Vending Machine Woman

Ruby Marker | @ruby_red_marker

I’m planning a party. It’s a pop girl party, and the requirement is to dress like a pop icon. I’ve been thinking about who I want to be for what feels like months, but it has only been a few weeks. If I dress like Billie Eilish, I can be comfortable, but I won’t be sexy. I can be sexy in a masc hey mamas way, but the baggy clothes and blasé attitude don’t serve me in a court of male attention. On the other hand, I could dress up like Chappell Roan, coincidentally also gay, but with a much more femme attitude. Wearing that outfit would undoubtedly be more fun, but it adds a layer of exposure and sexiness that I’m not sure about, mostly because of my body. The goal of this party is to have fun. But in the back of my mind, the goal is actually to be noticed and seen as attractive and desirable. The fun of these events has leached out as I grow older and continually face disillusionment with what I feel is expected of me as a woman.

I ran a path of “sexual liberation” for a solid few months. Really gave it my all. But I have consistently only encountered people who couldn’t care less if I was just any random woman on the street. I think it’s fun to have casual sex. I think meeting strangers and going home with them is, for the most part, a magical aspect of life. However, when I introduced dating apps into my routine, I started to feel like a vending machine woman. It didn’t matter what I wanted from a partner as long as I found them reasonably attractive. Once I made a connection or a match, I was so hell-bent on keeping their attention that I put aside all concerns for myself. I put up with people who plugged me into their schedules whenever was convenient for them. Slept with me in whatever way got them off. Then, as has happened a few times, those spaces in their schedule would disappear, and I’d be left alone, sitting in a wine bar, wondering why they stopped responding.

There’s a vicious rage that is boiling in me. I don’t know where it came from or when I decided that this was something I no longer wanted to even consider tolerating, but it’s an almost all-consuming fury. I’m not mad at the men who I have existed with as this person because I never expressed wanting anything different. But I don’t want to be a vending machine woman anymore. I don’t want to hold all the good things inside of me and only share what people want when it works for them. This thinking has made me stuck on Billie vs. Chappell, on Feeld vs. Hinge, on Everything vs. Everything Else. And it has me constantly questioning if this is a true change in my beliefs or just my ovulation cycle.

Recently, I have been going to these meetings where deeply, deeply hurt people sit in a circle. We chant each other’s names back to each other—almost as a reassurance that we are all alive and have made it this far. Yesterday at the meeting, I said, “Ruby.”

“Ruby,” they repeated back to me.

Then the woman next to me said her name, and I joined back in on this trance-like chant, cataloging all the wounded people in this church basement.

I thought of the Ruby who had been echoed back to me, how she’s working so hard to get one foot in the door of healing. I realized I never asked Ruby what she wanted because she and I both have been so focused on spending our time making sure the strangers around us are comfortable and happy. Because that’s how we used to live our life as a child, making sure the people around us were comfortable and happy but not out of kindness or good intentions, only and always out of fear for what would happen if we didn’t. We grew to notice the micro-movements in a face or a hand or a breathing pattern because how were we supposed to know when the next wave of rage or vitriol would find us where we were hiding in our closets? Ruby has always done what she thought people would like because if they get mad, they get mean, and then she gets hurt, and then all of a sudden, she’s in the basement of a church raising her hand for a one-month “emotional sobriety” chip.

Ruby is scared to practice and share her art earnestly, Ruby is scared to ask for help getting what she wants, and Ruby is especially scared of looking stupid for trying. Ruby exists separate from me, and I’m slowly allowing her back into my heart. I am so fucking scared of failure. I am so fucking scared of not being the person someone picks, even though it happens time and time again. So I try to break myself into these shapes that I think people will enjoy: a little quieter, a little more submissive, a little slower, a little more “yeah, totally just down for whatever."

The reason I’m writing this stream of consciousness now is that my anger in never fucking giving myself the chance to know what I want is finally superseding my fear. Ruby and I can be the same even if we disagree on things—because I want things to work for that girl. I want her to have everything she thought was too much to ask for. I want her to be with someone who notices the color of her eyes and what foods she likes. I want her to feel empowered in asking for help, and I want her to feel safe to open her heart and love the people who love her. I don’t want her to feel like a machine dispensing what other people request whenever it’s convenient for them. I want to hear her voice and I want to share her weird art and weird thoughts and weird problems with textures.

I’m scared people won’t like what they see when I let them see me.

I’m scared people will take the love I give and twist it into fear.

I’m scared that nobody will care what I do or where I go.

But I know I want to see Ruby succeed, and I know that one day, I will have my name repeated back to me enough that I finally feel like myself. Ruby is a fighter and a lover, and she is not simply a vessel for what she thinks other people want. Ruby is going to dress up as Chappell Roan because she wants to wear sparkles and face paint, and she’s going to have a fun time because she’s with her friends, not because she’s hoping someone will magically appear to whisk her away. Where would they go anyway? Burbank? Boring.

So I guess this was the long way of saying: if anyone has a Chappell Roan costume and or a job opening, let me know.

~

Ruby is a writer and comedian from Carbondale, Colorado. She’s sold out to the big city dreams of LA and currently works as a writer’s PA and occasional wine seller. You can read more of her stuff on her Substack “Liminal Spaces” or follow her on Instagram to hear too much about her occasional UCB performances!