An attack on my personality?!?

Seriously?! Like c'mon? Seriously? How can anyone attack my wonderful little, well okay, huge personality?

So maybe you guys need a little background information so you don't think that I'm insane or just rambling nonsense which I am in fact very good at! I'm a very loud and outgoing person. I'm an extrovert to the T. I don't hold a lot in and I'm not the type of person who beats around the bush, I prefer to beat the crap out of the bush. Basically, I get straight to the point without pussyfooting the subject. Maybe its a lack of tact but I have always preferred honesty and I like a plain delivery instead of a sugar coated one.

So below you will find two stories where I've felt that my personality has been attacked and why it bothers me oh so much.

About two years ago I had finished my schooling (for the 3rd time!) and ready to find a job in my field. I was so depressed because I couldn't find anything that seemed interesting to me and didn't require french. Living in Quebec the jobs were vastly limited because of our bilingualism. I went to one interview that was in the fashion industry, not too far from home, and right in the pay I was expecting to get. I walk into the office and I knew right away I could not work there. Sure its in the fashion industry, sure its great money and close to home but....the office reeked of smoke. I don't mean it smelled a little bit like smoke. It was like smoke had embedded itself on every single textile in the place, on the floors, in the wood work. I wanted to gag. I got an offer from the company a few days after my interview and I turned it down.

My spirits were dropping. I had been really selective about where I was applying because of the language laws and wouldn't just apply to anything because it was an English only speaking job. Finally a head hunter contacted me and asked me to come in and they'd help find me a job. This woman was amazing. She instantly fell under my charm and told me what a great personality I had. She loved my flair for life and the ability to talk to anyone about anything...in English that is!

So she called me back a week later and told me she had an interview lined up for me at a company that writes medical journals. I'd be calling people to purchase ad space, help with the layout, and plan their seminars, tradeshows, and any other marketing stuff. Sounded like fun to me! I get dressed and go for the interview and meet with the boss. We talk a bit about life in general and then we get down to the nitty gritty and talk about the job. After about an hour I leave the office and head home. I get home and the head hunter calls me back and tells me that the company I just interviewed with would like to offer me a job! I was sooooooooo excited! I got my very first adult job that NO ONE helped me get. (By no one I meant I didn't have to ask my dad for help, ask my husband for help, or anyone I know personally because we all know in this world its about who you know and hardly about what you know!). We had decided that I would start in 3 weeks because the company was closing for two weeks for summer holidays and I decided I would take that time to drive to Texas to see my parents.

I spend two days driving to Texas, 11 days seeing my friends and family, and another 2 days driving back. I had cut my vacation short in order for me to be in Montreal, well rested and relaxed and ready to start work. I get to the office 15 minutes early on my first day and the boss calls in and talks to one of the girls telling them that he would be late and that I should spend the morning getting better aquainted with the girls I work with and to find out their job functions so that our working together will be smooth. This way I'll know what they are doing and if they can help me, if I can help them and all that jazz. So I spent the better part of my morning watching people do very simple jobs, in my opinion. The boss comes in and decides to treat us for lunch. After lunch we go back to the office and I sit in with the boss to talk more about what is expected of me and what my first task should be. I sit in with the guy who is in charge of the layout and we go over all of the office equipment.

It's now about 2pm and the boss calls me in and tells me to go home and we'll start fresh tomorrow. No point in starting to work at 2pm only to leave in 3 hours right? So I say thanks, tell everyone goodbye, and I head out to the parking lot. As I am driving home I'm thinking how incredibly quiet everyone is in the office. They hardly talk to one another. They all have MSN and use that to communicate and if they have to show one another a file instead of getting up to talk about it or show someone something on another screen they do an MSN file transfer. The office was reallllly quiet. No music, no talking. I felt kind of like it was a morgue instead of an office. Oh well, I can adapt right!?

Well lo and behold. By the time I got home I had a message on my anwering machine from the boss saying that I was basically "unhired" because my personality didn't fit in with the rest of the office. I was too bubbly and happy for their office environment. Yes, those words were used in the message. I was crushed. I was freaking defeated, sad, mad, pissed, hurt, fuming, and highly annoyed. I put the phone down and started to cry because I was confused. How could me being happy effect a job? I would understand if I worked in a hospital and had to tell people that their loved ones have passed away but I worked at a company that published medical journals. I worked with young 30 something year olds who seemed equally alive as I was during lunch. I found out I had no recourse because every single job you start in Quebec automatically comes with 3 months probation to where you can be fired at any given time within those 3 months for any reason whatsoever.

I called my mom and blamed my parents for my lack of being able to find a job. They raised me in Texas where they don't speak a lick of French. Even the French teachers in high school had a horrible southern drawl that made it hard to understand. I was about to get married in a few months and didn't even have a job (the daycare job didn't count because my husband to be owned it) and that was partially my parents fault.

I blamed the fat bastard boss that just unhired me because hes obviously miserable in his life being fat and unable to find someone to love him. He was just a miserable prick that decided to rain on my parade.

I was incredibly pissed off. Not only was I pissed off but I stopped to think about how I was as a person. Was my personality really that big of a turn off? I thought about my life and how many people I was surrounded by and were they really my friends or were they just humouring me? I know I have a strong personality that can rub some people the wrong way but for the most part, everyone found my openness refreshing and found me to be rather humorous as well. I thought I was a great person, a lot of other people did too so why didn't this asshole? It really made me question myself.

Now lets fastforward to a couple of months ago.....

I have a facebook profile that is private or for friends only. I don't just add any random person to my facebook in order to make it look like I have a lot of friends and most of the people on my friends list I actually know personally or make an effort to speak to them on FB every once in a while (comment on photos/statuses). I had two "friends" on there that I had gotten into a huge tiff with a few months earlier. I have a few circles of friends and this one circle had just completely stopped making an effort at all. Not just with me and George but with everyone in that small group. I called everyone out on their fakeness and a whole riot ensued. The end result was that everyone was hurt and didn't mean to make it seem like they didn't care anymore. I decided to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and made plans for everyone to go for sushi. Everyone showed up, everyone talked, everyone had a great time and at the end of the night this was heard bouncing off everyone's mouths, "Wow I had a great time. We should do it again soon!". I said perfect! I would wait to see if we would do it again soon. I made the effort so lets wait and see now..

One month. Two months. Three months... Out of that group of 5 that got called out 3 made the effort. The three people would call to go for dinner/coffee/drinks/movies/just hang out. The other two (married couple) just fell off the face of the earth. So I decided since my profile is for friends only, why will I have these non friends, or rather fake friends on there. I deleted them. No phone calls, no text messages, no emails. Nothing. I went about my life in a merry fashion. Who was I to care if people wanted to be fake? I don't tolerate fakiness so I just moved on. I didn't make a huge deal out of it. I just deleted them.

I came home and told my hubby what I did and if he heard anything from them about it this is why. I explained to him what I just wrote above. He shook his head and said something about people getting offended but said that my life is my life. Well Sunday at church, at a memorial service for George's mother, something happened that I promised I wouldn't write about. What happened pissed me off not because it was something offensive towards me but because I feel that there is a time and a place for everything and a memorial service is not the time to be a child and be upset that you were deleted on Facebook.

After the memorial service George and I are driving home and I tell him what happened and he said he'd speak to a mutual friend about it to find out why something happened. I told him he wouldn't have to look too far the reason it happened was because of being deleted from FB. So the hubs calls the mutual friend any way only to be told that I was write it was due to FB. After my husband finished his conversation he tells me, "You know, your attitude is going to cost you a lot of friends."

I felt like slamming on my brakes in the middle of the highway. Are you fucking kidding me? My attitude (personality) is going to cost me friends because I don't tolerate bullshit? Just because person 1 and 2 are fake doesn't mean I'm going to stoop down to their level of fakiness. My attitude isn't costing me friends. It's helping me declutter my life. I don't have enough time to see all of the people that I want to see, having two fake people less in my life is great. It's a freaking relief.

I turn to face George and I tell him that he married me knowing very damn well the type of person that I was and my personality. I'm loud. I'm opinionated. I don't hold back. How is that costing me friends? Again, I took it as an insult.

I thought for a few minutes before continuing to speak and then I told George something along the lines of "Out of 30 people that know both you and I and the other couple how come everyone can't stand the other couple or doesn't get along with them? Why is everyone always talking shit about the guy and feeling so sorry for the girl? How come we are driving to a baptism that all of our friends are going to be at and they weren't even invited?" How is it that my personality is going to cost me friends when they are the couple that no one likes?

I guess the bottom line is this: I am me, if you don't like me then go away. Stop using my personality as reason for not being able to get along with me and just fess up that sometimes, not everyone has to like everyone and get along with everyone else. My personality isn't the problem, its your lack of one that is the problem.