an ego
dear and beloved male friends, please do not take this as male-bashing or as anything against you.
egotistical men in a circle of women make me want to scream. they are right in all they say. they are experts on every subject. when they aren't experts, they tell you they are smart or that they know someone smart or that they've read some book by a smart person and therefore, they now know more than you.
why is it so hard for a man to admit a woman knows more than him on any subject other than the ones he has relegated to his wife - and in such a case, his wife knows more than you.
there is not an inch to live in. there is not an ounce of respect. there is no permission to retain your own thoughts, opinions, or convictions in light of theirs. there is no room for me - and in that i pitty such men because they will never have an i/thou moment with a woman because no woman is allowed to be thou.
in the wake of one such man, tonight i find my self in rage and sorrow. i feel as though when he pushed me out the door, something of me left and it will take a couple of days to find it again. i'm sad. just sad.
transversely, i met another man today who empowered and blessed me. when we parted and he said he'd pray for me and that he wanted to know where my life goes from here, i believed him....well, i guess i believed the other man when he said the same thing, but i think he wants to know where i go so that he can add any greatness i meet to the long list of stories that make him cool. the other man had enough compassion for meeting and enough cynicism to know nothing is as simple as we can make it seem.
i guess i don't really have a point...just frustration.
2 comments:
Can I even communicate how thankful I am that you wrote about this, Becky? I have been grappling with what it means to love the first guy in your story. How do we love and honor ourselves AND simultaneously love and honor him?
A situation like yours came up for me a week ago... I was told I just didn't have the capacity to feel or understand a man's life or "higher spiritual things" because I hadn't lived yet... basically, that my 25 years were chicken sh-- , compared to his 50... I was dabbling in the minor leagues and should not expect or want to understand "big boys" like him.
I felt ashamed and so angry and so small and so ready to hit him with a two-by-four. Can you relate? Yeah, thought so. Of all the unlovely, unloving, un-Thou thoughts I had toward this man during this yucky interaction, something of Love surfaced. I had to live out the truth that there was a being in front of him with as much depth and dimension as he himself embodies... With my depth, I faced him and sat with him, as much of a battle as it was. I hope that in doing so, I honored myself and honored him, with the attentiveness and presence due him, as well as with the truth due him. Afterall, it's gotta be a lonely world when no one is allowed in to your soul.
That doesn't take away from the pain of the whole thing though, or my desire to avoid this man. You're musing's making me ask, what can relationship look like for us? What does it mean for me to honor this guy in whatever tweaked relationship we do have? Why all these questions? Do I honor myself in asking? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. When it becomes about The-Fix-Marilyn-Minimize-the-Fall-Out-Plan, then no. But when it's about genuinely being with another being, then yes.
I wonder if these musings will come in on your wavelength. I don't know. But you are an awesome chica. Guy #1 is so missing out, poor lad. Wait-- that's condescending. Aaah! Lord have mercy. I thank God with you for Guy #2. He allowed himself to be blessed by your youness... and you could be blessed by his. Does it get any better than that?
the thing with guy #1 is that i tried to be there i tried so hard. i tried to meet him - but in his pushing, i don't think he was even there - just the collections of monologues he keeps handy to keep others at bay.
i guess i gave up.
i'll have to tell you more about the week so you'll know the road that led to giving up.
man did i try to love that guy and be present.
it felt like roy's class where you keep trying and there's only one answer and you'll never get it and he won't tell you until the last hopeless minute anyway, so fuck it.
you know?
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