Sometimes Bonnie Said No.
I’ve said that Bonnie gave me “permission” to do things that I wouldn’t otherwise have normally done. But I need to clarify.
Bonnie didn’t sit around determining what I could and couldn’t do. She simply showed by example that things could be done differently than I’d been doing them. Before meeting Bonnie, I tried harder to play by the rules.
When I got a speeding ticket, I sat and listened to the police officer and shook, worried about the legal ramifications and the possibility of jail. Then I drove home and immediately mailed in the fine so I wouldn’t somehow forget.
When Bonnie got a speeding ticket, she swore at the officer under her breath, blasted music in her own car while he was writing out the ticket, and as soon as he was out of eyesight she shredded the ticket and tossed the scraps into the backseat.
I thought this was cool. In fact, I thought everything Bonnie did was cool. So I tried to be like her.
One thing I learned from Bonnie involved going home from parties and bars with men: sometimes Bonnie said no. If she didn’t like the guy, she just said, “No thanks!” and kept chatting and drinking.
Until I saw what Bonnie did, I hadn’t known there was a choice. I thought if a guy asked you, you went. My motto: guys are more important than me, so I have to do what they say.
I wonder how much of my “motto” was due to my age, and how much was due to my overwhelming insecurities.
I asked Bonnie about this the very first time she told a guy “no thanks.”
“Fuck him!” Bonnie said. There was no other explanation. She chose the person with whom she’d depart – they didn’t choose her.
I didn’t really get the concept, though. From that point on, I turned into a predator. I started “choosing” as soon as I walked into a place.
Making a conscious choice to go home with someone specific provided me a delusional feeling of control. With my life slowly spiraling out of control because of my drinking, I thought this was an important step in the right direction.
But both Bonnie and I were putting ourselves in dangerous situations based on our choices.
After one harrowing incident when Bonnie almost didn’t make it home from her 2 a.m. excursion, we made a pact: from now on, we choose two guys, so that whatever we do, we do it in the same place. We made sure they understood that we would not be separated, whether they liked it or not.
We wanted to be safe from being lost in the middle of the night and unable to find our way home, and we wanted to be safe from unwanted advances. Having each other within arm’s reach meant that we wouldn’t be alone, ever.
Of course, we were obliterated by alcohol most of the time, so I’m not sure this rule made a bit of difference. But we felt safer because of it.