My Newest Problem
Ughhhh.
I finally received a text message from R regarding the bachelorette party:
“We are going to dinner with A at 8:00 (place tbd), then we will spend the night at the [expensive hotel]. I will call you when we figure it out.”
I quickly responded with: “I’m not going to the hotel”.
A moment later I received, “Shocking.”
What the heck? I didn’t respond because I was so upset and didn’t know what to say. I can’t think of a polite, non-passive-aggressive way to let her know that I’m hurt when she’s annoyed because I don’t want to spend my money the way that she wants me to spend it. I’m hurt that I can only keep her happy with me if I spend as much money as she does, despite her living on a dual income with her husband.
Back in college my parents gave me a lot more money for expenses than her parents did, and I never complained about her not wanting to spend money. I don’t think it ever occurred to me to complain. I didn’t care what she spent her money on because it didn’t effect me. I don’t think that my financial decisions should matter to her unless I’m hitting her up for money or not paying her back or something. Maybe if I invite her over to my house, but don’t provide food or drinks, that would be something to complain about.
I don’t even know what to do. I have to go to the dinner at least, and the wedding tomorrow, so I don’t want to rock the boat too much when we’ll be forced to be in each others’ company.
I can believe her getting upset about this because this isn’t the first time; what I have trouble believing is that she assumed that I’d automatically shell out a bunch of cash to stay in a hotel for HER friend’s wedding! I’m sure that it’ll be a good time, but I’m just going to stick with the dinner and try to keep it under $20…for me and my share of A’s meal.
Ughhh.
Edit to add 23 AUG 08: Apparently the hotel room was for free or something, so it wasn’t a money thing after all. Instead, I think it was a “You never want to hang out and do anything fun” thing. Which isn’t true, but I’ll admit to not wanting to stay at the hotel. I have a lot of things to do before the wedding. Anyway, I suppose that I’m too sensitive to her judging me for my financial decisions if I’m automatically judging her for everything that comes out of her mouth. I’m just really glad that I didn’t flip out on her for something that she WASN’T calling me out on.
My Third Wedding of the Summer
Another wedding, another gift.
I’m attending a wedding tomorrow of a sorta friend of mine. This girl, A, is a childhood friend of my best friend, R, and someone that I’ve hung out with a handful of times in the past two years. Only once did we hang out without R and that was at a cookout that I invited her and other friends to. So I would not have been surprised (or disappointed) to find out that I wasn’t invited to her very small wedding…after all, we’re not close…so I WAS somewhat surprised that I was invited to that AND to a bridal shower.
I didn’t attend the shower because I was out of town that weekend last month. I hemmed and hawed a while before deciding to go to the wedding. As B’s mom told me once, “The best gift you can give others is your presence.” With that in mind, I agreed, even though B will be out of town and unable to accompany me.
Last week R texted to ask if I’d be able to come to A’s bachelorette party tonight. I hate the wording of things like this. I much prefer being invited to something, like, “You’re invited to attend!” rather than, “Can you come?” It’s impolite to put someone on the spot first of all, but second of all, I feel like I’m expected. It’s mostly me resenting all the time my friends seem to require of me if I want to continue being friends with them, but it’s also that I’m not allowed to just say no to something! I have to give a reason why I can’t attend something and my friends have a short list of reasons that they accept.
But I digress. I haven’t heard another word about this bachelorette party yet, so I’m assuming that it’s still on, but I’m no longer assuming that I’ll go. If someone wants to make spontaneous plans that involve hanging out at someone’s house, I don’t mind dropping things to go; I don’t enjoy getting short notice on something that is going to require lots of driving, or Metro-ing, or dressing in a certain way.
So we’ll see how this goes. I ordered a wedding gift online today which cost me about $42-43 including tax and shipping. I’m glad that the next wedding in my future is in September (previously I thought it would be in April).
My Unnecessary Spending
I’ve been pretty good about not buying random extra things for myself for several months. My mom bought me a bunch of clothes (with Dad’s money) back at the beginning of May, so I haven’t felt the need to spend.
Until the last couple of weeks. I finally got my free new phone from Verizon, an LG Black Cherry, but they know what they’re doing with the extras. I bought three new ringtones (my last phone had one that I purchased), signed up for the monthly insurance (even though I’ve had a cell phone in one form or another for over five years and never needed a replacement, something niggled at me that I should be safer than sorrier), and…alas…signed up for the VZ Navigator for $9.99/mo.
I love it. Love, love, love it. I’ve been wanting a gps for a long time because I am AWFUL when it comes to following directions. I get lost constantly; I have zero sense of direction. I don’t have the money to spend on a normal gps system at all, even though I wouldn’t have the monthly payments, and I decided that I NEEDED this service immediately over the weekend when B and I were stuck in traffic in Connecticut on our way back from spending time with his family. It was fine except that B hated the gps voice and made me turn it off after yelling at me (which he NEVER does) when I didn’t want to. We took the route he wanted and he groaned when we saw more traffic. I decided not to say, “Oh, if only we had a device that would have warned us about the traffic and taken us another way,” but I wanted to. Shortly after B apologized nicely for yelling and I told him what I’d wanted to say–he said that it was a good thing that I didn’t then, but it was funny now.
Anyway. I’m spending a lot on those unnecessary things and now I have a new expense. The girls are dressing up for the bachelorette party on Saturday night and I had no idea what to wear! I gchatted my pal, L, a party gal and asked her what I should wear. She instructed me to go to Forever 21 and get a summer dress for $20, or to go to her closet because she has 80 of them (probably not a huge exaggeration). She and I are not the same size, or even close enough to it for me to borrow her stuff, so I’m going to go to Forever 21 after work and see if I can find anything that works with what dressy shoes I have currently.
So, another expense. I saw some dresses that I liked on the website, and I hope that they’re in the store in my size when I go there…the most expensive was less than $25, so I don’t mind too much the spending. I have two weddings to go to in August and I bet I can wear the dress to the one not associated with this bachelorette party, as well as to Mass throughout the summer, and to the beach in July/August.
*Crossing fingers that I find something I like!*
My Big City Stripper
Ten points to anyone who catches the title reference.
My cousin is getting married on July 5th which is great. She’s three years older than me and we get along very well when we see each other, which isn’t often since we have our own lives and she lives about an hour from me. Her bachelorette party will be this Saturday night in DC and I’m sort of ambivalent about going.
I WANT to hang out with her for sure. Her younger sister, three years younger than me, is her maid of honor and planning this thing. She and I are less close. And since she wasn’t at the bride’s Christmas party in December, I haven’t seen her since…gosh, for 2-3 years.
Anyway, this bachelorette party. The plan is to meet at a hotel at 6pm and get on a Girls’ Night Out bus at 8:30. Then we’ll go out to clubs and things and get back to the hotel at 3am. The snag in these plans for me (besides that I can barely keep my eyes open at 12, nevertheless 3am!) is at 7pm there will be a “male dancer”. Seriously? Do women really still do this? Why? What is hot or sexy about a man who is willing to share his wares with a bunch of strangers? Does he enjoy doing this? Does he respect himself? Does he brag about his awesome job to his parents, grandparents, etc.?
Anyway, I would be furious with B if he attended something where there’d be a female dancer because I do consider it to be a form of cheating, so I’m not going to attend that part of the “entertainment”. Even if I didn’t mind a g-stringed guy shaking his thing in my face, it is absoluting revolting to me to stick my hard-earned dollars down his underwear. I’m already going to be shelling out my share for the night AND probably having drinks in DC (expensive!!!) and I don’t have any to spare for…that.
To end, I’ll say that I have no problem with strippers in general. If people make a choice to do it, that’s their business and up to them. I do think it’s sad when men and women in committed relationships think it’s fun to stick their hands in another person’s underwear (best case scenario), but if the significant other is fine with it, so am I. B and I talked long ago about how much it would upset me if he went to a strip club or a bachelor party with something like that and he confirmed that he wouldn’t really like it if I was the one seeing the entertainment, so I think that we’re good there.
He’s also insisted that he will meet me in DC when I’m ready to go home so that I won’t have to ride the Metro alone. Part of me wants to insist right back that I’ll be fine, but the bigger part of me recognizes that this is much safer, if inconvenient to him, and I love him for looking out for me.
