Common Assumptions That Do Not Apply To Me

and the mansplaining dilemma

The Patio

I’m at a place called The Patio, listening as a line of people in camp chairs say their names (there will be a quiz later, ha ha ha) and talk about their hometowns—why and when they moved there, the number of months they stay up north and go south each year—followed by the what, when, where, and why of their rigs.

See the silver truck over there? That’s us, Lynn says, pointing to a large fifth wheel trailer with several deployed slide-outs and a huge outdoor living space, all covered by a sturdy aluminum roof.

Looks permanent, I say.

This part of the RV park is new to me. Shadow Ridge isn’t an enormous place, but my parking spot is near the entrance. This area is up the hill, and it almost looks like an urban mobile home park. The age of the trailers ranges from ancient to nearly new. They’re lined up in neat rows, skirted, and outfitted with covered patios.

A woman named Diane chimes in. We bought a park model over on the north end. It had been for sale for quite a while, she explains, because the patio faces north. Everyone wants a sunny patio.

Except when it gets too hot, I say, laughing, sweating. The current temperature is 88 degrees. I’m sitting on a white plastic chair in full sun, the only one up for grabs when I arrived twenty minutes late for the 4 p.m. happy hour. The others had brought their own camp chairs. I didn’t know.

Everyone sits in pairs, husbands and wives perched in a ragged semi-circle like a Canada goose confabulation. I’m the lone unpaired female, fussed over by the other females like a goose whose life-time mate was recently shot by hunters. I am a spectacle so unusual to the residents of this community that curious minds need to know…why?

The women ask most of the questions. The men sip drinks, content to listen and nod. For now. But I know that when certain husbands are not next to their wives, an ancient instinct takes over and mansplaining begins. I’ve experienced plenty of this during my travels. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The Invitations

Two of these curious women are the reason I’m now sitting on The Patio near folding tables covered in turquoise-colored vinyl and populated by a metropolis of crockpots.

Earlier in the day, it had been blazing hot inside Charlotte. So, I walked over to the clubhouse where it was cool. I planned to read and get some writing done. When I opened the door and stepped inside, the place smelled like warm cookies, which I soon found out was because of a key lime pie crust.

A woman arrived to take the pie out of the oven. She saw me sitting alone, the only person in the building, and stopped to introduce herself: Carol, from Idaho. She lives a few miles down the road from Nampa, the town where I was born, but she and her husband spend winters in Ajo. Carol invited me to the potluck, where the pie, as well as the homemade ice cream she and her husband had made that morning, would be served.

After Carol left, Diane arrived. More conversation ensued, followed by another invitation to the potluck. I didn’t get any writing done.

The 5%

My experiences in the RV park and Ajo, as well as everywhere else I’ve been during my travels, have been 95% positive. The negative 5% occurs after certain people—male people—find out I’m traveling alone. They want to be helpful and assume I need help. After all, who is more helpless than a woman without a mate?

Now before all you manly men get cranky and hit the unsubscribe button, hear me out.

I don’t mind receiving information. I love information. What I don’t love is receiving unwanted information, feeling trapped while listening to a litany of facts I didn’t ask for and don’t need. How does the guy blathering on and on and on about a topic know if I need his explanations? He doesn’t. Because he didn’t ask me.

The Mansplaining Man

Two days ago, I listened to a man tell me—for twenty minutes!—all about a recreation area I’d been to the day before. As his pontification train pulled out of the station, I could see where it was headed. So, I mentioned that I’d been to that area on Monday. But he didn’t let that stop him. Not only did he continue explaining all the reasons why I should go there and do this and see that, he delivered his speech with verve, like his particular pile of facts would help me transform Arizona gravel into gold.

Somewhere around minute five, I managed to wedge in another quick mention of having just been to this place. The day before. Also, that I had, indeed, hiked the trail he was presently telling me about, and driven the entire scenic drive he suggested I take. Still, he continued talking and talking—AT me—giving me all the facts he thought I needed to enjoy the place I’d already been.

Finally, thank the gods of all creation, another man ventured toward us, indicating that he wanted to speak with the mansplaining man. I waved the newcomer in and gratefully scampered away.

Later that day, as the mansplaining man and his wife were hooking their camping trailer to the cargo van, getting ready to leave the RV park and drive to another campground, they invited me to join them—to caravan to the new place and park next to them.

The website shows a vacant space next to ours, the woman chirped. I mentally stomped down the panic rising from my solar plexus, offered a noncommittal maybe as I wished them safe travels and coolly glided away.

They were only trying to help. A woman traveling alone needs companions, right? A woman traveling alone must be lonely and bereft, right? Unfortunately, these are common assumptions. But they absolutely—please hear me oh people of the world—do not apply to me.

Help and Not Help

Perhaps someday I will collide with one or more delightfully compatible travel companions, someone(s) who will become a welcome and marvelous addition to my adventures. But for now, my happiness and comfort are quite intact.

Women tend to “help” by inviting me to community activities like the potluck. I greatly appreciate being invited, having the option to be included. And I accept most invitations, especially if there will be food, music, or books.

But the mansplaining is not helpful and . . . well, I don’t know how to make it stop. The choices I’ve conjured lack social grace and kindness. I can say Please stop talking!—which I probably won’t ever muster the courage to do. Or I can, literally, run away while the guy continues yammering at my backside.

Until I acquire the skill to deftly sidestep unwanted expounding, I will spend more time in libraries where no one knows my marital status or explains anything to me without being asked. The Pima County Library, located in the downtown Ajo plaza, is a wonderful haven during hot days, and far away from an overabundance of verbosity.

The librarian at the front desk eyed my laptop and simply said welcome as she pointed to a sign with the wi-fi password printed on it.

: )