Stereotypes That Hurt Men (and Women)
Here’s what happens to me often…something occurs and it kind of bothers me but I try to let it go or I get distracted or I just plain forget about it…but there it is just lurking. After Cinchel and I went to the art gallery over a week ago, we went to Cozi Noodles and as Cinchel was using the facilities, I couldn’t help overhear a couple on a date at a very close table.
Both the guy and his date were really laughing obnoxiously so I listened a bit (what else was I supposed to do? Sing to my silverware?) and she was telling him how she had hooked up with this one guy a couple of times and then she basically flaked on calling him back and he ended up calling her and telling her how hurt he was. It was at this point in the conversation when she and this present guy started laughing at her previous boyfriend and calling him things like “girly” behind his back. She went on to talk about how this guy actually had kept a record of the times he’d tried to call and the times she said she would be there for him in some way and then wasn’t. The male date accompanying her responded by mock-asking, “Oh did he keep a journal too?” (Everyone keeps a journal now. It’s called blogging.)
I have to right now say I wish this kind of thing would end. It’s healthy for men to have feelings of loss, rejection, fear, sorrow. It’s healthy for a man to be honest about these feelings. It is not healthy for men to be dishonest or repress them. Why is it that women get to be the ones who can have the emotions and men somehow don’t? I don’t get it.
In some ways, I really feel that men and woman aren’t so different. If you randomly choose two women or two men, you may have just as difficult of a time finding two that have some important things in common as you would a man and a woman. I feel very strongly that stereotypes, created to help us understand the sexes, are damaging us as a whole.
There is a large industry that profits from the dishonesty and the stereotypes between the sexes. There is also an incredibly large amount of the population that are unhappy and unfulfilled because they believe in myths or feel they cannot truly be themselves.
I often think of my very first crush and it isn’t an uncommon one…Holden Caufield…he knew how to express emotions. He was upset by things….even things like swear words in a school. He was able to cry. He was an emotional wreck. But the world is full of wreckage, is it not? The smallest things can be tragedies. I believe that humanity will be all the better if we acknowledge one of our crucial strengths: our ability to feel things deeply, to not be apathetic, to not remove ourselves from experience.
And let’s be a little more honest with eachother. What I wanted to say to this girl and didn’t: “If you didn’t call him back, it’s your fault and you should be ashamed. Your dishonesty and embrace of negativity will only make you more bitter and unsatisfied throughout your whole entire life.”
What I wanted to say to this guy: “You’d feel the same way that guy did and you know it.”
(now playing: Hrsta:Stem Stem in Electro)