Why men don’t ask women out - The Contribution of Valerie Emshiska

If you thought Yancy was unbelievable, perhaps you’d like to learn about my encounters with Valerie Emshiska (not her real name).

One night Valerie was having a party at her home, and when I needed to use the facilities, the only one I could find was the restroom that was adjacent to Valerie’s bedroom. I thought it strange that a woman would leave so many personal and feminine things out in her restroom when having a party, so I told her about it, also letting her know that it didn’t make me feel uncomfortable but that it might make other men feel that way when they used her restroom.

So she’d know I wasn’t personally uncomfortable, I told her how my sister used to have me go to the store and buy her cigarettes for her when I was 8 years old, and after they started not believing me anymore that I was getting them for my sister, she then had me pick up her feminine products at the same time.

I later learned that men at Valerie’s party were to use her son’s bathroom, the door of which had been closed at the time when I needed to use the restroom, and that I wasn’t the only man who had a hard time finding it. On subsequent parties at her house, she put up a sign that pointed to the “boys bathroom.”

A few months later, when I was told a prayer request concerning Valerie and a court hearing, I e-mailed her to see how things went and what the deal was. She kept prodding me about who told me about it and what was said, and when I told her exactly what was said, that things would be resolved in the best way, and who told me, she then laid into me like Mike Tyson, never giving me a chance to respond and accusing me of gossip and butting into her life.

Her accusations wandered from the exaggerated to the imagined. First, she accused me of rifling through her bathroom at the party at her house, which was both a highly exaggerated and incredibly imagined view of what had happened. Then, she accused me of telling a friend of hers that she was going to a dance party I had organized, which was a completely fabricated accusation (I had told her friend that Valerie was also invited but never said she had confirmed she’d be there). And, she then accused me of being a party to gossip and butting into her business by even trying to inquire how things went with the court hearing.

When Valerie quit spewing her accusations, she then threatened to take these complaints to the church leadership if I ever got in her way again. Since her venom flew so quickly without giving me any chance for a rebuttal, I just answered her that I heard what she said, and she then hung up on me.

After getting my ears roasted by Valerie’s fire, I called the friend who had shared the prayer request with me, and he then told me, “Now you know the real Valerie,” and that his prayer request had been highly couched in his understanding that this was what she would do while in court (she had apparently done a lot of other manipulative things while there, too, but I won’t go into those).

As I looked back on my interactions with Valerie, I did see some signs that she was a very controlling person. The most extreme one I recall was one time when a bunch of us were having lunch at a restaurant after church on Sunday; she asked me to go with her son while he went to the restroom. Now, if this were a dangerous place and he was much younger than his eight years, I can see a mother’s concern more readily, but come on! All I did, though, was walk with him to the restroom door and waited outside until he came out.

After seeing her actions, I now understand the unspoken hesitations by others when I expressed to them an interest in her. And since Valerie and Yancy both attend the same church and singles group, I guess you could say that I was beginning to see how truly sick the women are in that group, making me even less interested in any of the women that were available there.

The story doesn’t end there, but this posting does.