The ones I can't reach bug me the worst…
Yesterday, once again, someone took one sentence I wrote about my readers, ignored everything else I said in the post, and quote-mined me to say I'm entitled. Yes, the privileged, sheltered, able-bodied internet troll points to the crippled and financially disadvantaged minority artist asking for help and says, "damn, look at all that entitlement."
Pardon me while I again contemplate stepping out my window. The only reason I don't is because it would still fail to reach these people. It's a waste of a perfectly good death scene too. (Although for the record, I'm still hoping to go in my sleep. Much less dramatic, but then I won't be so blindingly terrified about the sudden stop at the end of the ride.)
Assholes like this shouldn't have the power to ruin my mood, and yet, they do. On the same day, I had a great interview with Gayla released, and one of my fans did a nice write up for Peter the Wolf on her blog. Only the day before, someone had given me an awesome 5 star review on Smashwords for The Lesser of Two Evils. They said in their review "I'm going to buy the next book right away," and I'd no sooner finished reading the review to hubby when sure enough, my email dinged with a new message: they'd bought the next book RIGHT after reviewing the first. And only the day before that, Tara announced that she'd already scored a location willing to take my QR code flyers.
I should be in a great fucking mood, because there's a whole lot of people who heeded my varied requests for help, and they've busted their humps for me more than I'd asked for. I should be grinning from ear to ear because of these awesome people.
Instead, it's the offhand comment made by one insensitive prick who I can't reach that bugs me. It's not that they won't read my books or something like that which upsets me. I have lots of friends online who will never read my stuff, and we gab about other stuff instead. What bothers me most about these people is knowing that they will never try to know me. All they see is "bitch," and that's good enough to walk away on. They don't see an abuse survivor, or a person trying to cope with a chronic illness and a mental illness at the same time. They don't read any of my positive stuff about my gardening or my guitar practice. They don't see a proud trans woman who had to fight every step of the way to make a new identity and won every battle.
As hard as I work, though, this is a battle I can't win. Some peoples' jerky cynicism is armor so thick, I'll never reach them and connect as a person or an artist. And when those assholes read this, they'll quote-mine this post and make it yet another reason not to know me.
I can't reach these people just by speaking plainly in a blog post, so I have little hope of reaching them in a more layered and complex way using my fiction. And the sad part is, these people don't want to know anyone else. They want to make snap decisions and move on. I'm easily classifiable as "entitled." You don't need to know anything else about me once you've invalidated me as a real person. Just fit me into File 13 and move on to the next snap decision.
Karen Kohler has said on Twitter that I really need to make my own kind of online armor, and that I need to step back from dealing with people like this. I suppose she's right, but it's certainly easier said than done.
It…it feels unfair. I survived my childhood, dealt with most of my inner demons, and transitioned from a life as a miserable male in Texas into a happy housewife in Milan. All the time, people tell me how I'm brave, or inspiring, or interesting. And those are probably the people I should listen to. Instead, all I can hear are the misplaced criticisms of people who will never make the effort to know me.
Yes, Karen is right, and I need to pull even farther away from other people. But it makes me sad because I started this journey hoping to reach out to others. But to paraphrase a famous quote: "Some people, you just can't reach. Which is how they want it. Well, they get it."
