Every Saturday, we’ll be posting a new illustration by David Lester. The Mecca Normal guitarist is visually documenting people, places and events from his band’s 30-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.
[continued from last week]
It is expected that women should take care of men’s egos and make it all OK for them to get rejected and if, as a woman, you decide not to provide this service for a man, you are opening yourself up to having some jerk come and stand over you at the gym complaining about how you decided to let him know you aren’t interested in him.
His big point (while saying it was “fine, just fine, Jean“) was that he didn’t like how I’d handled things. I hadn’t attempted to soothe his ego.
I stayed calm, but really—what an asshole—and this guy taught teenagers. Oh, and he’s self-publishing a book of poems and he plays in a Celtic band, and I hate self-publishing and Celtic bands just a little bit more now. I may even like poets a bit less.
I actually saw him on the street an hour after all this. He waved. I smiled just enough and kept walking.
I have been very careful letting men down in the past so that they don’t turn into psychotic freaks who then stalk me, harass me, phone me endlessly, ring my buzzer for hours or whatever other idiotic shit they do that they then blame on me for rejecting them.
Jesus H. Christ.
Does this shit with men never end?
“Sha La La La La” from Mecca Normal (Smarten Up!, 1986; re-released by K, 1995) (download):
