In the last couple weeks I have been knocked flat on my ass with stories of men treating my friends like shit. There's always one of those douche-bag stories floating around, but it seems like lately the number of assholes has sky-rocketed. Is there something in the water? Or rather, in the beer? Are all the men on the planet PMSing at once? Because this behavior has skipped right over the Atlantic Ocean and effected my friends across the pond as well.
It is bad enough to hear stories of my friends getting treated like doormats (or whores), but the most depressing part for me is how these conversations always go:
[friend wraps up story]
Me: Gasp! I can't believe he said/did that! What an outrageous asshole! Please tell me you are never talking to him again/seeing him again/kicked him in the balls/slapped him in the face/shoved him out of a moving car/fed him poison??
Friend: Well, no...that's just the way he is/he's very stressed out right now/i dont think he meant it like that/he had a paper cut so was very cranky/i just take things too personally/he's right, monogamy is outdated/its my fault for bringing it up....etc.
There are few excuses for being rude or callous to another person. But when men act like babies or assholes or self-centered bastards, and the women in their lives just take it, what reason would they ever have to change? This guy, let's call him Shmeric, should not have called my beautiful, smart, capable, globe-trotting friend a "ditzy blonde with no situational awareness who dresses like a mom". What kind of insufferable jerk says things like that out loud to another person? On the other hand, my friend should not have gone to New York with him, after they had broken up and he had treated her like shit for months and made her feel less than human and incompetent, fat and ugly and worthless. It is his responsibility that he acted like scum, but what did she really expect from him by that point??
I am not saying I have never let a guy treat me badly. In fact, I've been in a couple outrageously unhealthy relationships, the second one all the worse because I should have learned from the first one. But I think that's why I get so upset now. I know what its like to defend someone who doesn't deserve it, and I also know the freedom and empowerment that finally comes with standing up for yourself, with tossing aside the sludgy guy, with having the confidence to be alone and knowing that being alone is better than being with someone who diminishes you every day.
It just boggles my mind that I have so many friends that are so extremely smart and motivated and capable until it comes to men and then they are simpering idiots. What is that about??
If you are a guy, please, don't be an ass. Its not that hard to be decent to the people around you, I promise it isn't. But if you are a girl, stop putting up with bullshit. You deserve better.
3 comments:
I would yell a big old "amen," but I think the records show that this is usually a long, slow lesson to learn.
but still, amen!
Schmeric's an a-hole.
I like the expression 'douche bag'. Pretty sure I've never used that before - one of my new year resolutions will be to get 'douche bag' into one of my conversations.
Just to warn you, once you start using it, its really hard to stop. Douche is just so often the perfectly appropriate word. I'll have you sounding like an American yet.
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