Go Find Less
On feminism, unfollows and the tax of being "too much"
I check the single box. I am not divorced. I have never been married. I am therefore certainly not a widow. According to the world, I am single, regardless of who I wake up to every morning. As a forty-three-year-old cis hetero woman, I have had my fair share of long term and short term relationships with men. I am not sure if it is the older I get, the less I desire a full time partnership or if the quality of modern men has actually gotten so low that the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
Personally, I am officially exhausted. And I know I am not alone here. I am constantly bombarded by other unmarried women (and the married ones too) about how emotionally and physically depleted we all feel when dealing with men. This isn’t a novel subject.
Shocker to no one, I am a feminist. Is it a Gemini trait to be so stubborn in your righteousness? Because I can’t remember a time in my life when injustices didn’t fire me up. I don’t hate many things, but blatant unfairness is one of them. And yes, I can hear you saying, but “life is unfair” and I agree, it is. I am by no means untouched by its unfairness. But in so many cases, it does not have to be this way. We just continually subscribe to the cyclical patriarchal system that keeps us here.
I am not sure why being a feminist gets such a terrible stigma. Wanting equality across genders while recognizing that the patriarchy is serving absolutely no one except those stupid enough to believe that money, power and control are the point of human existence. Being a feminist should be celebrated, a genuine value to society. It should be one of our sexiest characteristics. It means you are loyal to your values, educated enough to think critically and brave enough to be an authentic voice. I certainly get wet when I hear a man defending a woman’s right to make choices about her own body.
Feminism doesn’t make men lonely. Men’s chosen behavior is what leads to male loneliness. Women are solely reacting to their behavior. This pattern is only reinforced by the silent retreat men take when women become the slightest bit inconvenient.
I’d like to shout out the man who prompted this rant. He randomly pursued me on Instagram and started following me after I liked a post of his. He slid into my DMs and said “let’s explore some cenotes together”. We live within an hours drive of each other in Mexico. I will not lie; he was extremely attractive. His looks, combined with the fact that he was European and seemed adventurous, made me say yes. Normally I do not entertain strange men on a social media platform but my mindset in the dating world is always: if it goes anywhere worth noting, great and if not, I have a new pal, wonderful.
Within a few days of our initial conversation, I was flying to New Orleans to attend the Abortion in America convening I was invited to. It was my first year attending and I felt honored to even be on the guest list. The weekend was a magical experience filled with courageous women (and men) sharing their stories of trauma, grief, loss, growth, lessons, hardships; with the overwhelming undertone of love and support. It was a weekend that moved me closer to the ancestral pain and weight we all carry as women while reminding me of how the spirit of sisterhood is the cure for so much of our burdens. I was humbled by the experience.
I shared about this emotional and cathartic weekend on Instagram, after having taken a long social media break because that is yet another thing on my exhaustion list. This previously interested man unfollowed me within days of me sharing. Now I can handle rejection, especially from someone who knows absolutely nothing about me. Why would I ever care about the opinion of a stranger? Even if we had spent time together, I do not take the rejection personally. We are either compatible or we are not. He saved me time and energy. Or more accurately, my authentic voice shined a light onto his ego and therefore, I saved myself. A reminder that authenticity is always your best filter.
Either this almost 40-year-old man just randomly decided he wasn’t attracted to me within a week of zero interaction or he completely lost interest in me after I opened my mouth to speak the truth of the growing tidal wave effects of abortion bans today and how the gender inequality of healthcare should be on the top of everyone’s moral priority list.
The conclusion here is: he either is extremely pro-life, which is just another way of saying indoctrinated and/or consciously or subconsciously an enforcer of the patriarchy. Or he was like this woman shares complex concepts (it’s really not bro) aka is “too much” and that was a turn off for him. The pattern I notice with most men is that the minute a woman becomes the slightest bit “difficult” or “emotional” or pushes against his ego, they become immediately flaccid.
Maybe it is just the men I attract (trust me I have done my fair share of therapy on this) or do the majority of men* really want women to stay inside the delusional boxes they build for us? Seemingly, I can only show up as the solo traveling woman who rocks a bikini on beaches all over the world to be worthy of a follow or cenote exploration by this measure. Smile and look pretty but please don’t have an opinion on anything that requires me to access my higher self, my divine masculinity.
And there is the issue: men genuinely want to be appreciated. I’ll go so far as to say loved, but at the same time they don’t want to change the dynamics that are enforcing our frustrations towards them. Men can either meet us at the level we expect of them (and currently babes, the bar is pretty damn low and somehow they still choose the floor) and gain more respect and appreciation from us or they can continue behaving with low values/behaviors and accept our warranted anger or indifference.
If we look at the values behind the feminist movement- like protecting the vulnerable, speaking truth to power and fighting injustices- these are all the same values we apply to the male superhero. If a man says a woman deserves equality, safety or justice, we call him a good man. If a woman spoke the same words, society considers her a threat.
The patriarchy never sleeps.
My response to it all? Go find less.
Stop bothering the women who refuse to be tamed. I refuse to abandon myself, my values and my worth to keep the gaze of man. I may have done that once or twice in younger years, but once again, thank God for therapy and self-awareness. A reminder that being strong willed, strong voiced and strong headed as a woman (note: all valuable traits as a man in leadership roles), can coexist with a woman who is soft, sweet and loving. They are two sides of the same coin. Women as multidimensional beings should not be shamed or punished while their male counterparts are celebrated.
The irony in all of this is that choosing an “easy” woman which I’m assuming is just a yes woman or a woman who is so desperate for partnership that she will hide her shadowy bits to become more palatable for a permanent mate, is that your relationship is built on a faulty foundation. On inauthenticity. No one can grow and expand when those around them are complacent. My sincere best wishes to those relationships and to the man on Instagram. I hope he does find less.
If I were to go through my rolodex (please Google if you were born after 1995) of female friends who have endured heartache, the story line is the same: they expected more. Whether that is they were dating for the potential they saw or who the men portrayed themselves at the beginning didn’t align with who they were at the end, it all amounts to women thinking a man would show up more. Women desire men’s best selves; they want more. Men, like Instagram dude, want less. They want what they expect is easier. In life you always get what you pay for. I am grateful my “too muchness” has shielded me from being the cheaper option.
Ticking the single box is apparently one of the taxes unmarried women have to pay in order to step fully into themselves. I will gladly tick this box forever. Marriage is not on my to-do list nor is it a measure of my capacity to be a successful woman in life and in relationships.
If being a feminist and having a loud and necessary opinion, triggers men to resist us rather than what the obvious CTA is: to be a part of our resistance, then let the men fall.
*I would seriously like a Samoa Girl Scout cookie for not saying “all men” here. I am sick and tired of hearing but “not all men”. If you want to defend “all men” then please be secure enough to not be threatened by blanket statements. As women, we have been dealing with blanket statements our whole lives.
xo an emotional woman