Dudes of the Dead

So, this experience, like some I’ll add, happened before this blog did, but recently. It must also be counted as part of the inspiration to take on this blogging experiment.

An activist friend, Bruno, calls and asks me out salsa dancing in his neighborhood; he’s bringing more friends, whom I know as good union guys with whom i can talk politics and bullshit. I don’t feel like leaving the house, but he is persistent and I want to want to feel like leaving my apartment. I want to feel like salsa dancing, so I decide that I do.

When I get there, it turns out that Eddie and Vincent are already drunk. Bruno is probably also already drunk, but it doesn’t show. As a result, Eddie and Vincent are no longer my friends, they’re Dudes who spend the evening hitting on me, leaning on me, and complimenting me in a fashion which is totally non-threatening but is boring as hell. When they leave, I’m relieved to be able to be left with Bruno and a chance to gossip about mutual friends and shoot our mouths off.

We gossip. I shoot my mouth off. I thank Bruno again for all the support during my break up and move; he repeats the theme of the evening so far, which is that I’m like his sister. I am his sister!

We go back inside for more drinks and dancing. Bruno pulls me in for some close dancing which isn’t up my alley at the moment; I sqirm back to the bar. It happens again. Bruno implies that he would, under the right circumstances, be willing to fuck me.

By the time we’re heading to the second bar, Bruno is taking every inappropriate opportunity to touch me, encourage me to drink, and encourage me to stay at his nearby apartment. Its clear that Bruno is, at this very moment, a Dude.

I’m heart-broken; I’m Shaun in the Winchester when he has to shoot his own mother. I rack my brains trying to figure out what I did or said that brought on the confusing changes in his demeanor; as far as I could see my behavior toward Bruno had changed not at all and I’d done not one thing to indicate to him that I was interested in spending the night with him. Why, then, the unholy transformation?

It hits me. The misogynistic logic which has ensnared Bruno’s poor brain is revealed to me in all its glory. Bruno thinks that because I had sex with our mutual friend Jonah, AND didnt expect Jonah to be my husband, AND didn’t care (and wanted to gossip about) Jonah’s other exploits in our social circle, that that meant that I was giving it away for free, and if it was free, why shouldn’t he get some?

This, of course, despite the fact that Bruno has a girlfriend I like and want to be friends with. And despite the basic fact that I am not in anyway attracted to Bruno and have never suggested otherwise. And despite the fact that my reaction thus far to his every move has been decidedly the opposite of encouraging.

When I decide not to dance with Dude in the next bar, a Mexican dance club, he locates another apparently willing participant. I’m left to chat at the bar with a new Dude with whom I share a significant language barrier. What I do understand is that he doesn’t hate white people, and in fact, might be willing to fuck one under the right circumstances. He seems to wonder if these, indeed are the, right circumstances. I excuse myself; he grabs my hand. I reclaim my hand. I make my way to the Dude I rolled in with.

I explain that it was time for me to go; he pouts, and suggested again that I could crash with him. He asked “Why are you leaving now?” I said “I’m leaving because I’m drunk and tired of being a girl. I would like to go back to my apartment where I am merely a cat owner.”

Peeved, Dude says “Ok, the car is on its way. You’ll be alright.” And heads back inside for more dancing, leaving me on the curb. As the car rolls up, the other Dude I just “met” at the bar appears, and tries to climb into the cab with me. Along with his friend. I say “goodnight, I am going home,”and attempt to slam the car door shut on his fingers, but this dissuades him not in the least. Eventually, the bouncer peels both Dudes off the car, and I speed off into the night.

I ride home, anxious and amused. The evening was a Dude-Zombie movie in which every man I encountered, regardless of their other characteristics and regardless of the nature of their prior relationship to me is transformed into identical Dude-Zombies ruled by sexist logic and intent on pursuing “sex” with me regardless of what I say, think or feel about it.

This, my friends, is the origin of the term Dude. Henceforth, on this blog, the Dude who is at any given moment making my life worse by forcing me to understand his hateful misogynistic worldview better than he does in order to interpret his actions and the world around me will always and forever be called Dude. In the future, they may be given hyphenated descriptors such as Professor-Dude, or Student-Dude, or Guy-the-liquor-store-Dude as a device in service to narrative clarity.