![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Gary Tesser [1] just called me. It's been long enough since we spoke that he asked for me by full name when I answered the phone (instead of recognizing my voice). When I admitted to being myself--figuring this was probably a response to some business- or job-related thing I'd sent out--he asked if I had a minute. Okay, this is either serious news or a request for something.
No. He told me he hoped this didn't sound like pandering" but that I am "an intelligent human being of the female persuasion" [2]. Oh-kay. Warning bells are going off.
It turned out that he was calling to tell me about a program on the History Channel tomorrow, about women inventors, and that I might be interested. I said "I might be, if I had a television set." Yes, I know somebody who owns one (he asked). No, I am not going to plan my Friday evening around a television program.
After a bit of randomness, he asked "Is that it?" to which I pointed out "You called me, you know whether that's it." What he said next made no sense--as in, it wasn't in any language I recognized--but was followed by a pro forma apology for swearing, and a repetition of the question. I said "Goodbye" and hung up the phone.
[1] A New York area sf fan, not someone I've ever known well.
[2] I'm not sure persuasion has much to do with it. It's what I got in the genetic randomness, and not something I feel a desire to change, but "of the female persuasion" is one of those half-jokes that seems odder and odder as time goes on.
No. He told me he hoped this didn't sound like pandering" but that I am "an intelligent human being of the female persuasion" [2]. Oh-kay. Warning bells are going off.
It turned out that he was calling to tell me about a program on the History Channel tomorrow, about women inventors, and that I might be interested. I said "I might be, if I had a television set." Yes, I know somebody who owns one (he asked). No, I am not going to plan my Friday evening around a television program.
After a bit of randomness, he asked "Is that it?" to which I pointed out "You called me, you know whether that's it." What he said next made no sense--as in, it wasn't in any language I recognized--but was followed by a pro forma apology for swearing, and a repetition of the question. I said "Goodbye" and hung up the phone.
[1] A New York area sf fan, not someone I've ever known well.
[2] I'm not sure persuasion has much to do with it. It's what I got in the genetic randomness, and not something I feel a desire to change, but "of the female persuasion" is one of those half-jokes that seems odder and odder as time goes on.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject
I know fans who would ring up other fans to tell them about TV programmes they think they'd be interested in (well, duh, of course I do - but not just slash fans...) but there's usually some kind of social link which would make it semi-appropriate.
"Of the female persuasion" reminds me of the time the student who was sharing our one licenced copy of the software with which I was doing my final-year project sat down beside me and said "So, Yonmei, I hear you're a member of the homosexual society."
(At which I wondered for a beat, did he mean was I a member of Napier's gaysoc? Which I wasn't. And then got what he meant, and said: "I'm a lesbian, yes.")