not normal people
our lord and saviour please help dear god it's so awful here
conversations with men often include this longstanding slow burn of me trying to decipher how aggressive they are, or how much violence they are capable of enacting. sometimes this means i am a little annoying, not completely folding at their advances to hangout, sometimes this manifests as me seeing their commitment to the calendar through online correspondence. how many days, or weeks will it take to see them inevitably spontaneously combust?
it’s laughable that i’ve found myself in scenarios where my flippant ‘tude to subdued dominance turns to an outright verbal lashing where i am no longer an object of lust and desire but merely an AGP who doesn’t deserve genuine respect.
it always comes to fruition around the week and a half/two week mark, and i am rarely ever wrong. sometimes i subconsciously burn it to the ground without notice, revealing a charred little turd amidst my otherwise poor lack of judgement. besides when i am often cognizant of how i troll, exposing these men to their violent ways, every once in a while there is an esoteric or divine feminine intuitive aspect (autism?) where i inadvertently say or do something that releases the goon from it’s cage.
men are capable of harm, and want to harm women/femmes. this is not a new or thoughtful hot take, it is something that exists in our lived reality, and more often than not i am confronted with this reality. what about me specifically makes me a target to male violence? not all men or whatever, but truly. why is this a natural occurrence in the online dating realm? i am lucky to use tactics and intuition to swerve from becoming another casualty but for the people i know that purely date men i get a pang of universal sadness for what seems to be a natural aspect of everyday life as a single woman or femme. what about the people that don’t have this survival tactic embedded in them from years of disservice?
i am desensitized to the archaic and poorly crafted digs drafted by brutes with less tangible intellect and vernacular but it makes me wonder if these overt instances of dominance have forever altered my state, and if they have opened a door to accept mediocrity from well intentioned allies or men that are just not as terrible. it also suffocates me with the fear that i don’t have the same adverse reaction to someone who isn’t as chronically online, and instead have a pocket full of sweet burns to combat the charred turd.
what else but a true and ubiquitous need to cause harm would illicit these men to lash out in such drastic ways? why when i am merely flippant, i am met with aggressive targeted and dehumanizing speech? it’s laughable that i’ve found myself in scenarios where my ‘tude to subdued dominance turns to an outright verbal lashing where i am no longer an object of lust and desire but merely an AGP who doesn’t deserve genuine respect. obviously, this is an example of a deep-rooted lack of self-awareness and transmisogyny on their end that has gone unchecked, but it’s terrifying that with a single comment these online entities can transition from soft and gushy love-bombing to slurs.
some men can, and have done the work to be fully realized beings under patriarchy i’m sure, but how often than not are their learnings stifled because their masculine identities and presentation must coincide within a certain patriarchal framework?
i can’t help but worry these are the men that exist in our own personal networks, the men that we deal with daily. these are the same men that navigate the same spaces as people that have dedicated their lives and work to uprooting structural dominance and human rights. these are the same men that mobilize and participate in ~radical change~. i can’t say anything here that julia serano, andrea dworkin, or bell hooks hasn’t already said but what exactly are we meant to do? lead with open arms and provide care where needed? that’s fine and dandy in theory, but will we ever see structural change in our lifetimes? the toxic insular male agenda is pervasive and has empowered and inundated men from every corner of their iphones, and IRL they’re often allowed to navigate spaces unchecked. there is no community in late stage capitalism, and democracy isn’t real. the entire world is burning, and the only safe social spaces (still compromised and dwindling) are those i share with women and femmes tbh, as we keep each other safe through gossip and tangents.
some men can, and have done the work to be fully realized beings under patriarchy i’m sure, but how often than not are their learnings stifled because their masculine identities and presentation must coincide within a certain patriarchal framework? as someone who has just begun major unlearning of specific self views through talk-therapy i have been able to target certain unchecked ideals, but was it something that’s been in arm’s reach because of my feminine proclivities? when i meet a ‘good’ male ‘feminist’ i have to be skeptical about what their offerings are, only because of the smorgasbord of potential threats i could be subject to. a man most recently commented on the bell hooks book i was carrying, and i couldn’t hide my disdain. keep your virtue signal to yourself, faggot. how learned are you actually? LOL
i am not hoping for men to experience pain or suffering in the same way i do, but it is hard not to be completely demoralized by the way men perpetuate harm. patriarchy breeds war, late stage capitalism breeds a lack of self-care and awareness to our human needs. revolutionizing our attitudes towards rehabilitation would be a tangible act if there was a structure in place to accommodate such, but there isn’t. so until then i can’t help but feel like we are just left to rot or whatever. endlessly coexisting in spaces with a wolf in sheep’s clothing, or a wolf in wolf’s clothing, deciding which potential outcome is less fertile at the time.