Am I A Prude?

Something funny just happened at work.

There are two people at the office who are inseparable and equally annoying. I will be calling them The Office Twins. And for the sake of referring them individually, I’ll give them each a fake name, Neal and Maddy.

The Office Twins are loud and obnoxious but really funny. They are the type of people who make you wonder whether we’ve all been transported to high school and are witnessing them basking in their shallow popularity. They are slightly cruel and a bit crass but nonetheless funny. To say the least, anyone can see that they probably didn’t do much maturing since then some twenty years ago or so.

Anyway, they were talking and joking in their office (as usual) when it got a little out of hand, even by their standards, which always teeter-totters between being sarcastic to blatantly offensive. “Maddy,” the female twin, made a sexual joke about Neal’s wife that was extremely inappropriate. I was surprised he didn’t punch her in the nose. He joke belongs at a stand up comedy club rather than at an office Monday afternoon.

She was so loud and raucous that everyone in the office heard her. People who heard the joked, laughed... uncomfortably. You know the way people laugh in an obligatory way because they either don’t want to look judgmental or uncool? Well, that’s how it was. Of course, Maddy was encouraged by everyone’s laugh and seemed loaded to go for more.

I, for one, felt that I could do without her crude jokes, because honestly, it was giving me visuals. I did not want to be haunted by images of Neal doing stuff with his wife. So I got up from my sit quietly and left for a while to get fresh air to let them finish their conversation and settle down.

When I came back to my seat in about five minutes…. whooooooshh~~! Silence.

An uncomfortable cricket chirped in the corner.

I mean, I didn’t have to say one word or even frown. Simply got up and came back in five minutes, and then this whooooooshh.

The Prude’s Side of the Story

This isn’t the first time something like this happened. I have to admit… I have that effect on people.

I think I come off as a prude who’s wide-eyed and unworldly naive.

I’ve noticed people watching my gaze when joking, feeling guilty and wondering if they’ve said something too dirty for my taste. Once, I asked my roommate that I noticed that she doesn’t cuss much. She said she held back from using expletives in front of me because she noticed that I didn’t use any myself. She heard me say “shit” and “damn” once in awhile, but that was about it.

One of my best friend whom I’ve been friends with for over twenty years never uses expletives in front of me. People tell me she has a mouth of a truck driver... who stubbed his toe... after losing at arm wrestling... on the day his wife left him... with all the cash under the mattress. Yup, that nasty.

But I never saw it. And I never asked her to behave herself in front of me either.

So am I a prude?

Of course, I don’t consider myself a prude. To me, I’m just me being the me the only way I know how. I don’t feel like a prude, I don’t feel like anything. I just feel like me.

If someone were to peek into my head, they would see that I make no judgments toward people who use expletives or who joke sexually or make offensive comments. I honestly don’t take offense and I don’t take it personally. I don’t see it as threatening or as a personal attack. To me, everyone has their own story and own reason for acting the way they’re acting. And the way they are acting has nothing to do with me. I don’t think about other people enough to have comments about them.

I understand that people are being playful when joking and acting like a jerk. And I know a lot of times they are putting up a front, simply trying on different clothes. On the outside they may act abrasive and obnoxious, but through their eyes I can see that in the inside, they feel so vulnerable and tender to the touch. It’s like how an older cat would watch the tiny puppy you brought home growl at it. You’re not fooling anyone growling like that. We all know you’re really just so cute and loveable!

If I look into Maddy’s eyes, I can tell that she’s really a person who is insecure and a little lonely. She does a good job hiding this by running her mouth off making judgmental comments about others and making sexual jokes. But she’s not someone who’s at peace with herself.

And Neal is a person who is constantly afraid of being found out by others as someone who is “less than.” So he tends to go back and forth from showing off to giving away his authority completely. He covers this side of him up by making sarcastic comments about other people.

But they’re not fooling me. I see that they’re good in the inside.

However, as to the jokes...

It’s my personal preference that I don’t see or hear anything too graphically disturbing, because I don’t want to add to the noise that’s already in my head.

You see, I’m the type of person who enjoy the quiet of my mind. I enjoy taking walks in nature where I zone out and am filled with stillness, time stopped and we’re all just gliding.

If you take a moment in your busy day to quiet your mind and simply observe the noise in your head without trying to restrain any part of it, you’ll notice so much nonsensical crap. Sometimes, it’s irrational garbage like random songs you’ve heard in the background or repetitive words of gibberish. But sometimes, they’re negative comments, criticism about yourself, and angry remarks about others.

And then there are times when you can’t quiet your mind at all because disturbing pictures float around.

That’s what I’m trying to avoid when I get up and leave when someone is telling a joke that’s a tad bit shocking.

I want to be able to quiet my mind and be still, but when shocking pictures float around in my mind, it’s annoying and it’s something I can do without.