July 29th 2010

Pessimism Precedes Me.

How many dates, failed relationships, and false hopes does one woman experience before she becomes a pessimist about love?

There are plenty of self-help books, advice columns, and blogs for a woman to "reflect" on why her relationships are not working. After all, it seems that mass media production has done well in finding out that developing relationships is a primary concern for woman and have capitalized off of it. Indeed, we want to read, explore, and try every "trick" in order to secure the ideal: reciprocal friendships and relationships that will give us a sense of family.

And yet, in the wise words of my neighbors: "all of those books on improving the self is simply a reflection of what worked for them, and definitely not a guide for what will work for you." These wise words got me to thinking about what it is that I need and want and how I am going about getting it.

While reading the plethora of advice ads, I decided to check out from the most popular trends that get people in the place where they want to be in their relationships and started thinking about what I am doing to get myself there.

The truth is when it comes to love I've become a pessimist. Like all learned perspectives I have a resume of failed relationships and selfish partners to solidify why I have become this way. And for the first time, I could give a damn if someone "senses" my pessimism. I'm tired of healing broken hearts because a man was able to take and not give. I think it is disgraceful when a woman is expected to emotionally recover from an act of betrayal because another has made a "mistake". I'm sick of the emotional violence: dirty talk, silence, lies, avoidance, and foul play.

There has to be something said about the fact that as women we are encouraged to "re-invent the wheel" of relationship behaviors to out-wit or out-smart the over-powering male in order to get our needs met. Isn't that what all this talk about standards, expectations, boundaries, and self-love is all about anyway? Aren't we all just trying to devise plans on getting the man to understand, submit, and cooperate with meeting our needs?

Why (and I must use this word) the FUCK don't men have to do this? Why is every article in Essence magazine about how I need to act, respond, and sex a man in order to keep him? Is it just me or do other women feel totally run down by patriarchal (look it up) standards for getting and receiving love while the feminine principles of being a woman are undergoing a genocide?

I am becoming a pessimist. Not because I don't believe in love, it's actually quite the opposite: I believe in love so deeply that I have become to hate the way in which feminine intuition is being shitted on, manipulated, and exploited for the purpose of serving the man. Love gives, receives, shares, explores, comforts, sets a foundation, enlarges, and simplifies life's challenges in a irrational paradox that we all need to become more acquainted with.

In 2010 (my 30th year, and 15th year of dating) I'm giving up. I give up. That's right, if a man has to be coerced, manipulated, or begged to love me well, he's short. I'm not doing it. He has to realize that I am human, woman, and real. If he can't see me for exactly that then it won't work. I have lost the desire to make it work. Now, if he doesn't act, he won't get.

Call it what you want, but pessimism precedes me.