Erien
Wellspring 05: Erien

I hung out with these women because each one (at the time or still today) I find immensely interesting, fun, and a joy to be around. I find them to be constantly intriguing, generally good humoured, and remarkably deep as a person. Each of them was informed very quickly that I was not interested in anything more than simply hanging out and being with them. I would certainly hope that none of them feel (or felt) like objects. I certainly didn't use them in that way.

At Wellspring 2003, I was alone. My fledgling Grove didn't come up, I camped alone, and I only made it through the weekend through the hospitality of Ian and Sue. I knew a couple of people, but generally I felt alone. Sharon offered me a drink of mead one night, and then we spent the rest of the night talking and enjoying each other's company. She was fun to hang out with, and she made me feel at home that Wellspring, which I'm very grateful for.

At Summerland, I hung out mostly with people from PSA, including Carmen and Meghan. These were people I knew, and I got to know them a lot better at this festival.

At Elysium 2003, I hung out with Priscilla, who had never been to a festival before. I wanted her to feel welcome, so I spent a lot of time with her. She is the only person I don't still talk with on that list.

At Trillium 2004, I generally hung out with Misty. I got to spend some time with Sati and Alison and Meghan as well, but most of it was concentrated on Misty. She and I were just getting to know each other, and I found her interesting and fun to be around. I also felt that she needed protection from a certain creepy guy in a white shirt. In the end, a lot of it was, "I brought her, she's my responsibility, I'm not going to lose her." But I wouldn't have asked her to come if she wasn't really, truly interesting to me.

At DMF, I got to meet Linda for the first time. To me, Linda was fun and safe, which are two great things. She was extremely hospitable toward me, and so I did my best to hang out with her often. Besides, DMF is infested with those weird west coast Druids.

Wellspring saw me trying to pay attention to everyone, which I realized was a mistake. I don't know how to do that. The most time, though, was probably spent with my Scribe, Judi, though you might not have realized it (there was a buffer between us due to a bit o' scotch).

Summerland 2004 was spent primarily with Mazi one night, and primarily with Julie the next. In this case, Mazi is my best friend, and after she left for the weekend, Julie tried to get me drunk (it's absolutely surreal and very amusing to have a 15 year old trying to get you drunk).

Walking With Fire 2004 was spent almost exclusively with Monika. I hadn't seen her in so long that I'd missed her terribly, and we had a lot of fun. It was still the best slumber party ever.

At Trillium 2005, I spent most of my time with Anna. The reason this year is similar to the reason last year with Misty: I brought her and I wanted to watch out for her. But in the end, I think that the main reason I hung out with her so much is that I really like her and hanging out with her is simply a blast. I've never met anyone so into the finer things in life, like mud.

Desert Magic 2005, of course, brought in Erien. What's most interesting about this is that I consciously tried to avoid her initially, sitting down well away from her (and actually sitting between two men, which is totally out of character for me). By this point, I've known for a while that I have a reputation for hanging out with the hotties. Someone apparently told her that I was safe to hang out with, though, and we became remarkably fast friends, hanging out for nearly the entire weekend.

At Wellspring, I ended up hanging out with Erien because she was safe.

That's ten girls in two years that I've hung out with, with Erien being the only one that has repeated.

But I didn't (and do not) hang out with any of them because I view them as shallow, objectifiable airheads that are nice to look at. While each one is beautiful in some way or another to me, it is through their strength of person, not the shape of their faces or hips. I hang out with them because they are whole people, and we have a giving relationship of hospitality, intellectual discourse, or safety. In none of these relationships do we ever expect anything from the other. Neither obtains anything of value from the other. Neither I nor any of these women is gaining anything except time with a friend.

Each one can think and feel and act. Each one is startlingly independent. Each one needs me like they need a hole in the head.

So stop doing what you think I'm doing.

Stop objectifying my friends.

I hope sincerely that I never hear the words "arm candy" again.

Please refer to them as my "friends."

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