awahl1138

Girls!

So I'm a heterosexual male and that strikes the fear of god into a lot of people, women especially.

I don't blame them. Not one bit.

One horribly sad realization is the number of people (ordinary people too, not just the female celebrities) who came out with the #MeToo hashtag. I've always been pretty naive. In the back of my mind I'm sure I realized somewhere that stalking and abuse and much worse can and does happen to women on a regular basis. But because “I would never do that” I guess I kind of minimized the issue. It helps I don't have to deal with it myself. I guess it's a bit like racism, I don't care whether somebody is black or not so I don't see what people of colour actually deal with.

Relationships are already a bit of a thorny matter. To open your heart and navigate that and try not to be overbearing yet also try not to seem completely disinterested... that's hard. And people try too much. I find relationships generally work out when it's a casual, fun thing without too many expectations.

Be yourself is cliche but it's cliche because it's true (as with most things), and the reason it's true (and this also applies to every other domain of life, it's not just relationships), is the fact that you really want to show your own personality so it's an honest transaction with the other person instead of “makeup” that you're overcompensating for. (And in general, like yourself! You're probably more likeable than your critical self realizes)

It's hard for a guy to approach a situation where they'd like to get closer to a girl but they also remember the long history of what women have gone through. It's easy to be awkward. And as a result it's easy for women to get creeped out. It's a situation that just sucks all around.

I think women could be a bit more understanding of that, but it's a tough ask. It's hard to disregard your experiences and think “this time it will be different”. I know. It's OUR job (men) to make women feel safe. But it is also true that sometimes we can be awkward and it's hard to separate the creep from someone who has good intentions.

As an aside this is also why I'm not too much a fan of Facebook (who is?). I asked somebody out and she said yes, and things ended up not working out for a variety of reasons. But one of the things that happened was my sending her a friend request (when I still felt Facebook was still relatively altruistic) and her declining it and it must have made me look like a stalker. I'd told my therapist about this and she said well, maybe it's the other person's fault, “because I have my profile set to private and you can't look me up, so she chose to make it public”. But guess what? I looked up my therapist's profile (trying to confirm my suspicions) and there it was. So yeah. They don't give a single fuck about privacy and yet because they've co-evolved with the internet (we never had a chance, in 2006 everything was new and they were founded then and it was a cleaner alternative to Myspace) we're used to social dynamics being the way Facebook has it.