#this is a sitcom-level Bad Luck sign

[marlynnofmany]

Hm yes I see. Today we make our own luck.

[transsergio]

Emotions That I Simply Do Not Have (Read on AO3)

Chapter 3 - His And Hers, For Better Or Worse Chapter 2 - I'm Not Gonna Repeat Myself Chapter 1 - More Like A Relapse

Penemily + Hotchreid / Mature / 2011 words in this chapter

Emily and Penelope put their plan into motion; Spencer arrives. (This is the final chapter of this fic! thank you to everyone who kept up with it this week!)

Hotch’s advances stop. Or, become marginally less obvious.

In his third text this week, Hotch asks, “Do you need anything from break room?” It is only Tuesday. Emily knows that if she lifts her head, she will see his beady black eyes through the glass. He’ll be staring at her, hoping to see her fingers working over her tiny keys, telling him that yes, she’d appreciate a bottle of water or any other menial task that will bring him out to the bullpen. She’d rather text Penelope to peek through the security cameras, to see exactly how far their one-night stand has gotten her. Yes, sleeping with the boss comes with great advantages, like your office becoming a cage.

Emily does her paperwork in silence. She’s hellbent on leaving at four forty-five, no matter what Hotch might throw at her to keep her in his line of sight. At four thirty, Emily turns off her cell’s ringer. She is escaping to her salvation, a night of face masks and a season rerun of the Bachelor with her girlfriend. As she closes down her computer and organizes her files, she glances about. Derek is long gone, citing a date with his television, couch, and dog. Reid finished his work hours ago, but plays chess against himself until Emily’s ready to head out together. And JJ is on a phone call, likely with Will, likely about to tell their son she’ll be home a little late again. Emily doesn’t see Rossi, but at his age, you never know how many bathroom breaks he’ll need.

As Emily rises with her back to Hotch’s door, Reid follows. They head to the elevators. She’s excited to dish about her later plans, as Spencer is her only known ally outside of Penelope. In return, Spencer tells her about his last date.

“You’re saying he forced you to make eye contact?” Emily asks as the elevator encapsulates them.

“Yeah. It was the most uncomfortable dinner I’ve had yet. Every time I was looking elsewhere while I spoke, he’d say, ‘Eyes on me.’ I don’t think we’ll be going out again,” Spencer adds with a chuckle.

Emily raises her eyebrows. “No kidding. Maybe we could get him on some kind of watchlist for bad first impressions.”

“I wouldn’t go that far, but I did block his number before the night was over.”

Emily laughs and bumps Spencer with her elbow. “I don’t blame you.”

The elevator dings and releases them on the parking level. Emily makes for her car and Spencer for the subway, despite Emily’s repeat offer to drop Spencer off herself. A part of her is glad, though. She wants to get home fast and not leave a second empty.

By home, of course, she means Penelope’s apartment in all its purple and glitter. They’re settled in her living room by five-thirty, television hooked up and face masks elegantly adorned, a blanket solidifying them as one happy mass. They plow through three episodes before they remember the masks could’ve come off halfway through the first, and that they haven’t ordered dinner.

“Pizza sound good?” Emily emerges from their cocoon, stretches, and finds Penelope’s stash of takeout menus in the kitchen.

Penelope joins her at the counter. “Hm. Maybe Thai? Wait, what’s with the face?”

“Nothing.” Emily tries to mask her shudder. “Just… Hotch, he mentioned something about Thai in one of his messages.”

“What, did it give him diarrhea?” Penelope teases. She looks for Emily’s little smile and the crease between her eyebrows, the sign that Penelope was funny even if Emily won’t admit it. It doesn’t come. Penelope recalibrates. “No worries. We'll get something else then.”

“I’m sick of it, Pen,” Emily says. She slaps the menus down. “If he’s making my job harder and me less effective, why should I stay in the department? Our communication is horrible, I’m agitated in the field, and I can’t get him to stop. I’m running out of options.”

“Okay, slow down.” Penelope rubs Emily’s back in light, soothing circles. “You’re hungry and fed up, and you have every right to be, but let’s have some food before making big decisions like leaving the job that lets me call you every hour. I’ll pick. You get comfy. Go, shoo.” And she scoots Emily into the living room with a pat on the ass.

“Fine,” Emily raises her hands in surrender, “fine, I’m going.”

When dinner arrives (gyros from the Mediterranean place a couple blocks over), Emily devours hers. It’s gone before Penelope can pry the foil from her own meal, and Emily’s head is where her plate used to be.

“Oh, Angel,” Penelope sympathizes. “It’s going to be fine.”

Emily nods against the table. “Yeah, I think so. But I don’t want him fired. He’s a good leader, and he needs this job. His wife died, and before that they were in witness protection. That’s got to do something to a person, right? He risked everything and he lost it all.”

Penelope chews thoughtfully. “Maybe we don’t need to get Hotch fired, but we can play it like survival of the fittest – as long as you’re faster than somebody else, he won’t catch you.”

“What?”

“I was watching this thing on the Discovery channel about jungle cats hunting and how they go for the weakest of the pack. It was really sad because you don’t want the lions to starve and at the same time you don’t want the antelope to die, but that’s not the point. If we latch him onto someone else, he’ll forget all about you.” Penelope wipes her hands clean. “Like magic, you’re free!”

For a moment, Emily has hope. Of course they can hook him up with someone else. It’s what every classic sitcom Emily raised herself on has implemented. There’s only one problem. “We don’t know any single straight women.”

A wicked smile flashes across Penelope’s face. “Who said anything about a woman?”

*

“Are you sure you want to do this? A workplace relationship is exactly what I’m running from,” Emily says.

Spencer’s voice crackles over the line. “It’s honestly fine. According to the exit polls of the 2008 elections, about four percent of Americans were gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Roughly one-hundred and thirty-one point three million people voted. If every vote counted also answered that exit poll, that would be approximately five million, two-hundred and fifty-two thousand people identifying as such.”

“Yeah?”

“Hotch could be one of them, is all I’m saying.”

“Right. But I want to be sure you’re comfortable.”

“Emily, I promise. I wouldn’t be going if I couldn’t handle it. Besides, if he’s as straight as he looks, we’ll have awkward small talk and I’ll go home. It won’t kill me.”

“If you say so. Oh, I’ve got to go, Spence. Good luck,” Emily says. She snaps her phone shut and turns.

Penelope stands in her kitchen with two glasses of wine. She wears neon pink lingerie, a 1960’s inspired sheer robe with fur trim, layered over a matching slip.

“You’ve got to go?” Penelope sips her glass and leaves a pink lipstick print around the rim. “You’re going to leave me here all alone?”

Emily bites her lip. “Not a chance.”

*

An hour later, Emily and Penelope are curled around one another in Penelope’s lavender sheets. They’re sweaty, warm, and flushed.

“And you thought I couldn’t take your mind off it,” Penelope smirks. Her bragging is part bravado; she’s honestly glad Emily didn’t rip her robe to pieces.

“Eh,” Emily pants. “All part of my plan. I know how you love to be right.” And wow, did it ever feel so good to be wrong.

Penelope giggles and toys with Emily’s hair. She loves this part especially. When it’s just them, sleepy and well cared for, and Emily seems so defenseless. Her eyes are softer, her muscles lighter, and she lets Penelope put her loose strands into tiny braids. But this time, one of their ringers pops the bubble.

Emily hoists herself up and snatches her cell phone from the nightstand.

She turns to Penelope and mouths, “It’s Spence.”

Penelope hisses back, “Put him on speaker, dummy!”

So she does. The voices on the other end are muffled by fabric. It’s as if the phone is being rolled through a load of laundry. Penelope fumbles for the mute button and silences their side.

“It’s a butt-dial,” she says, her heart beating as rapidly as it was just minutes ago. “Oh my god, we really are secret agents.”

Emily tries not to encourage her. It’s thrilling, obviously, but her stomach twists. They’re invading Spencer’s privacy. “We should hang up.”

“Yeah, we really should,” Penelope agrees. Emily reaches for the red button that will disconnect them when they finally hear clearly.

“Um, is Jack home?” Spencer wonders.

“No, he’s with Jessica. If this is about a case, I don’t need to chance him hearing the details.”

“Actually,” Spencer coughs, “this is more of a… personal matter.”

“Oh? What’s up?” Hotch sounds genuine enough. He probably thinks of Spencer like a son. Emily wants to pull Spencer out and abort the plan. This is too far.

“I noticed you and Prentiss haven’t been cooperating well lately.” Spencer says, so naturally. “Emily’s my friend, and I was wondering if there’s anything I can do to help?”

A beat passes. “No, nothing that I’m aware of.” Hotch answers. “I respect you and your intentions, Spencer, but I don’t know—”

Spencer is curt. “I think you do.”

“I do, what?”

“You know. I think you might be the problem actually, sir.”

When Hotch doesn’t respond, Spencer continues. “I think you and Emily have a sexual history together. I think you’ve been trying to repeat that history, and she doesn’t want to. I think you’re looking for a way to forget Haley while you grieve her, and that you believe Emily is the solution. In reality, you’re looking for someone to dominate and let you feel in control while your life spirals out from under you, and for someone who will reject you so these wishes go unfulfilled and you aren’t at fault – the other party is. I think it stems from the guilt you feel regarding Haley’s death, both in that you blame yourself for making her a target, and that you couldn’t stop Foyet from killing her.”

Emily and Penelope exchange glances. Spencer has said everything the team considered privately, and tied it back to Prentiss in one neat, factual statement. All that was left was the aspect the team couldn’t predict; how Hotch would react.

“Do you want a drink, Reid?”

What?

“Uh, sure? What- what kind?”

“I have scotch, lemonade, and Juicy Juice.”

“Lemonade sounds good.”

“Good.”

Dishes clatter as Hotch pours for them. Emily and Penelope wait, hanging up completely disregarded.

A cushion wheezes nearby. Hotch’s voice is now much closer. They can feel his vibrato through the tinny speakers. He asks, “Are you confident in your profile?”

Spencer takes a gulp of his drink. “Fairly so, sir, yes.”

“And if I asked you to prove it?”

“Sir?”

“You’re positing that I want to dominate someone and simultaneously, am hoping to be rejected. If you’re right, I’ll make my move and be discouraged when you give me the go-ahead. Maybe I’ll even have a breakdown. Sobbing, psychosis, the works. Do you want to find out?”

“Okay,” Penelope throws up her hands. “This feels icky again. No. Uh-uh. I don’t wanna know.”

Emily shushes her sharply. They’ve just missed a piece of the conversation. “Hold on, hold on.”

“And you’re sure about this?” Hotch questions.

“I’m sick of everyone asking me that.” The other line rustles into white noise. Briefly, it clears. They hear two gasps and what has to be the fumble of bodies.

Hotch rasps, “Come upstairs.”

“And that’s enough!” Penelope slaps the cell phone shut. “I need some air.”

“No kidding.” Emily shakes her head. “Maybe I missed my shot.”

“You take that back.”

Emily leans into her girlfriend, grinning all the while. “Make me.”

[aspected-benefic]

Prompt #10: Foster

and we open up with a shot of the house just like a sitcom

wc: 2,825 (putting word count total here as a warning)

((This is a headcanon I had way back during the great server shuffle. Though my main characters are currently on Sargatanas, I also consider Faerie my second home. I have a private free company there (thanks to @abeat who signed the petition for me :D~) and a cottage in Mist. At some point, long before server merges were announced, I had the idea to make an alt on Siren to take advantage of the Road to 60 buff, level said alt's crafters, then move said alt to Faerie. The first one was Apple, but for various reasons, I stayed off of Apple for a month and missed the Road to 60 buff window to level all the crafters. D'oh! Sometime later, I made Yet Another Alt - Azrael - to accomplish the same thing. Thanks to @abeat again (she is such a sweetie, I swear...) I created another FC to pass items between Apple and Az. Apple created levekit items, Az leveled very quickly, especially thanks to Road to 60, and he succeeded to get all his crafters to 60.

That's the IRL backstory. This is the headcanon I had in regards to moving the Siren characters to Faerie, the novelty of the One Lone Boy, and said One Lone Boy's social anxiety.))

[1]

The xaela, Xiaoning Shou, drummed her large stack of papers on the table until they stacked together evenly. "That about covers this meeting's topics--oh! No, wait. One more thing!"

A green-haired viera, Alto Aria, and a pink-haired lalafell, Princess Kneesaa, tilted their heads to the side in perfect synch.

"Concerning the upcoming, ah, move incentives, and the subsequent pending of three new members to our tiny free company, Vermilion Forest, I have some good news, some bad news, and some interesting news. Which news did you all want to hear first?"

Alto took a long sip of her tea. "Bad news? Oh dear. Let me finish this cup first."

Kneesaa folded her hands together on the table as a princess would when bracing herself for unpleasant news. "Please to tell us all the bad news firstly. Get it out of our way."

"Well, I got ahold of Apple Gardenia, our contact in the, um, other realm, and she said she couldn't get the amount of skill level required for the free company recruit message. Which, as a reminder, was to get all of her disciples of hand to a high enough standard." Xiaoning held up her hand to the other two before they had anything to add. "However! She raised an apprentice who can make us guildleve kits! And has mastered every disciple of the hand to a high enough level! Even beyond what we asked for! That's the good news. Now here comes the interesting news."

Alto and Kneesaa leaned in.

"It's..."

Alto and Kneesaa leaned in further.

"... a boy."

Alto and Kneesaa fell over.

"A boy?!" Alto clenched her hands together.

"In our all-girl free company?" Kneesaa chimed in.

"Vermilion Forest just happened to be all-girl by coincidence..." Xiaoning started but was promptly cut off as Alto and Kneesaa stood to their full heights and slammed their hands on the table.

"Oh gods, do we have to allot a separate bathroom for him?" Alto asked.

"Our bathrooms are gender neutral, just like my inn--"

"What's his name?" Kneesaa asked.

"Azrael Megid, I think--"

"Race?"

"Au Ra Xaela, like me--"

"Personality?"

"Quiet? Apple says he's very shy, but a hard worker and a good person overall." Xiaoning pressed on before the other two had anything else to add. "And you know the other best part of this good news is?"

"What's that?" the other two asked in unison.

"He's a PALADIN!"

Alto and Kneesaa clasped their hands together as their starry eyes envisioned a tall au ra man clad in head-to-toe armor. "Ooohhh...!"

The last point in case was the last push their excitement meter needed. For Xiaoning and Alto, a Red Mage and Composer respectively, a tank could escort them into dangerous areas quickly. For Kneesaa, a White Mage or Scholar depending on her mood, she could have a reliable escort into dangerous areas. This proposition seemed full of win.

Soon, any pretenses of formality melted in a gaggle of flails and squeals.

"Still! A boy in the free company! A boy! So exciting!"

"Imagine, having a boy around! a boy in the house! In chat!"

Outside the free company house, the squeals of excited girls rang throughout the entire ward.

-

Meanwhile, on the aforementioned realm, smoke billowed out the chimney of a small blacksmith forge. Inside, among other things, a rack of impeccably crafted greatswords laid on the wall. Untouched. Unmoving.

Until one hinge at the far end unceremoniously snapped.

In the blink of an eye, the sword barely began its descent downwards when a blur skidded into the vicinity and caught the blade in his hands. Once stopped, the blur revealed itself to be a red-haired au ra in a crouched position.

"Phew."

The au ra, Azrael Megid, stared at his works. He looked up to see the broken hinge in question. He had just built that rack himself. There was no way that anything short of bad luck could have broken it.

Unless... it was a bad omen.

Azrael furrowed his brow. "Somehow, I have a bad feeling..."

-

[2]

Since Apple first taught him the ropes of crafting, she had warned him that eventually they would move to a new free company. That he was getting recruited for the specific task of making guildleve items. No big deal. Azrael liked to help out. Before he came to Eorzea, he had been a blacksmith by trade in the first place, both as a cover story and an actual trade. He loved creating more than destroying. Points for that. He'll have a place to stay, revenue, and a cover story. Check.

The problem? Imminent social interaction.

Even though he could speak to his free company mates Apple Gardenia and Haruka Kinome now, before he found himself at a loss for words.

What do I say? What do I say...?

That night, Azrael tossed and turned in his sleep. His thoughts of carrying a conversation - a regular old fashioned oh yes let's talk about harmless topics for hours and this and that - continued to haunt his dreams.

Eight pairs of hands raised in front of him. "Make us all the things, Azrael!"

Azrael in his dream tried to speak but nothing came out except for a few awkward noises.

Those same eight pairs of hands raised in front of him again. "Escort us through the dungeons, Azrael!" chirped the plethora of DPS and healers.

And him as the only tank in the entire free company.

"A-all at once? Today?" Azrael stuttered in his nightmare.

Azrael woke up in a cold sweat. He shot up and pressed a hand to his chest. Perhaps one day he would warm up to the idea of saying hello. That day wouldn't be moving day.

-

[3]

The fated moving day. According to a letter from Apple, the transfer papers went through without any problems and the trio were on their way. While Xiaoning could have just invited all three to the free company and day over; go home, what fun was that? Instead, Xiaoning also decided to host a small welcoming party.

A large banner saying Welcome, Sirenites! hung on the overhead partition facing the front door. On the counters laid various baked goods and other snacks and tidbits. Xiaoning, Kneessaa and Alto positioned themselves to be immediately visible as soon as the new people walked through the door. All three girls hopped in place and looked at each other with anxious, bright smiles. Neither of them could wait to see the new people!

The doorknob rattled. The trio perked up. "Here they come. Here they come!"

The door burst open. In strode a miqo'te like she had just returned home from a long day's work at the farm. Her brown, braided pigtails fell on both sides of her muscular shoulders and her face was covered in freckles. She wasn't particularly pretty, but her broad smile made everyone feel warm and welcome in her presence.

"Hey, y'all! We finally made it! Nice t'finally meet'cha'll in person!" Apple said in her unique Lominsan drawl.

"Apple! So glad you could make it! I'm so happy to see you!"

Xiaoning bounded over to Apple and wrapped her arms around the miqo'te in a giant hug. Apple returned the hug with equal force. Apple lifted Xiaoning up. Xiaoning lifted Apple up. Alto and Kneesaa came over to share the hug as well.

"Hey, everyone, this is Apple Gardenia." Xiaoning gestured to the brown-haired miqo'te. "We've maintained contact ever since she first sent her recruitment letter. She's really friendly!"

Apple laughed. "As they say back at the farm, ya wanna keep everyone happy, ya gotta feed 'em, and kindness and love are nourishment for the soul. But ya ain't gotta tell me twice to be nice. I love people! Gimme another hug!"

More group hugs. More group lifting. Except in Kneesaa's case where she gently petted everyone's knees.

A knock on the door momentarily stopped the joyous union. Unlike before, where Apple most likely rattled the door knob just to see if she had to kick a locked door down or not, this knock came as polite, yet firm. Deliberate. Like someone polite but of authority.

Xiaoning popped her head from out of the crowd. "The door's open!"

"Excuse me," said a female voice in the same gentle, yet firm manner.

The door closed behind her. There stood a beautiful female hyur with reddish-pink hair that fell into curls on her shoulders. She held her hands in front of her white attire - a garment that could only be politely called a dress, and truthfully called lingerie.

"My true name is Princess Weyll, but you, like, know me on the register as Haruka Kinome. Like, a pleasure to meet you all." The hyur known as Haruka curtsied.

The trio of Vermilion Forest stared at Haruka in awe. "Oh wow, she's so beautiful." "She looks just like a real princess!" "Look at that flawless skin!"

Xiaoning returned the bow. "A pleasure to meet you."

Kneesaa looked up in awe. "Another princess! Kneesaa had yet to meet another like her! Princesses must have pink hair!"

Haruka held a hand to her mouth in a dainty laugh. She curtsied to Kneesaa and smiled. "Yes. Like, a pleasure to make your acquaintance!"

The house quickly filled up with chatter and laughter. So excited the Vermillion Forest trio were to have new members into their small free company - and meet two new people in general - that they had completely forgotten their other point of anticipation and excitement. That was, until Kneesaa spoke up.

"Was there not one more to walk through the door?" the lalafell asked.

Apple and Haruka looked at each other. Both raised their eyebrows and smiled a combination of sheepish and awkward before turning to the trio with the same expressions.

"Y'all mean Azrael?" Apple asked. "He, uh, well..."

Haruka giggled again. "He's very shy. You could say he's not, like, properly acclimated to people."

"No kiddin'. On the battlefield, the kid fights like a primal incarnate, but anywhere else, you say anything more than hi to him and he folds over like a shrinkin' violet. Knowin' him, he'll show up long after everyone's gone to bed. Dun worry. Just do what I did when I first met 'im and leave some notes."

Xiaoning nodded. "I guess that will have to do for now."

Kneesaa bowed her head. "While it would have been nice to see our imminent one body come to the free company, we shall respect these wishes."

Alto smiled and raised her conductor's baton. "For now, though, how about a little music to kick off this celebration? We have food! Help yourself!"

Apple clasped her hands together. "Oh boy! Food! Man, I'm sure starvin'! All that hikin' from one land to another's gotten me beat!"

"Well, like, don't mind if I do. Thank you for setting this all up!" Without hesitation, Haruka took a cookie.

The joyous festivities lasted well into the night. The music and chatter could be heard deep into the ward. Only after the sun began to rise in the horizon did the lights finally go out.

-

[4]

Another day, another morning. An hour after everyone had cleared out of the free company house, the door opened with a decisive turn of the knob and a pushing of the door. Azrael peered into the building through the top of the door. Inside looked like a bazaar - yes, this was definitely the correct house. A little cramped for someone of his height, but well spaced for someone shorter. Not one was there to greet him, not even a mender or a vendor often employed in housing wards. So far so good. He closed the door behind him. Time to check out the place.

Immediately, one item caught his eye: a piece of paper with his name on it pinned to the wall. He bent over bring his face eye level to the parchment.

To Azrael,

Hello and welcome to Vermilion Forest! On behalf of everyone here, I hope you enjoy your stay. Thank you for answering our recruitment call for a levekit crafter. If it's not too much trouble, do you mind getting started as soon as you can? Here are a list of things to make. Please place the items in the third slot of the free company chest. Speaking of which, you are free to use any mats in there to help you out. But don't take everything and run! We know who you are and where you live! Anyway, thank you very much! -Xiaoning.

Xiaoning's warning made Azrael chuckle. Such honesty. And on top of that, someone - most likely Apple - must have told Xiaoning to leave a note for him, rather than scold him to become more sociable. He appreciated that.

The items Xiaoning listed were guildleve items. Azrael rolled up his sleeve. Time to get to work.

-

[5]

Xiaoning didn't awake until well into the afternoon. She yawned and smoothed down her long, black hair as she entered the free company home. "Good morning, everyone..." she mumbled into the special linkpearl created for the free company.

"Good morning, Xiaoning.." muttered a few equally tired voices.

A quick glance to the wall showed that the note Xiaoning had pinned there earlier that morning had gone. Did someone move it? Was Xiaoning just dreaming in thinking she had made a note?

Or did the one lone boy come to the free company after all?

Xiaoning looked at the free company roster. No, his name was there, just like the other newcomers. Azrael Megid.

Did that mean he had seen the note? Curiously, Xiaoning peered into the free company chest, slot three.

All of the items Xiaoning had asked for laid neatly in each compartment.

Xiaoning removed one of said items: an Iron Celata. She held the helmet in front of her head, turning it every which way to inspect in the light. Just as Apple had said, Azrael's craftsmanship was careful, precise and impeccable. Exactly what Xiaoning was recruiting for.

Tucked into the helm was parchment. Seemed too deliberately placed to have been Xiaoning's old note rolled up and put away. Sure enough, the note had been addressed to her. Or whoever saw it in general.

Thank you for having me. I'll do my best. -Az.

Xiaoning smiled and tucked the parchment away in her personal satchel. She had a feeling that the one lone boy would get along in the free company just fine.

-

[Epilogue]

"Everyone, quick! Come to the inn." Xiaoning whispered into the free company chat. "A visitor named Azrael Megid had checked himself in earlier this evening. It could be the very same one lone boy of our free company!"

Soon, the stairwell of the Ruby Phoenix Inn leading downstairs to the actual in area became crowded. Alto and Kneesaa arrived first, dying of curiosity. Apple and Haruka also arrived, though more curious than anything to see how this event played out.

Lead by Xiaoning, the group tip-toed downstairs into the inn area. The inn rooms themselves had no doors, but carefully placed partitions so people couldn't immediately see who or what was inside. Which meant they couldn't catch a glimpse of this mysterious lone boy of the free company beforehand. Although certainly a male presence had made its way here - the further along the group moved, the louder the breathing noises became. At the end of the hall, Xiaoning gestured to the group. With Alto's head on the top, Xiaoning's in the middle and Kneesaa's on the bottom, the trio peered in the room.

Lying on his back too deep in sleep to notice anything but his own slumber, was Azrael Megid, the fabled lone boy of the free company.

"Oh, there he is. So that's what he looks like." said Alto. "Au ra standards must be different, but to me, he looks so young."

"He is young. The less scales they have, the younger they are." Xiaoning whispered. "He's a xaela, just like me."

"He is so tall!" Kneesaa cooed in a whisper. "He is also very muscular. They look even bigger than yours, Xiaoning."

"What? Really? ... well what do you know..."

Azrael, completely asleep and unaware of his visitors, stirred in his sleep. His soft moan acted like a needle to burst Xiaoning, Kneesaa and Alto's collective contained excitement. The novelty! The difference! Squealing like a bunch of schoolgirls, they ran up the stairs. Apple and Haruka moved out of the way to let them pass, then smiled and shrugged to each other.

"Such a lively group." said Haruka.

"You could say that again." chuckled Apple.

[folklore-musings]

Holding Onto Nothing (Part two) Bughead AU

Summary:  One late night while Jughead’s working in the town library he’s putting away an old worn out book when he sees the glinting of silver sticking out between torn pages. Tucked away inside he finds an old charm bracelet. Perplexed by its intrigue Jughead brings it home with him. The next day he sees this girl - almost as if from a dream - come into his life. Only its not a dream and she’s not a figure of his imagination, but an actual ghost in search of a way to move on to the afterlife and she needs Jughead’s help. Can Jughead help solve the mystery of Elizabeth Cooper’s death, or will he end up facing the same fate as her own? 

Read on AO3 here

Jughead forced Betty out of the bathroom so he could shower and brood with his thoughts on his own. After his usual routine of washing himself, Jughead stood under the scalding water and wondered if maybe whole morning was just a dream. Maybe he was still asleep in his bed, tossing and turning from these strange series of events. And maybe the bracelet and the book – those were part of the dream too. Maybe none of it was real and when he woke he’d be just plain Jughead again, not Jughead the ghost whisperer.

“This isn’t a dream, Jughead.”

“Wha-“ Turning too fast, Jughead slipped on the bathtub floor, grabbing the curtains to spare his fall but that didn’t help. “Turn the water off! TURN OFF THE WATER!” Jughead laid tangled in a crumpled heap in the bathtub, furious about the fact that she’d been spying on him. He watched as the knobs rotated by themselves towards the off position, the shower head now only dripping from the remains. “Show yourself, Betty.”

Before him she emerged, gracefully sitting on the edge of his bathtub. “Hi there.” She spoke softly, playing with the ends of her ponytail.

“Don’t ‘hi there’ me. You didn’t tell me you could make yourself invisible when you wanted! Or that you could read minds. I didn’t sign up for any of this.”

Betty threw her head back in laughter. “I wasn’t reading your mind Jughead, you were talking to yourself in here. Supernatural and magical are two completely different things.” She explained matter-of-factly, standing up and straightening out her skirt as she did. “Now if I were you, I’d untangle yourself from those curtains and dry off!” Betty tossed him a towel hanging from the rack on the wall. It landed on his head with a dull thud.

“Will you get out of here?” Jughead grumbled, struggling to stand and tearing the shower curtain from his slick body. Deciding it best to just let it lay there, Jughead wrapped the towel around his waist and used his hand to wipe the mirror clear of fog. He shook his head, knowing fully well that combing through his hair was utterly useless. His dark locks had a mind of their own sometimes.

Once he was dressed and refreshed Jughead plopped down in front of the TV and began to flip through the channels, landing on an old rerun of Home Improvement. Amused Betty sat on the floor right in front of the TV, lifting her hand up to touch the screen and causing the picture to distort. “Look at the colors! So bright and vivid!”

Jughead stared at the back of her head in blatant curiosity. “Betty, in what year did you die?”

Betty spun around on her bottom and tucked her legs beneath her to face him. “1944.”

Jughead looked from Betty to the book beside him on the table, and back again. “Do you remember the day?” He asked inquisitively.

“October 30th.” She said softly, fumbling her thumbs in her lap. “That’s actually what I need your help with Jug.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Oh yeah, what’s that?” He silently cursed himself, just realizing he never even knew what he promised to help her with. How stupid, making such an empty promise like that. He was smarter than that.

Betty’s voice was barely a whisper. “I don’t know how – or why I died.” She paused, finding the plush carpet rather interesting. “The last thing I remember I was sitting in a booth at Pop’s. I had just heard of the news that my sweetheart Archibald, had died in the war overseas. Everything after that I don’t remember. It’s as if I was no longer myself and that I’d – that I’d become someone else entirely.”

Jughead tapped his finger to his chin, mulling over just exactly what Betty was trying to say. He supposed it wouldn’t be too hard to help her out. There had to be an old article somewhere in the library about Betty’s death. Maybe he’d even be able to come across her obituary. He just had to look. “I’ll help you Betty. But right now, I’ve gotta get to work.”

Jughead shut off the TV and grabbed his jacket from where he’d left it the night before, regretting the fact he hadn’t put it in the dryer. It was still damp. “Work? Where do you work? May I come with you?” Betty pleaded.

From the linen closet Jughead grabbed a second jean jacket and tossed it on over his shoulders. “No I can’t have you wreaking havoc all over town.” He squished his feet into his shoes and propped his beanie on his head just the way he did every day.

“You do realize I’ve been lurking around undetected all these years, right? Just because you can see me, doesn’t mean that anyone else will. How do you think I ended up here in the first place?” Betty asked, getting to her feet and shadowing Jughead as he walked over to the door.

“I don’t know, but I do know one thing. You’re not coming with me.” He turned and she was right there on his heels, staring up at him with an annoyed glint in her eyes.

“Then what am I supposed to do all day?” She hoffed, stepping back and sitting at the kitchen table dismayed.

“Play dead.” Jughead said, unlocking the door and turning the handle. “Later Betts.” And he shut the door on her without another word.

                                                            ◊◊◊

Jughead began his work day finishing what he started last night; putting away all the returned books from the day before. While he worked he let his mind fade, wondering how of all people, Betty’s bracelet and book had fallen into his unlikely hands. He made a mental note to remind himself to ask Betty about it later when he saw her. Something wasn’t right about this, and Jughead was beginning to worry that agreeing to help Betty wasn’t in his best interest.

After he finished the book returns he spent the rest of the day behind the counter, helping Mr. Weatherby assist the community with their booking needs. He offered advice to teenagers about the best books to write reports on and assisted the housewives of Riverdale with their weekly book club. He even led after school story time to the kindergarteners from Riverdale Elementary in their reading of The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything. In the haste of another busy day he almost forgot about Betty, who he thought was waiting for him at home.

Around seven o’clock everything started to dwindle down. The library was nearly empty and Mr. Weatherby was due to leave at any moment in order to make it to his bowling league on time. With all the books from the day returned to their rightful places, Jughead perused the old newspaper clippings section, where Riverdale kept a copy of every Riverdale Register article dating back to the Great Depression.

Once Weatherby was gone, Jughead took a closer look at any articles released surrounding the weeks of Betty’s death. Just when he noticed her name printed in black and white, he heard the bell at the front desk chime, signaling that someone was waiting to check out.

“I’ll be there in a second!” Jughead called over his shoulder. He left the album out on the table and made his way back to the front of the library, cringing every time he heard the bell chirp. “I said I’m coming!” he yelled, reaching the desk and finding, to his dismay, Betty standing there waiting for him.

“Hiya Jughead.” Betty said, hopping up onto the front desk, crossing her ankles and swinging her feet back and forth like a pendulum. “Any luck on the research?”

Jughead groaned and scratched at the back of his neck in annoyance. “What are you doing here? I told you to wait back at the apartment.”

“I did. But I got bored.” She said, twirling her hair between her fingers, curling the blonde locks from knuckle to knuckle.

Jughead stood in front of her with his arms across his chest. “Well too bad, you have to go back. I’ve only got about an hour or two left here, and I don’t need you bothering me while I’m trying to help you.”

“Geepers Jughead, are you always this insufferable?”

With a click of his tongue against the roof of his mouth and meticulous raise of his eyebrows Jughead replied, “Yeah, I am.”

Betty hopped off the counter and pushed by him. “If I had known this, I never would’ve left the book here for you to find in the first place!”

Well that answered that question he’d been wondering about earlier in the day. “I knew it! Why me Betty? How long have you been watching me now? A day? A week? How long Elizabeth?” He was seething as he said her name. Jughead felt a whole new level of violated. He felt personally attacked. Had she been following him around, maybe even watching him when he slept?

Betty took a step back, as if he’d slapped her across the face with his words. “You don’t understand what it’s like to be dead. To be this void of a spirit that just wanders through town, never able to leave. You are the first person I’ve interacted with in 50 years. And I chose you. I remember the first time I saw you in that ridiculous crown hat of yours, sitting alone at Pop’s reading a book while you nursed a soda. You looked so lost Jughead and so alone. And I just thought that maybe you would somehow be able to help me. Because just like me you were lonely. You have no friends Jughead. You sit home alone on your days off and watch old sitcom reruns or listen to your awful music, if you can even call it that. Besides for the people that step foot into this library and Pop’s you have no one. As of right now, I’m probably the closest thing you have to a friend.”

Jughead didn’t want to let her words affect him the way she intended them to, but she was right. He was all alone. And here he was talking to a ghost. She may as well have called him crazy too, maybe even psychopathic. But if there was anything she’d just said that he wasn’t, it was her friend.

“So you targeted me because you think I’m lonely, just like you? Newsflash Betty, everybody’s lonely. In this twisted world of ours there is no such thing as normal or happy. You’re born, you live and you die. You should stop feeling so sorry for yourself, you’re lucky you got out when you did.” Jughead was fuming. He stalked past her and headed back towards the editorials. The sooner he solved the mystery of her death, the sooner she’d get the hell out of his life.

Of course she followed him back there. He couldn’t hear her footsteps because she didn’t have any, but he knew she was behind him, waiting to strike back with another insult.

He sat down at the table and relocated the clipping he’d been looking at previously. He heard the chair across from him scuff against the floor as she moved it to sit down. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, barely loud enough for him to hear.

“Yeah well, soon this will all be over, and we won’t have to deal with each other anymore, alright?”

Betty nodded silently and watched him as he read. But nothing in the newspaper was making any sense to him. “They say you disappeared. The last day you were spotted before they found your body was October 22nd. There are interviews in here from your parents and your sister Polly. No one knew where you vanished to. And when they found your body in the woods near Sweet Water River, there was no sign or distinction of torture; just a single bullet wound straight through your chest.”

He looked up. Betty had untucked her sweater from her skirt and lifted it up. Just inside her left breast was a hole about the size of a silver dime. “Geepers. I never noticed that before now.”

Jughead tried not stare and did a terrible job at hiding it. Despite the hole in her chest, he got lost roving his eyes over the contours of her body. Betty was a like one of those American Girl dolls his sister Jelly Bean had owned growing up. She had porcelain skin and eyes too blue to be real. How someone could have killed this innocent, and rather annoying girl boggled his mind to no end.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said, “but how does one not realize they have a literal hole in their body?”

Betty let her shirt fall and grabbed his hand. One moment she was there, solid as ice and the next she was invisible; all he could feel was a draft on his palm, as though he were outside in the middle of winter without any gloves on. “Can you feel that?” Betty asked, reappearing once more. “Can you feel my hand in yours?”

“Not when you’re invisible no, but when you’re here the way you are now I can. Why, can’t you feel me?”

Betty shook her head. “I can’t feel anything Jughead. Remember – I’m dead.”

[ecotone99]

[SF] ‘This isn’t your year, Rodrigo Velasquez’

About a month ago, I was in a national health food and fitness store. Among shelves of vitamins, ‘miracle pill’ supplements, exercise equipment and weight training tools, were some self-improvement items. One of these ‘too-good-to-be-true’ things caught my eye. It promised ‘rapid results or your money back’. Now I’m no ordinary fool. I realize most marketing in these situations is just hype, but I did expect the chain store to honor their advertised promise. If the product turned out to be ‘smoke and mirrors’, they said I could bring it back for a full refund.

Honestly, I gave it more than the requisite time required and then some. I was also pretty diligent in following all of the instructions. Zip. Nada. If there was any difference, it was negligible. I’d kept my receipt so they couldn’t refuse to honor the stated guarantee; and returned it in ‘like new’ condition. I even took it back to the same store during the return period. I honestly expected no flack from them but was met with CWA. (cashier with attitude).

After a few minutes of pointless arguing with her, I gave up and asked to speak to the manager. The CWA just rolled her eyes and yelled to the back of the store. “Rhonda!” When the manager did appear, the experience didn’t really get any more satisfactory. Rhonda held on to the same official policy that the disrespectful cashier had. Pointing to the guarantee on the sign or my receipt made no difference. They were determined to refuse the return; listed policy be damned. It was as if the store profits came directly out of their paychecks.

“This just isn’t your year, Rodrigo Velasquez.”; Rhonda deadpanned while noisily smacking her gum. The cashier looked at me with renewed contempt and a satisfied sneer. Obviously she took great pleasure in being backed by her manager. The whole thing was made even more bizarre by the fact that my name is neither ‘Rodrigo’, nor ‘Velasquez’. It was delivered like some well-known sitcom one-liner I was unfamiliar with. I seized my merchandise off the counter and left in a huff but I was far from ‘done’, or defeated. I intended to take it to ‘the next level’.

Finding their website was easy enough but locating the complaint number to call was not. Corporate culture does all it can to discourage person-to-person dialogue. They’d much rather you send an email and wait for a response (when they get around to it), or for you to ‘talk’ to a ‘virtual assistant’. Obfuscation is the order of the day. The more difficult they can make it, the less problems they have to deal with in real time. They aren’t counting on anyone being determined or taking their patronage elsewhere (but in this case), they picked ‘the wrong guy’.

Finally I found a customer service number and called. Not surprisingly, there was a labyrinth of automated menu prompts to wade through. “We’ll be with you very shortly, Mr. Velasquez.”; It soothed. As you might imagine, hearing that did the opposite of soothing me. It baffled and magnified my anger. Why would their corporate headquarters think I was someone else (from my phone number); and why would the local store employees say what they did? It was completely bonkers.

To be misidentified twice was bad enough but for the store manager to be dismissively rude on top of it all, was too much. I was prepared to give the first human who answered, a piece of my mind. Adding insult to injury, an automated message came on after a dozen recorded loops and said: “I’m sorry Mr. Velasquez, this just isn’t your year. Our call volume is too high. Please try again later.”

In past years when telephones had a separate cradle to hang the receiver on, I might have slammed it down in disgust. Instead, I had to curb my fury and vent in other ways. I’d just wasted 30 minutes of my life to no end. Instead of getting satisfaction, I walked away angrier. Admittedly, it was a huge setback. I set aside my failed return until I had the energy to try again. Instead I decided to leave the house and get something to eat. With any luck a nice meal would help me forget my frustration.

At the restaurant, I stood at the ma��tre d’ podium to be seated. The host approached me with an odd expression. “Good evening Mr. Velasquez.... unfortunately this isn’t your...”

I could scarcely believe my ears! My heart raced. The world was turning upside down. “Year?”; I responded in bewilderment. Although his demeanor was both professional and apologetic, he didn’t have to finish. I’d heard the nonsensical refrain enough to know what came next. I didn’t try to argue or prove who I was. I simply turned and left. ‘Henri’ tried to make some gesture of conciliation but what was the point? He wasn’t even trying to accommodate me. He was trying to accommodate ‘Rodrigo Velasquez’; whoever the hell that was.

Disillusioned, I drove around for hours trying to make sense of the madness. It was as if there was some insidious form of mass psychosis infecting the air. Every person I encountered thought I was someone else and they all took a certain level of pleasure that things were not going my way. It occurred to me that it might be a simple case of mistaken identity. I did an internet search. Page after page of haunting personal images starred back at me. ‘Rodrigo’ certainly could have been my twin. Finally I understood the confusion! It would seem that this guy wasn’t liked at all. I vowed to clear up the confusion with the next person who mistook me for him. It wasn’t long before I had the opportunity to set matters straight.

“My Velasquez. I need you to put your car in park and exit the vehicle. I have a warrant for your arrest.”

I complied with the officer’s request and got out of the car immediately but didn’t want to verbally correct him. Instead I started to reach for my wallet and pull out my ID. That was a huge mistake! Unfortunately he took it as an aggressive move to go for a weapon. Before I knew what hit me, a 9mm slug ripped through my body and I collapsed down to the asphalt. My wallet fell from my hand and flew open beside me. As I lay there bleeding profusely from an deadly gunshot wound, my eyes fixated on the nearest thing to my body. My driver’s license. I read the perplexing words on my ID several times, trying to make sense of things before the end came.

‘Rodrigo Velasquez’ 1412 Aspen Circle Port Richie, Florida

“This just isn’t your year, is it Rodrigo?”; The cop shouted in adrenalized indignation. I had no choice but to agree. It was definitely not my year.

submitted by /u/OpinionatedIMO [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2uH7Y6Y

[studio-elan]

Strong Feelings after a First Date? How to Read All the Right Signs

Often times, first dates suck, but on the off chance that you have strong feelings after a first date, what should you do about it? First dates are vital to a potential relationship. They can also be short meetings just to see if you click. They can be awkward and uncomfortable or horrible and require an escape maneuver. And they can be misleading. But, what happens when you have strong feelings after a first date? Well, be happy for starters. I would say first dates tend to flop more often than they flourish, so enjoy the feeling. Why do you have strong feelings after a first date? The most prominent reason you would have strong feelings after a first date is infatuation. You clicked. You are attracted to them and things went well. Great. But that does not mean you are going to get married. It doesn’t even mean you will have a second date. [Read: How to tell the difference between infatuation and love] I myself have felt strong feelings after a first date, but they can quickly subside when you learn more about this person. They can also fade once your body no longer releases those feel-good chemicals that go along with a new romance. I am not saying that your feelings are fake or just a rush of hormones. You very well may have strong feelings after a first date, but just to make sure, ask yourself these questions to sort out the real feelings from the surface ones. #1 Were you comfortable? This is a big one, but it can be difficult to answer after a first date. You are almost always nervous during a first date, but even with that, you should be able to be yourself. Did you find yourself hesitating to say certain things? Did you hold back? Were you tense or was your body loose and relaxed? All of these things show if there is potential there. If you have strong feelings but were holding back and tight, you could just be magnifying your hope for a connection into faux feelings. [Read: What to say on a first date to keep it light, easy, and flirtatious] #2 Did you laugh? Humor is such a vital part of any potential relationship, even a casual one. Finding the positive side of every situation and being able to laugh together is what makes things less awkward and more free-flowing. Sure, your senses of humor do not need to match 100%, but they should line up a bit. I mean I dated someone for years that liked The Big Bang Theory, a sitcom I find mind-numbing, but we still got along and had a similar sense of humor. So look at your conversations and the date as a whole. Are your strong feelings after a first date clouding something important? [Read: 20 signs of attraction in the first conversation] #3 Did they ask you questions? Before realizing how important someone asking questions on a first date was, I left one with what I thought were strong feelings. I thought that because this person opened up, they must like me. But, by not asking me anything about myself, they really weren’t there for me. They spoke about their life and their past. When I asked them something, they went on and on and never returned the question. Sometimes that can feel like a flowing conversation, but in reality, it is one-sided and not conducive to a relationship. They need to be both open and be able to sit back and listen to you. You both need to get to know each other to truly know if you have strong feelings. #4 Were they respectful? Seeing signs of respect can be easy and very subtle. Everything from saying thank you to a waiter to pulling out your chair or covering their mouth when they cough, all shows their level of manners. Sometimes we are so blinded by initial attraction and so sure that it means strong feelings that we overlook such important aspects of a person’s character. Once the novelty wears off, these are the things that drive us crazy. Be on the lookout for politeness and manners. You don’t want to be with someone that is a bad tipper or that is rude to service workers. [Read: 13 warning signs to keep an eye on the first few dates] #5 Did they have your dealbreakers? Our dealbreakers are also something we can turn a blind eye to early on. We hope that our strong feelings will outweigh something we know we can’t deal with. We think that crossing that bridge when we come to it is easier, but all that does is push off the inevitable. If you cannot be with a smoker or a Republican, no matter how strong your feelings after a first date are, the relationship will not last. [Read: How to stop ignoring subtle red flags on your first date] What to do when you have strong feelings after a first date? Hopefully, you now know whether or not you truly have strong feelings after a first date. If you don’t, better luck next time. We have all been fooled by false strong feelings. If you do, congratulations. There are a number of things you can do now. #1 Get excited. Smile. Sing a bop. Dance around. Call a friend and give them a play by play of this miraculous first date. Enjoy this feeling. You deserve it. We get so in our heads when it comes to dating, but often times forget to really enjoy these giddy feelings. So be happy. Don’t worry about tomorrow just yet. #2 Plan a second date. Ask for a second date. You do not want to play games or wait for them. If you have strong feelings, do something about it. A second date will either confirm those feelings or make you pump the brakes. Ask them out for something a bit more serious. Do an activity together where you can get closer and truly see potential.[Read: 20 really fun second date ideas that’ll make anyone want a third] #3 Keep calm. Strong feelings can trick us. We may think they have to be feeling the same way. Maybe you’re starting a plan for the future. We can get ourselves worked up. Try to just enjoy the feeling and take things one step at a time. Having strong feelings after a first date is all fine and good, but that does not mean you are getting married. So breathe and keep cool. You do not want to come on too strong. #4 Live in the moment. I know, I sort of already said this, but it is so important. Do not overthink. Don’t relive every single moment of the night. Do not overanalyze everything you said and how many minutes to wait between texting. Just enjoy these feelings while they are here. Sure, you could be in a serious relationship soon, or you could be heartbroken. So just live in the right now. Rushing things due to the strong feelings you have after a first date is not the most logical idea. [Read: 60 get to know you questions for a new romance] #5 See how they feel. If you have strong feelings after a first date, great. You are so focused on them, but make sure you stop to find out how they feel. This is what takes a first date and turns it into more. You both need to have feelings for things to move forward. So let them know you had a great time and ask if they did. And if they also have strong feelings after a first date, wonderful. You can now go for a second date. [Read: 10 absolutely dreamy signs of love at first sight] Dealing with strong feelings after a first date can be terrifying, confusing, or wonderful. You just have to know how to enjoy it. The post Strong Feelings after a First Date? How to Read All the Right Signs is the original content of LovePanky - Your Guide to Better Love and Relationships.

[russellthornton]

Strong Feelings after a First Date? How to Read All the Right Signs

Often times, first dates suck, but on the off chance that you have strong feelings after a first date, what should you do about it?

First dates are vital to a potential relationship. They can also be short meetings just to see if you click. They can be awkward and uncomfortable or horrible and require an escape maneuver. And they can be misleading. But, what happens when you have strong feelings after a first date?

Well, be happy for starters. I would say first dates tend to flop more often than they flourish, so enjoy the feeling.

Why do you have strong feelings after a first date?

The most prominent reason you would have strong feelings after a first date is infatuation. You clicked. You are attracted to them and things went well. Great. But that does not mean you are going to get married. It doesn’t even mean you will have a second date. [Read: How to tell the difference between infatuation and love]

I myself have felt strong feelings after a first date, but they can quickly subside when you learn more about this person. They can also fade once your body no longer releases those feel-good chemicals that go along with a new romance.

I am not saying that your feelings are fake or just a rush of hormones. You very well may have strong feelings after a first date, but just to make sure, ask yourself these questions to sort out the real feelings from the surface ones.

#1 Were you comfortable? This is a big one, but it can be difficult to answer after a first date. You are almost always nervous during a first date, but even with that, you should be able to be yourself.

Did you find yourself hesitating to say certain things? Did you hold back? Were you tense or was your body loose and relaxed? All of these things show if there is potential there. If you have strong feelings but were holding back and tight, you could just be magnifying your hope for a connection into faux feelings. [Read: What to say on a first date to keep it light, easy, and flirtatious]

#2 Did you laugh? Humor is such a vital part of any potential relationship, even a casual one. Finding the positive side of every situation and being able to laugh together is what makes things less awkward and more free-flowing.

Sure, your senses of humor do not need to match 100%, but they should line up a bit. I mean I dated someone for years that liked The Big Bang Theory, a sitcom I find mind-numbing, but we still got along and had a similar sense of humor.

So look at your conversations and the date as a whole. Are your strong feelings after a first date clouding something important? [Read: 20 signs of attraction in the first conversation]

#3 Did they ask you questions? Before realizing how important someone asking questions on a first date was, I left one with what I thought were strong feelings. I thought that because this person opened up, they must like me. But, by not asking me anything about myself, they really weren’t there for me.

They spoke about their life and their past. When I asked them something, they went on and on and never returned the question. Sometimes that can feel like a flowing conversation, but in reality, it is one-sided and not conducive to a relationship.

They need to be both open and be able to sit back and listen to you. You both need to get to know each other to truly know if you have strong feelings.

#4 Were they respectful? Seeing signs of respect can be easy and very subtle. Everything from saying thank you to a waiter to pulling out your chair or covering their mouth when they cough, all shows their level of manners.

Sometimes we are so blinded by initial attraction and so sure that it means strong feelings that we overlook such important aspects of a person’s character. Once the novelty wears off, these are the things that drive us crazy.

Be on the lookout for politeness and manners. You don’t want to be with someone that is a bad tipper or that is rude to service workers. [Read: 13 warning signs to keep an eye on the first few dates]

#5 Did they have your dealbreakers? Our dealbreakers are also something we can turn a blind eye to early on. We hope that our strong feelings will outweigh something we know we can’t deal with. We think that crossing that bridge when we come to it is easier, but all that does is push off the inevitable.

If you cannot be with a smoker or a Republican, no matter how strong your feelings after a first date are, the relationship will not last. [Read: How to stop ignoring subtle red flags on your first date]

What to do when you have strong feelings after a first date?

Hopefully, you now know whether or not you truly have strong feelings after a first date. If you don’t, better luck next time. We have all been fooled by false strong feelings.

If you do, congratulations. There are a number of things you can do now.

#1 Get excited. Smile. Sing a bop. Dance around. Call a friend and give them a play by play of this miraculous first date. Enjoy this feeling. You deserve it.

We get so in our heads when it comes to dating, but often times forget to really enjoy these giddy feelings. So be happy. Don’t worry about tomorrow just yet.

#2 Plan a second date. Ask for a second date. You do not want to play games or wait for them. If you have strong feelings, do something about it. A second date will either confirm those feelings or make you pump the brakes.

Ask them out for something a bit more serious. Do an activity together where you can get closer and truly see potential.[Read: 20 really fun second date ideas that’ll make anyone want a third]

#3 Keep calm. Strong feelings can trick us. We may think they have to be feeling the same way. Maybe you’re starting a plan for the future. We can get ourselves worked up. Try to just enjoy the feeling and take things one step at a time.

Having strong feelings after a first date is all fine and good, but that does not mean you are getting married. So breathe and keep cool. You do not want to come on too strong.

#4 Live in the moment. I know, I sort of already said this, but it is so important. Do not overthink. Don’t relive every single moment of the night. Do not overanalyze everything you said and how many minutes to wait between texting.

Just enjoy these feelings while they are here. Sure, you could be in a serious relationship soon, or you could be heartbroken. So just live in the right now. Rushing things due to the strong feelings you have after a first date is not the most logical idea. [Read: 60 get to know you questions for a new romance]

#5 See how they feel. If you have strong feelings after a first date, great. You are so focused on them, but make sure you stop to find out how they feel. This is what takes a first date and turns it into more.

You both need to have feelings for things to move forward. So let them know you had a great time and ask if they did. And if they also have strong feelings after a first date, wonderful. You can now go for a second date.

[Read: 10 absolutely dreamy signs of love at first sight]

Dealing with strong feelings after a first date can be terrifying, confusing, or wonderful. You just have to know how to enjoy it.

The post Strong Feelings after a First Date? How to Read All the Right Signs is the original content of LovePanky - Your Guide to Better Love and Relationships.

[adambstingus]

5 Reasons Why The Middle Class Doesn’t Understand Poverty

Poverty is a well-worn subject here at Cracked. John Cheese has talked about it a lot, C. Coville discussed legal loopholes that can screw the poor, and we’ve also covered myths the media perpetrates. And now it’s my turn to moderately wealthsplain the subject.

Unlike John and others, I grew up one year’s worth of acoustic guitar lessons away from being the most stereotypical middle-class white kid ever. I didn’t take yearly vacations to private islands to hunt men for sport, but I also never wanted for clothes and video games. And while us suburban kids were taught that it’s good to help the poor, we were also accidentally taught to treat them with disdain. Here’s how.

5

We’re Constantly Told That “Money Can’t Buy Happiness”

If you’re friends with the right kind of insufferable people on social media, you’ve probably seen pictures like this:

Pinterest

Or these:

Simple Reminders

Quotesgram How profound, guy with countless fans and a net worth of 150 million.

Or, God help us, this:

It’s all variations on the same theme: Money can’t buy happiness, true wealth comes from friendship and experiences, you don’t need the solid gold butt plug when the polymer one feels identical inside of you, etc. Movies teach it, music teaches it, our parents teach it — money is useless if you aren’t living. It’s not an inherently bad message, but try telling people at the homeless shelter to count the blessings that money can’t buy, and see how long it takes before you’ll feel blessed that you can afford health insurance.

Outside of images that the Care Bears would find insipid, “Money can’t buy happiness” is what middle-class people tell each other when someone is trying to decide between two different jobs. “I make 70k right now and the new gig only plays 60k, so I wouldn’t be able to travel as much. But I’d have more free time to play Ultimate, the benefits are better, and there’s no way my new manager could be any worse than my current one.” That’s an important decision to the person making it, but they’re debating between two different kinds of comfort. It’s safely assumed that the money they will need to exist will always be there. It would be nice to have more — to be able to go to more restaurants or to justify buying a second Roomba because deep down you know that the first one is lonely — but there’s always enough to keep the lights on and the kitchen stocked.

You may have seen the study that claimed $70,000 a year is the ideal salary — after that, more money generally doesn’t make you happier. Well, that’s great news for people hovering around that benchmark, but if you’re poor, more money will abso-fucking-lutely make you happier. More money means healthier food, or a chance to get out of the house and have some fun. It can mean knowing the rent is paid for next month, or being able to afford medication.

The middle class isn’t immune to money problems, especially if there are kids in the mix. Getting laid off at the wrong time sucks, no matter what your income is. But the middle-class people with money problems I’ve known were generally suffering from self-inflicted wounds. They had no savings because they wanted the new car or the luxury vacation. They wanted one of those experiences they were constantly told was more important than money, because the money for day-to-day necessities was always there, right up until it wasn’t.

That’s part of the reason, I think, so many middle-class people laugh at campaigns to raise the minimum wage. “You want 15 bucks an hour to flip burgers? How about you just hold off on the new TV until you get a real job?” The middle class generally fluctuates between being able to afford a nice vacation one year and having to settle for a few trips to the movies the next. The poor can fluctuate between paying bills and being out on the street. But the idea that such essentials could just go unpaid is unfathomable, right up until you experience it.

4

We’re Taught To Associate Low-Paying Jobs With Failure

When I was growing up, there was never a question of whether or not I was going to college. That’s partially because the idea of my spindly idiot ass learning a technical trade or doing manual labor is the first step in creating an “Epic Fail!!!” YouTube video, but mostly because my parents had a fund set up for me. (It helped that I live in a country where a post-secondary education doesn’t cost roughly eight quadrillion dollars a semester.)

So jobs that didn’t require a degree were presented to us as warning signs. “You better study hard, or else you’re going to end up just like that bull masturbator for the rest of your life! And I didn’t intend that pun, so don’t giggle!” Becoming a janitor or a gas station attendant or an internet comedy writer would have been considered a disappointment, an inability to take advantage of the gifts that were offered to us. Poverty was considered a moral failing.

No one ever just came out and said that, but the implication was always there. We tend to assume that other people are basically like us until they prove otherwise, which is why I’m constantly shocked to discover that most people don’t like my favorite homoerotic golf academy anime, Wood Strokes. So we were never taught that working as a dishwasher or a grocery store clerk or a sperm bank fluffer could be an important stepping stone for someone with a different background than us. We were also never taught that, you know, it’s still a goddamn job where someone shows up and puts work in and gets paid for their time. They were always just associated with squandered potential.

And man, when you hear that message constantly, it’s hard to shake. It’s easy to glance at a middle-aged dude working the checkout counter and automatically think “Well, I bet he’s not the brightest guy around” or “Oh shit, is that what happened to Matthew Lawrence?” It’s not malicious — not initially. Being told to take advantage of your opportunities is not a bad message. But when that message is driven into you for decades, it creates a stigma around certain jobs. And from some people, it produces plenty of snide remarks about how the people working those jobs should get better ones, as if the person who’s been a server for seven years has never considered just popping down to the job store and picking up a career in architecture.

Janitors and baristas keep society running as much as anyone else. If all of America’s coffee shops shut down for a day, the country would experience a nationwide narcolepsy epidemic crossed with The Purge. But when you grow up in the middle class, the only thing you’re taught about such jobs is that you should get one as a teenager to build character, and then thank God that you’ll never have to work one again as long as you don’t fuck up in life. And as long as we consider that a sign of our superior work ethic instead of birth luck, we’re going to keep dismissing as pathetic the jobs we’d all get angry about if they vanished tomorrow.

3

There Are Always Certain Things We Take For Granted

An education isn’t the only thing that most middle-class kids can assume they’ll get. A car to borrow, a phone, 20 bucks for when you really want to take a girl to what you assumed was a bad movie so you could make out in the back row but then it turns out that she’s actually super into the plot of Gigli and wants to focus on it even though you were all set to reach second base and so you end up getting a confused erection to Al Pacino and it inadvertently shapes your formative years … you know, all the little things that are part of growing up in Middle America.

That’s the end result of assuming that a good job awaits you, and that money is for throwing at problems and buying pizza instead of something to stress out about. Water heater broke? No worries, we’ll just have to eat in the rest of the month to make up for it. Shoes all worn out? Well, you can’t go to school like that, so go get some new ones. Gone on a losing streak at the Pokemon Card League and the groupies have started drifting off to the other players? Better pick up a few booster packs to get back in the game. You know you can’t get greedy and start buying Armani, but as long as your needs are modest, the money will always be there.

So the idea of 20 bucks making or breaking someone is impossible to appreciate. It’s just not a concept that clicks in our heads. It makes sense on a logical level, sure — you need money, and you don’t have it, and that sucks. But when you’re raised in comfort, you can’t put yourself in that head space emotionally. You can’t understand the stress, or the fear that you might not be able to feed your kids. The closest we can get is watching Gwyneth Paltrow try and hilariously fail to live on a tiny food budget before going back to her $4,000 kale cleanses. That’s kind of like empathy, right?

And because it’s tough to relate to, it’s tough to talk about. If someone tells me that they never got Christmas presents growing up, all I can respond with is “Uh, yeah, that sounds like it sucked. Well … one time my grandma accidentally got me Super Murpio 67, so … I hear you.” Starting a conversation with a bunch of middle-class people about poverty is like bringing up Trayvon Martin at a country club. Everyone trips over everyone else’s words to talk about how tragic it is, but then they distance themselves from the problem and the “buts” start coming out. And to further compound the issue …

2

We Don’t Witness Poverty, So We Don’t Understand It

When I was growing up, my exposure to poverty was largely limited to sitcom families who would talk about how poor they were, but were still able to go on a wacky adventure every week. The Simpsons kept running into money troubles in their early years, but their house looked the same as mine. Even the family from Roseanne, the classic working-class sitcom, owned a house that’s a palace compared to what a lot of people live in. The problem with portraying poverty in sitcoms is that it’s hard to get laughs out of eviction and early deaths caused by crippling medical debt, so the lesson always ends up being “Poor people struggle with money sometimes, but in the end they always get by, and they have lots of laughs while doing it!” Sitcoms make being poor look fun.

Beyond that, once or twice a year, I’d go to some kid’s birthday party and notice that his house was a lot smaller and more run down than mine. One of the kids who always got talked about in a slightly different tone of voice by the adults. I never gave it much thought because we went to the same school and both liked Nintendo — how different could our lives possibly be? Maybe I’d see a story on the news that would put a positive spin on the issue. (“Look at how many volunteers with beautiful families showed up to the soup kitchen to help feed these filthy hobos!”) Beyond that, the middle class just doesn’t think about poverty.

We’re always looking up, always wanting to go to the Christmas party at the rich friend’s house so we can get a taste of what we’re aspiring to. There’s rarely a reason to go to the poor part of town. Tell jokes about it, sure, but go? We never have to leave the bubble, so we never learn what real poverty looks like. Poor people become invisible, this mysterious Other, a group that serves you food, and in return, you throw a couple of non-perishables and toys into donation bins for them over the holidays.

Oh yeah, the middle class loves to donate food and toys and clothes and gently used ball gags and all sorts of other crap that we weren’t using anyway. Food banks actually need money far more than they need your creamed corn that’s going to expire in two weeks, because money just goes further. But people who will gladly part with 12 boxes of Kraft Mac and Cheese and some Funyuns they found under the sofa get leery when it comes to handing over money, even though we’re supposedly under the impression that we don’t need it ourselves to be happy.

That’s partially just because it’s more satisfying to give stuff instead of money — you can imagine some happy kid playing with your old Lego, and you get to clean out your closet. But remember, we’re taught that the poor are stupid and lazy. We sit around telling each other stories about how our friend’s cousin’s boyfriend knows a guy who spent his welfare check on beer and weed. These are campfire horror stories for the most tedious suburbanites, and they’re told in the hot tubs that they probably shouldn’t have bought until the next mortgage payment cleared. We can’t trust those people with money, because if they were smart enough to manage it properly, they’d be smart enough to have a better job. Also, they probably all have hooks for hands and murder teenagers while they’re making out in their cars. Hey, we learn so little about poor people that it’s just as believable.

1

We’re Taught To See Ourselves As The Victims

I’ve known people with movie theaters in their homes and four cars in their garage who are convinced that society is against them, that life is a gloomy parade of suffering because their property taxes went up a bit. That’s stereotypical rich people behavior, but it’s there in the middle class too, in subtler ways. I live in a city where the economy revolves around a boom and bust industry, so people tend to make good money while complaining about taxes for a few years, then get laid off and go on government benefits for a while, and then get a new job and go back to complaining about the government. And if you watch the cycle, you see the same “us against the world” mentality, just with fewer BMWs in the mix.

When middle-class people get laid off and go on welfare, they blame the economy, or their former employer, or the government. They never blame themselves. And they shouldn’t! Much like a whale’s erection, economies are big, confusing things that can’t be controlled by the average person. It’s not like they left photocopies of their asshole on the boss’ desk. They paid into the welfare system with their taxes when times were good, and now they’re using the system for exactly what it’s intended: helping you out when you’re unlucky. It’s bridging the gap until you, a hard-working person who just caught a tough break, gets another job.

Except when poor people use the system, it’s none of those things. Suddenly they’re not getting help; they’re just dumb, lazy leeches. Plenty of middle-class people are more empathetic and generous than I’ll ever be, but the worst instinct of the middle class is to blame the system when the system fails us, then lecture poor people when the system fails them. I’ve heard the condescending explanations about how the world really works (which usually come out after a few beers when no actual poor people are around because the speaker would never be brave enough to say it to their faces) more times than I can count.

The middle class has a weird relationship with the rich — we alternate between complaining about them and wishing we were them. Money can’t buy happiness, but a yacht certainly wouldn’t hurt matters. Even if we don’t like the rich, there’s always the pipe dream that we could be them. But no one dreams about being poor, unless you’re into an incredibly specific kind of role-playing.

Being poor is a problem (practically, not morally), and a problem is either the fault of the person or the fault of circumstances beyond their control. The latter means we in the middle class might have to do something about it — or, God forbid, reflect upon our lifestyles, which is just the worst. It’s much, much easier to assume that we’re fine, that ultra-rich politicians and celebrities and investment bankers are the ones being condescending and awful to the poor, but also that poor people could probably stand to work a little harder. So, uh … sorry about all of that. I’ll donate some food at Christmas, though!

Mark is on Twitter and has a book that’s made him rich in experience.

For more, check out 5 Things Nobody Tells You About Being Poor and 4 Common Morals Designed to Keep You Poor.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out Disney Thinks You Hate Poor People, and watch other videos you won’t see on the site!

Also follow us on Facebook. Likes don’t cost a thing.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/5-reasons-why-the-middle-class-doesnt-understand-poverty-2/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/183082791437

[allofbeercom]

5 Reasons Why The Middle Class Doesn’t Understand Poverty

Poverty is a well-worn subject here at Cracked. John Cheese has talked about it a lot, C. Coville discussed legal loopholes that can screw the poor, and we’ve also covered myths the media perpetrates. And now it’s my turn to moderately wealthsplain the subject.

Unlike John and others, I grew up one year’s worth of acoustic guitar lessons away from being the most stereotypical middle-class white kid ever. I didn’t take yearly vacations to private islands to hunt men for sport, but I also never wanted for clothes and video games. And while us suburban kids were taught that it’s good to help the poor, we were also accidentally taught to treat them with disdain. Here’s how.

5

We’re Constantly Told That “Money Can’t Buy Happiness”

If you’re friends with the right kind of insufferable people on social media, you’ve probably seen pictures like this:

Pinterest

Or these:

Simple Reminders

Quotesgram How profound, guy with countless fans and a net worth of 150 million.

Or, God help us, this:

It’s all variations on the same theme: Money can’t buy happiness, true wealth comes from friendship and experiences, you don’t need the solid gold butt plug when the polymer one feels identical inside of you, etc. Movies teach it, music teaches it, our parents teach it — money is useless if you aren’t living. It’s not an inherently bad message, but try telling people at the homeless shelter to count the blessings that money can’t buy, and see how long it takes before you’ll feel blessed that you can afford health insurance.

Outside of images that the Care Bears would find insipid, “Money can’t buy happiness” is what middle-class people tell each other when someone is trying to decide between two different jobs. “I make 70k right now and the new gig only plays 60k, so I wouldn’t be able to travel as much. But I’d have more free time to play Ultimate, the benefits are better, and there’s no way my new manager could be any worse than my current one.” That’s an important decision to the person making it, but they’re debating between two different kinds of comfort. It’s safely assumed that the money they will need to exist will always be there. It would be nice to have more — to be able to go to more restaurants or to justify buying a second Roomba because deep down you know that the first one is lonely — but there’s always enough to keep the lights on and the kitchen stocked.

You may have seen the study that claimed $70,000 a year is the ideal salary — after that, more money generally doesn’t make you happier. Well, that’s great news for people hovering around that benchmark, but if you’re poor, more money will abso-fucking-lutely make you happier. More money means healthier food, or a chance to get out of the house and have some fun. It can mean knowing the rent is paid for next month, or being able to afford medication.

The middle class isn’t immune to money problems, especially if there are kids in the mix. Getting laid off at the wrong time sucks, no matter what your income is. But the middle-class people with money problems I’ve known were generally suffering from self-inflicted wounds. They had no savings because they wanted the new car or the luxury vacation. They wanted one of those experiences they were constantly told was more important than money, because the money for day-to-day necessities was always there, right up until it wasn’t.

That’s part of the reason, I think, so many middle-class people laugh at campaigns to raise the minimum wage. “You want 15 bucks an hour to flip burgers? How about you just hold off on the new TV until you get a real job?” The middle class generally fluctuates between being able to afford a nice vacation one year and having to settle for a few trips to the movies the next. The poor can fluctuate between paying bills and being out on the street. But the idea that such essentials could just go unpaid is unfathomable, right up until you experience it.

4

We’re Taught To Associate Low-Paying Jobs With Failure

When I was growing up, there was never a question of whether or not I was going to college. That’s partially because the idea of my spindly idiot ass learning a technical trade or doing manual labor is the first step in creating an “Epic Fail!!!” YouTube video, but mostly because my parents had a fund set up for me. (It helped that I live in a country where a post-secondary education doesn’t cost roughly eight quadrillion dollars a semester.)

So jobs that didn’t require a degree were presented to us as warning signs. “You better study hard, or else you’re going to end up just like that bull masturbator for the rest of your life! And I didn’t intend that pun, so don’t giggle!” Becoming a janitor or a gas station attendant or an internet comedy writer would have been considered a disappointment, an inability to take advantage of the gifts that were offered to us. Poverty was considered a moral failing.

No one ever just came out and said that, but the implication was always there. We tend to assume that other people are basically like us until they prove otherwise, which is why I’m constantly shocked to discover that most people don’t like my favorite homoerotic golf academy anime, Wood Strokes. So we were never taught that working as a dishwasher or a grocery store clerk or a sperm bank fluffer could be an important stepping stone for someone with a different background than us. We were also never taught that, you know, it’s still a goddamn job where someone shows up and puts work in and gets paid for their time. They were always just associated with squandered potential.

And man, when you hear that message constantly, it’s hard to shake. It’s easy to glance at a middle-aged dude working the checkout counter and automatically think “Well, I bet he’s not the brightest guy around” or “Oh shit, is that what happened to Matthew Lawrence?” It’s not malicious — not initially. Being told to take advantage of your opportunities is not a bad message. But when that message is driven into you for decades, it creates a stigma around certain jobs. And from some people, it produces plenty of snide remarks about how the people working those jobs should get better ones, as if the person who’s been a server for seven years has never considered just popping down to the job store and picking up a career in architecture.

Janitors and baristas keep society running as much as anyone else. If all of America’s coffee shops shut down for a day, the country would experience a nationwide narcolepsy epidemic crossed with The Purge. But when you grow up in the middle class, the only thing you’re taught about such jobs is that you should get one as a teenager to build character, and then thank God that you’ll never have to work one again as long as you don’t fuck up in life. And as long as we consider that a sign of our superior work ethic instead of birth luck, we’re going to keep dismissing as pathetic the jobs we’d all get angry about if they vanished tomorrow.

3

There Are Always Certain Things We Take For Granted

An education isn’t the only thing that most middle-class kids can assume they’ll get. A car to borrow, a phone, 20 bucks for when you really want to take a girl to what you assumed was a bad movie so you could make out in the back row but then it turns out that she’s actually super into the plot of Gigli and wants to focus on it even though you were all set to reach second base and so you end up getting a confused erection to Al Pacino and it inadvertently shapes your formative years … you know, all the little things that are part of growing up in Middle America.

That’s the end result of assuming that a good job awaits you, and that money is for throwing at problems and buying pizza instead of something to stress out about. Water heater broke? No worries, we’ll just have to eat in the rest of the month to make up for it. Shoes all worn out? Well, you can’t go to school like that, so go get some new ones. Gone on a losing streak at the Pokemon Card League and the groupies have started drifting off to the other players? Better pick up a few booster packs to get back in the game. You know you can’t get greedy and start buying Armani, but as long as your needs are modest, the money will always be there.

So the idea of 20 bucks making or breaking someone is impossible to appreciate. It’s just not a concept that clicks in our heads. It makes sense on a logical level, sure — you need money, and you don’t have it, and that sucks. But when you’re raised in comfort, you can’t put yourself in that head space emotionally. You can’t understand the stress, or the fear that you might not be able to feed your kids. The closest we can get is watching Gwyneth Paltrow try and hilariously fail to live on a tiny food budget before going back to her $4,000 kale cleanses. That’s kind of like empathy, right?

And because it’s tough to relate to, it’s tough to talk about. If someone tells me that they never got Christmas presents growing up, all I can respond with is “Uh, yeah, that sounds like it sucked. Well … one time my grandma accidentally got me Super Murpio 67, so … I hear you.” Starting a conversation with a bunch of middle-class people about poverty is like bringing up Trayvon Martin at a country club. Everyone trips over everyone else’s words to talk about how tragic it is, but then they distance themselves from the problem and the “buts” start coming out. And to further compound the issue …

2

We Don’t Witness Poverty, So We Don’t Understand It

When I was growing up, my exposure to poverty was largely limited to sitcom families who would talk about how poor they were, but were still able to go on a wacky adventure every week. The Simpsons kept running into money troubles in their early years, but their house looked the same as mine. Even the family from Roseanne, the classic working-class sitcom, owned a house that’s a palace compared to what a lot of people live in. The problem with portraying poverty in sitcoms is that it’s hard to get laughs out of eviction and early deaths caused by crippling medical debt, so the lesson always ends up being “Poor people struggle with money sometimes, but in the end they always get by, and they have lots of laughs while doing it!” Sitcoms make being poor look fun.

Beyond that, once or twice a year, I’d go to some kid’s birthday party and notice that his house was a lot smaller and more run down than mine. One of the kids who always got talked about in a slightly different tone of voice by the adults. I never gave it much thought because we went to the same school and both liked Nintendo — how different could our lives possibly be? Maybe I’d see a story on the news that would put a positive spin on the issue. (“Look at how many volunteers with beautiful families showed up to the soup kitchen to help feed these filthy hobos!”) Beyond that, the middle class just doesn’t think about poverty.

We’re always looking up, always wanting to go to the Christmas party at the rich friend’s house so we can get a taste of what we’re aspiring to. There’s rarely a reason to go to the poor part of town. Tell jokes about it, sure, but go? We never have to leave the bubble, so we never learn what real poverty looks like. Poor people become invisible, this mysterious Other, a group that serves you food, and in return, you throw a couple of non-perishables and toys into donation bins for them over the holidays.

Oh yeah, the middle class loves to donate food and toys and clothes and gently used ball gags and all sorts of other crap that we weren’t using anyway. Food banks actually need money far more than they need your creamed corn that’s going to expire in two weeks, because money just goes further. But people who will gladly part with 12 boxes of Kraft Mac and Cheese and some Funyuns they found under the sofa get leery when it comes to handing over money, even though we’re supposedly under the impression that we don’t need it ourselves to be happy.

That’s partially just because it’s more satisfying to give stuff instead of money — you can imagine some happy kid playing with your old Lego, and you get to clean out your closet. But remember, we’re taught that the poor are stupid and lazy. We sit around telling each other stories about how our friend’s cousin’s boyfriend knows a guy who spent his welfare check on beer and weed. These are campfire horror stories for the most tedious suburbanites, and they’re told in the hot tubs that they probably shouldn’t have bought until the next mortgage payment cleared. We can’t trust those people with money, because if they were smart enough to manage it properly, they’d be smart enough to have a better job. Also, they probably all have hooks for hands and murder teenagers while they’re making out in their cars. Hey, we learn so little about poor people that it’s just as believable.

1

We’re Taught To See Ourselves As The Victims

I’ve known people with movie theaters in their homes and four cars in their garage who are convinced that society is against them, that life is a gloomy parade of suffering because their property taxes went up a bit. That’s stereotypical rich people behavior, but it’s there in the middle class too, in subtler ways. I live in a city where the economy revolves around a boom and bust industry, so people tend to make good money while complaining about taxes for a few years, then get laid off and go on government benefits for a while, and then get a new job and go back to complaining about the government. And if you watch the cycle, you see the same “us against the world” mentality, just with fewer BMWs in the mix.

When middle-class people get laid off and go on welfare, they blame the economy, or their former employer, or the government. They never blame themselves. And they shouldn’t! Much like a whale’s erection, economies are big, confusing things that can’t be controlled by the average person. It’s not like they left photocopies of their asshole on the boss’ desk. They paid into the welfare system with their taxes when times were good, and now they’re using the system for exactly what it’s intended: helping you out when you’re unlucky. It’s bridging the gap until you, a hard-working person who just caught a tough break, gets another job.

Except when poor people use the system, it’s none of those things. Suddenly they’re not getting help; they’re just dumb, lazy leeches. Plenty of middle-class people are more empathetic and generous than I’ll ever be, but the worst instinct of the middle class is to blame the system when the system fails us, then lecture poor people when the system fails them. I’ve heard the condescending explanations about how the world really works (which usually come out after a few beers when no actual poor people are around because the speaker would never be brave enough to say it to their faces) more times than I can count.

The middle class has a weird relationship with the rich — we alternate between complaining about them and wishing we were them. Money can’t buy happiness, but a yacht certainly wouldn’t hurt matters. Even if we don’t like the rich, there’s always the pipe dream that we could be them. But no one dreams about being poor, unless you’re into an incredibly specific kind of role-playing.

Being poor is a problem (practically, not morally), and a problem is either the fault of the person or the fault of circumstances beyond their control. The latter means we in the middle class might have to do something about it — or, God forbid, reflect upon our lifestyles, which is just the worst. It’s much, much easier to assume that we’re fine, that ultra-rich politicians and celebrities and investment bankers are the ones being condescending and awful to the poor, but also that poor people could probably stand to work a little harder. So, uh … sorry about all of that. I’ll donate some food at Christmas, though!

Mark is on Twitter and has a book that’s made him rich in experience.

For more, check out 5 Things Nobody Tells You About Being Poor and 4 Common Morals Designed to Keep You Poor.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out Disney Thinks You Hate Poor People, and watch other videos you won’t see on the site!

Also follow us on Facebook. Likes don’t cost a thing.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/5-reasons-why-the-middle-class-doesnt-understand-poverty-2/

[adambstingus]

5 Reasons Why The Middle Class Doesn’t Understand Poverty

Poverty is a well-worn subject here at Cracked. John Cheese has talked about it a lot, C. Coville discussed legal loopholes that can screw the poor, and we’ve also covered myths the media perpetrates. And now it’s my turn to moderately wealthsplain the subject.

Unlike John and others, I grew up one year’s worth of acoustic guitar lessons away from being the most stereotypical middle-class white kid ever. I didn’t take yearly vacations to private islands to hunt men for sport, but I also never wanted for clothes and video games. And while us suburban kids were taught that it’s good to help the poor, we were also accidentally taught to treat them with disdain. Here’s how.

5

We’re Constantly Told That “Money Can’t Buy Happiness”

If you’re friends with the right kind of insufferable people on social media, you’ve probably seen pictures like this:

Pinterest

Or these:

Simple Reminders

Quotesgram How profound, guy with countless fans and a net worth of 150 million.

Or, God help us, this:

It’s all variations on the same theme: Money can’t buy happiness, true wealth comes from friendship and experiences, you don’t need the solid gold butt plug when the polymer one feels identical inside of you, etc. Movies teach it, music teaches it, our parents teach it — money is useless if you aren’t living. It’s not an inherently bad message, but try telling people at the homeless shelter to count the blessings that money can’t buy, and see how long it takes before you’ll feel blessed that you can afford health insurance.

Outside of images that the Care Bears would find insipid, “Money can’t buy happiness” is what middle-class people tell each other when someone is trying to decide between two different jobs. “I make 70k right now and the new gig only plays 60k, so I wouldn’t be able to travel as much. But I’d have more free time to play Ultimate, the benefits are better, and there’s no way my new manager could be any worse than my current one.” That’s an important decision to the person making it, but they’re debating between two different kinds of comfort. It’s safely assumed that the money they will need to exist will always be there. It would be nice to have more — to be able to go to more restaurants or to justify buying a second Roomba because deep down you know that the first one is lonely — but there’s always enough to keep the lights on and the kitchen stocked.

You may have seen the study that claimed $70,000 a year is the ideal salary — after that, more money generally doesn’t make you happier. Well, that’s great news for people hovering around that benchmark, but if you’re poor, more money will abso-fucking-lutely make you happier. More money means healthier food, or a chance to get out of the house and have some fun. It can mean knowing the rent is paid for next month, or being able to afford medication.

The middle class isn’t immune to money problems, especially if there are kids in the mix. Getting laid off at the wrong time sucks, no matter what your income is. But the middle-class people with money problems I’ve known were generally suffering from self-inflicted wounds. They had no savings because they wanted the new car or the luxury vacation. They wanted one of those experiences they were constantly told was more important than money, because the money for day-to-day necessities was always there, right up until it wasn’t.

That’s part of the reason, I think, so many middle-class people laugh at campaigns to raise the minimum wage. “You want 15 bucks an hour to flip burgers? How about you just hold off on the new TV until you get a real job?” The middle class generally fluctuates between being able to afford a nice vacation one year and having to settle for a few trips to the movies the next. The poor can fluctuate between paying bills and being out on the street. But the idea that such essentials could just go unpaid is unfathomable, right up until you experience it.

4

We’re Taught To Associate Low-Paying Jobs With Failure

When I was growing up, there was never a question of whether or not I was going to college. That’s partially because the idea of my spindly idiot ass learning a technical trade or doing manual labor is the first step in creating an “Epic Fail!!!” YouTube video, but mostly because my parents had a fund set up for me. (It helped that I live in a country where a post-secondary education doesn’t cost roughly eight quadrillion dollars a semester.)

So jobs that didn’t require a degree were presented to us as warning signs. “You better study hard, or else you’re going to end up just like that bull masturbator for the rest of your life! And I didn’t intend that pun, so don’t giggle!” Becoming a janitor or a gas station attendant or an internet comedy writer would have been considered a disappointment, an inability to take advantage of the gifts that were offered to us. Poverty was considered a moral failing.

No one ever just came out and said that, but the implication was always there. We tend to assume that other people are basically like us until they prove otherwise, which is why I’m constantly shocked to discover that most people don’t like my favorite homoerotic golf academy anime, Wood Strokes. So we were never taught that working as a dishwasher or a grocery store clerk or a sperm bank fluffer could be an important stepping stone for someone with a different background than us. We were also never taught that, you know, it’s still a goddamn job where someone shows up and puts work in and gets paid for their time. They were always just associated with squandered potential.

And man, when you hear that message constantly, it’s hard to shake. It’s easy to glance at a middle-aged dude working the checkout counter and automatically think “Well, I bet he’s not the brightest guy around” or “Oh shit, is that what happened to Matthew Lawrence?” It’s not malicious — not initially. Being told to take advantage of your opportunities is not a bad message. But when that message is driven into you for decades, it creates a stigma around certain jobs. And from some people, it produces plenty of snide remarks about how the people working those jobs should get better ones, as if the person who’s been a server for seven years has never considered just popping down to the job store and picking up a career in architecture.

Janitors and baristas keep society running as much as anyone else. If all of America’s coffee shops shut down for a day, the country would experience a nationwide narcolepsy epidemic crossed with The Purge. But when you grow up in the middle class, the only thing you’re taught about such jobs is that you should get one as a teenager to build character, and then thank God that you’ll never have to work one again as long as you don’t fuck up in life. And as long as we consider that a sign of our superior work ethic instead of birth luck, we’re going to keep dismissing as pathetic the jobs we’d all get angry about if they vanished tomorrow.

3

There Are Always Certain Things We Take For Granted

An education isn’t the only thing that most middle-class kids can assume they’ll get. A car to borrow, a phone, 20 bucks for when you really want to take a girl to what you assumed was a bad movie so you could make out in the back row but then it turns out that she’s actually super into the plot of Gigli and wants to focus on it even though you were all set to reach second base and so you end up getting a confused erection to Al Pacino and it inadvertently shapes your formative years … you know, all the little things that are part of growing up in Middle America.

That’s the end result of assuming that a good job awaits you, and that money is for throwing at problems and buying pizza instead of something to stress out about. Water heater broke? No worries, we’ll just have to eat in the rest of the month to make up for it. Shoes all worn out? Well, you can’t go to school like that, so go get some new ones. Gone on a losing streak at the Pokemon Card League and the groupies have started drifting off to the other players? Better pick up a few booster packs to get back in the game. You know you can’t get greedy and start buying Armani, but as long as your needs are modest, the money will always be there.

So the idea of 20 bucks making or breaking someone is impossible to appreciate. It’s just not a concept that clicks in our heads. It makes sense on a logical level, sure — you need money, and you don’t have it, and that sucks. But when you’re raised in comfort, you can’t put yourself in that head space emotionally. You can’t understand the stress, or the fear that you might not be able to feed your kids. The closest we can get is watching Gwyneth Paltrow try and hilariously fail to live on a tiny food budget before going back to her $4,000 kale cleanses. That’s kind of like empathy, right?

And because it’s tough to relate to, it’s tough to talk about. If someone tells me that they never got Christmas presents growing up, all I can respond with is “Uh, yeah, that sounds like it sucked. Well … one time my grandma accidentally got me Super Murpio 67, so … I hear you.” Starting a conversation with a bunch of middle-class people about poverty is like bringing up Trayvon Martin at a country club. Everyone trips over everyone else’s words to talk about how tragic it is, but then they distance themselves from the problem and the “buts” start coming out. And to further compound the issue …

2

We Don’t Witness Poverty, So We Don’t Understand It

When I was growing up, my exposure to poverty was largely limited to sitcom families who would talk about how poor they were, but were still able to go on a wacky adventure every week. The Simpsons kept running into money troubles in their early years, but their house looked the same as mine. Even the family from Roseanne, the classic working-class sitcom, owned a house that’s a palace compared to what a lot of people live in. The problem with portraying poverty in sitcoms is that it’s hard to get laughs out of eviction and early deaths caused by crippling medical debt, so the lesson always ends up being “Poor people struggle with money sometimes, but in the end they always get by, and they have lots of laughs while doing it!” Sitcoms make being poor look fun.

Beyond that, once or twice a year, I’d go to some kid’s birthday party and notice that his house was a lot smaller and more run down than mine. One of the kids who always got talked about in a slightly different tone of voice by the adults. I never gave it much thought because we went to the same school and both liked Nintendo — how different could our lives possibly be? Maybe I’d see a story on the news that would put a positive spin on the issue. (“Look at how many volunteers with beautiful families showed up to the soup kitchen to help feed these filthy hobos!”) Beyond that, the middle class just doesn’t think about poverty.

We’re always looking up, always wanting to go to the Christmas party at the rich friend’s house so we can get a taste of what we’re aspiring to. There’s rarely a reason to go to the poor part of town. Tell jokes about it, sure, but go? We never have to leave the bubble, so we never learn what real poverty looks like. Poor people become invisible, this mysterious Other, a group that serves you food, and in return, you throw a couple of non-perishables and toys into donation bins for them over the holidays.

Oh yeah, the middle class loves to donate food and toys and clothes and gently used ball gags and all sorts of other crap that we weren’t using anyway. Food banks actually need money far more than they need your creamed corn that’s going to expire in two weeks, because money just goes further. But people who will gladly part with 12 boxes of Kraft Mac and Cheese and some Funyuns they found under the sofa get leery when it comes to handing over money, even though we’re supposedly under the impression that we don’t need it ourselves to be happy.

That’s partially just because it’s more satisfying to give stuff instead of money — you can imagine some happy kid playing with your old Lego, and you get to clean out your closet. But remember, we’re taught that the poor are stupid and lazy. We sit around telling each other stories about how our friend’s cousin’s boyfriend knows a guy who spent his welfare check on beer and weed. These are campfire horror stories for the most tedious suburbanites, and they’re told in the hot tubs that they probably shouldn’t have bought until the next mortgage payment cleared. We can’t trust those people with money, because if they were smart enough to manage it properly, they’d be smart enough to have a better job. Also, they probably all have hooks for hands and murder teenagers while they’re making out in their cars. Hey, we learn so little about poor people that it’s just as believable.

1

We’re Taught To See Ourselves As The Victims

I’ve known people with movie theaters in their homes and four cars in their garage who are convinced that society is against them, that life is a gloomy parade of suffering because their property taxes went up a bit. That’s stereotypical rich people behavior, but it’s there in the middle class too, in subtler ways. I live in a city where the economy revolves around a boom and bust industry, so people tend to make good money while complaining about taxes for a few years, then get laid off and go on government benefits for a while, and then get a new job and go back to complaining about the government. And if you watch the cycle, you see the same “us against the world” mentality, just with fewer BMWs in the mix.

When middle-class people get laid off and go on welfare, they blame the economy, or their former employer, or the government. They never blame themselves. And they shouldn’t! Much like a whale’s erection, economies are big, confusing things that can’t be controlled by the average person. It’s not like they left photocopies of their asshole on the boss’ desk. They paid into the welfare system with their taxes when times were good, and now they’re using the system for exactly what it’s intended: helping you out when you’re unlucky. It’s bridging the gap until you, a hard-working person who just caught a tough break, gets another job.

Except when poor people use the system, it’s none of those things. Suddenly they’re not getting help; they’re just dumb, lazy leeches. Plenty of middle-class people are more empathetic and generous than I’ll ever be, but the worst instinct of the middle class is to blame the system when the system fails us, then lecture poor people when the system fails them. I’ve heard the condescending explanations about how the world really works (which usually come out after a few beers when no actual poor people are around because the speaker would never be brave enough to say it to their faces) more times than I can count.

The middle class has a weird relationship with the rich — we alternate between complaining about them and wishing we were them. Money can’t buy happiness, but a yacht certainly wouldn’t hurt matters. Even if we don’t like the rich, there’s always the pipe dream that we could be them. But no one dreams about being poor, unless you’re into an incredibly specific kind of role-playing.

Being poor is a problem (practically, not morally), and a problem is either the fault of the person or the fault of circumstances beyond their control. The latter means we in the middle class might have to do something about it — or, God forbid, reflect upon our lifestyles, which is just the worst. It’s much, much easier to assume that we’re fine, that ultra-rich politicians and celebrities and investment bankers are the ones being condescending and awful to the poor, but also that poor people could probably stand to work a little harder. So, uh … sorry about all of that. I’ll donate some food at Christmas, though!

Mark is on Twitter and has a book that’s made him rich in experience.

For more, check out 5 Things Nobody Tells You About Being Poor and 4 Common Morals Designed to Keep You Poor.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out Disney Thinks You Hate Poor People, and watch other videos you won’t see on the site!

Also follow us on Facebook. Likes don’t cost a thing.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/5-reasons-why-the-middle-class-doesnt-understand-poverty/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/172256736157

[allofbeercom]

5 Reasons Why The Middle Class Doesn’t Understand Poverty

Poverty is a well-worn subject here at Cracked. John Cheese has talked about it a lot, C. Coville discussed legal loopholes that can screw the poor, and we’ve also covered myths the media perpetrates. And now it’s my turn to moderately wealthsplain the subject.

Unlike John and others, I grew up one year’s worth of acoustic guitar lessons away from being the most stereotypical middle-class white kid ever. I didn’t take yearly vacations to private islands to hunt men for sport, but I also never wanted for clothes and video games. And while us suburban kids were taught that it’s good to help the poor, we were also accidentally taught to treat them with disdain. Here’s how.

5

We’re Constantly Told That “Money Can’t Buy Happiness”

If you’re friends with the right kind of insufferable people on social media, you’ve probably seen pictures like this:

Pinterest

Or these:

Simple Reminders

Quotesgram How profound, guy with countless fans and a net worth of 150 million.

Or, God help us, this:

It’s all variations on the same theme: Money can’t buy happiness, true wealth comes from friendship and experiences, you don’t need the solid gold butt plug when the polymer one feels identical inside of you, etc. Movies teach it, music teaches it, our parents teach it — money is useless if you aren’t living. It’s not an inherently bad message, but try telling people at the homeless shelter to count the blessings that money can’t buy, and see how long it takes before you’ll feel blessed that you can afford health insurance.

Outside of images that the Care Bears would find insipid, “Money can’t buy happiness” is what middle-class people tell each other when someone is trying to decide between two different jobs. “I make 70k right now and the new gig only plays 60k, so I wouldn’t be able to travel as much. But I’d have more free time to play Ultimate, the benefits are better, and there’s no way my new manager could be any worse than my current one.” That’s an important decision to the person making it, but they’re debating between two different kinds of comfort. It’s safely assumed that the money they will need to exist will always be there. It would be nice to have more — to be able to go to more restaurants or to justify buying a second Roomba because deep down you know that the first one is lonely — but there’s always enough to keep the lights on and the kitchen stocked.

You may have seen the study that claimed $70,000 a year is the ideal salary — after that, more money generally doesn’t make you happier. Well, that’s great news for people hovering around that benchmark, but if you’re poor, more money will abso-fucking-lutely make you happier. More money means healthier food, or a chance to get out of the house and have some fun. It can mean knowing the rent is paid for next month, or being able to afford medication.

The middle class isn’t immune to money problems, especially if there are kids in the mix. Getting laid off at the wrong time sucks, no matter what your income is. But the middle-class people with money problems I’ve known were generally suffering from self-inflicted wounds. They had no savings because they wanted the new car or the luxury vacation. They wanted one of those experiences they were constantly told was more important than money, because the money for day-to-day necessities was always there, right up until it wasn’t.

That’s part of the reason, I think, so many middle-class people laugh at campaigns to raise the minimum wage. “You want 15 bucks an hour to flip burgers? How about you just hold off on the new TV until you get a real job?” The middle class generally fluctuates between being able to afford a nice vacation one year and having to settle for a few trips to the movies the next. The poor can fluctuate between paying bills and being out on the street. But the idea that such essentials could just go unpaid is unfathomable, right up until you experience it.

4

We’re Taught To Associate Low-Paying Jobs With Failure

When I was growing up, there was never a question of whether or not I was going to college. That’s partially because the idea of my spindly idiot ass learning a technical trade or doing manual labor is the first step in creating an “Epic Fail!!!” YouTube video, but mostly because my parents had a fund set up for me. (It helped that I live in a country where a post-secondary education doesn’t cost roughly eight quadrillion dollars a semester.)

So jobs that didn’t require a degree were presented to us as warning signs. “You better study hard, or else you’re going to end up just like that bull masturbator for the rest of your life! And I didn’t intend that pun, so don’t giggle!” Becoming a janitor or a gas station attendant or an internet comedy writer would have been considered a disappointment, an inability to take advantage of the gifts that were offered to us. Poverty was considered a moral failing.

No one ever just came out and said that, but the implication was always there. We tend to assume that other people are basically like us until they prove otherwise, which is why I’m constantly shocked to discover that most people don’t like my favorite homoerotic golf academy anime, Wood Strokes. So we were never taught that working as a dishwasher or a grocery store clerk or a sperm bank fluffer could be an important stepping stone for someone with a different background than us. We were also never taught that, you know, it’s still a goddamn job where someone shows up and puts work in and gets paid for their time. They were always just associated with squandered potential.

And man, when you hear that message constantly, it’s hard to shake. It’s easy to glance at a middle-aged dude working the checkout counter and automatically think “Well, I bet he’s not the brightest guy around” or “Oh shit, is that what happened to Matthew Lawrence?” It’s not malicious — not initially. Being told to take advantage of your opportunities is not a bad message. But when that message is driven into you for decades, it creates a stigma around certain jobs. And from some people, it produces plenty of snide remarks about how the people working those jobs should get better ones, as if the person who’s been a server for seven years has never considered just popping down to the job store and picking up a career in architecture.

Janitors and baristas keep society running as much as anyone else. If all of America’s coffee shops shut down for a day, the country would experience a nationwide narcolepsy epidemic crossed with The Purge. But when you grow up in the middle class, the only thing you’re taught about such jobs is that you should get one as a teenager to build character, and then thank God that you’ll never have to work one again as long as you don’t fuck up in life. And as long as we consider that a sign of our superior work ethic instead of birth luck, we’re going to keep dismissing as pathetic the jobs we’d all get angry about if they vanished tomorrow.

3

There Are Always Certain Things We Take For Granted

An education isn’t the only thing that most middle-class kids can assume they’ll get. A car to borrow, a phone, 20 bucks for when you really want to take a girl to what you assumed was a bad movie so you could make out in the back row but then it turns out that she’s actually super into the plot of Gigli and wants to focus on it even though you were all set to reach second base and so you end up getting a confused erection to Al Pacino and it inadvertently shapes your formative years … you know, all the little things that are part of growing up in Middle America.

That’s the end result of assuming that a good job awaits you, and that money is for throwing at problems and buying pizza instead of something to stress out about. Water heater broke? No worries, we’ll just have to eat in the rest of the month to make up for it. Shoes all worn out? Well, you can’t go to school like that, so go get some new ones. Gone on a losing streak at the Pokemon Card League and the groupies have started drifting off to the other players? Better pick up a few booster packs to get back in the game. You know you can’t get greedy and start buying Armani, but as long as your needs are modest, the money will always be there.

So the idea of 20 bucks making or breaking someone is impossible to appreciate. It’s just not a concept that clicks in our heads. It makes sense on a logical level, sure — you need money, and you don’t have it, and that sucks. But when you’re raised in comfort, you can’t put yourself in that head space emotionally. You can’t understand the stress, or the fear that you might not be able to feed your kids. The closest we can get is watching Gwyneth Paltrow try and hilariously fail to live on a tiny food budget before going back to her $4,000 kale cleanses. That’s kind of like empathy, right?

And because it’s tough to relate to, it’s tough to talk about. If someone tells me that they never got Christmas presents growing up, all I can respond with is “Uh, yeah, that sounds like it sucked. Well … one time my grandma accidentally got me Super Murpio 67, so … I hear you.” Starting a conversation with a bunch of middle-class people about poverty is like bringing up Trayvon Martin at a country club. Everyone trips over everyone else’s words to talk about how tragic it is, but then they distance themselves from the problem and the “buts” start coming out. And to further compound the issue …

2

We Don’t Witness Poverty, So We Don’t Understand It

When I was growing up, my exposure to poverty was largely limited to sitcom families who would talk about how poor they were, but were still able to go on a wacky adventure every week. The Simpsons kept running into money troubles in their early years, but their house looked the same as mine. Even the family from Roseanne, the classic working-class sitcom, owned a house that’s a palace compared to what a lot of people live in. The problem with portraying poverty in sitcoms is that it’s hard to get laughs out of eviction and early deaths caused by crippling medical debt, so the lesson always ends up being “Poor people struggle with money sometimes, but in the end they always get by, and they have lots of laughs while doing it!” Sitcoms make being poor look fun.

Beyond that, once or twice a year, I’d go to some kid’s birthday party and notice that his house was a lot smaller and more run down than mine. One of the kids who always got talked about in a slightly different tone of voice by the adults. I never gave it much thought because we went to the same school and both liked Nintendo — how different could our lives possibly be? Maybe I’d see a story on the news that would put a positive spin on the issue. (“Look at how many volunteers with beautiful families showed up to the soup kitchen to help feed these filthy hobos!”) Beyond that, the middle class just doesn’t think about poverty.

We’re always looking up, always wanting to go to the Christmas party at the rich friend’s house so we can get a taste of what we’re aspiring to. There’s rarely a reason to go to the poor part of town. Tell jokes about it, sure, but go? We never have to leave the bubble, so we never learn what real poverty looks like. Poor people become invisible, this mysterious Other, a group that serves you food, and in return, you throw a couple of non-perishables and toys into donation bins for them over the holidays.

Oh yeah, the middle class loves to donate food and toys and clothes and gently used ball gags and all sorts of other crap that we weren’t using anyway. Food banks actually need money far more than they need your creamed corn that’s going to expire in two weeks, because money just goes further. But people who will gladly part with 12 boxes of Kraft Mac and Cheese and some Funyuns they found under the sofa get leery when it comes to handing over money, even though we’re supposedly under the impression that we don’t need it ourselves to be happy.

That’s partially just because it’s more satisfying to give stuff instead of money — you can imagine some happy kid playing with your old Lego, and you get to clean out your closet. But remember, we’re taught that the poor are stupid and lazy. We sit around telling each other stories about how our friend’s cousin’s boyfriend knows a guy who spent his welfare check on beer and weed. These are campfire horror stories for the most tedious suburbanites, and they’re told in the hot tubs that they probably shouldn’t have bought until the next mortgage payment cleared. We can’t trust those people with money, because if they were smart enough to manage it properly, they’d be smart enough to have a better job. Also, they probably all have hooks for hands and murder teenagers while they’re making out in their cars. Hey, we learn so little about poor people that it’s just as believable.

1

We’re Taught To See Ourselves As The Victims

I’ve known people with movie theaters in their homes and four cars in their garage who are convinced that society is against them, that life is a gloomy parade of suffering because their property taxes went up a bit. That’s stereotypical rich people behavior, but it’s there in the middle class too, in subtler ways. I live in a city where the economy revolves around a boom and bust industry, so people tend to make good money while complaining about taxes for a few years, then get laid off and go on government benefits for a while, and then get a new job and go back to complaining about the government. And if you watch the cycle, you see the same “us against the world” mentality, just with fewer BMWs in the mix.

When middle-class people get laid off and go on welfare, they blame the economy, or their former employer, or the government. They never blame themselves. And they shouldn’t! Much like a whale’s erection, economies are big, confusing things that can’t be controlled by the average person. It’s not like they left photocopies of their asshole on the boss’ desk. They paid into the welfare system with their taxes when times were good, and now they’re using the system for exactly what it’s intended: helping you out when you’re unlucky. It’s bridging the gap until you, a hard-working person who just caught a tough break, gets another job.

Except when poor people use the system, it’s none of those things. Suddenly they’re not getting help; they’re just dumb, lazy leeches. Plenty of middle-class people are more empathetic and generous than I’ll ever be, but the worst instinct of the middle class is to blame the system when the system fails us, then lecture poor people when the system fails them. I’ve heard the condescending explanations about how the world really works (which usually come out after a few beers when no actual poor people are around because the speaker would never be brave enough to say it to their faces) more times than I can count.

The middle class has a weird relationship with the rich — we alternate between complaining about them and wishing we were them. Money can’t buy happiness, but a yacht certainly wouldn’t hurt matters. Even if we don’t like the rich, there’s always the pipe dream that we could be them. But no one dreams about being poor, unless you’re into an incredibly specific kind of role-playing.

Being poor is a problem (practically, not morally), and a problem is either the fault of the person or the fault of circumstances beyond their control. The latter means we in the middle class might have to do something about it — or, God forbid, reflect upon our lifestyles, which is just the worst. It’s much, much easier to assume that we’re fine, that ultra-rich politicians and celebrities and investment bankers are the ones being condescending and awful to the poor, but also that poor people could probably stand to work a little harder. So, uh … sorry about all of that. I’ll donate some food at Christmas, though!

Mark is on Twitter and has a book that’s made him rich in experience.

For more, check out 5 Things Nobody Tells You About Being Poor and 4 Common Morals Designed to Keep You Poor.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out Disney Thinks You Hate Poor People, and watch other videos you won’t see on the site!

Also follow us on Facebook. Likes don’t cost a thing.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/5-reasons-why-the-middle-class-doesnt-understand-poverty/