Earlier this week, I couldn’t sleep. My thoughts kept returning to all those men that pass swiftly through my life as if they are on their way to something much more important than me. On the highway of love, sometimes I feel like I am the toll gate.
Just some prefabricated box, placed in some arbitrary position. Never the destination. I have never heard of somebody waking up one morning and saying, “Hey? You know where we haven’t been for a while. A Toll Gate! We should head out there. Maybe, have a picnic. Make a day of it.”
I am guessing you haven’t either.
Sometimes these men have been on their way to another woman or a different country or following career opportunities or whatnot. Most of the time, though, they have no idea where they are going. All they know is that they do not want to stop at me.
Instead of lying in bed, staring at my ceiling and thinking about this for any longer, I grabbed my laptop and allowed myself to get lost in blog after blog after blog. At around 2 a.m. I read a post written by a male blogger.
This blogger had written about the countless of blogs he reads by women and that they had taught him that MEN ARE PIGS. Women bloggers, he wrote, often write in excruciating detail about all the men that have wronged them. This made him feel a certain level of embarrassment for his gender. That he was ashamed, almost, to be a man.
I was about to leave a comment when my Wireless dropped AND Firefox just went wacky. By the time I was back in, I had lost the page I was on and couldn’t retrace my steps to find him again. (I do not remember who or where or how so if it rings a bell to anyone out there, please let me know).
But, what I wanted to say was that ‘NO, you are not pigs. Well, not all of you anyway. You should not be ashamed. Or embarrassed. Or feel bad in anyway. Because women? We’re not so innocent ourselves.”
Seriously.
I have given plenty a man a fake number. And not just the sleazy ones.
I have pretended to be out of the country to get out of a coffee date.
I once lied to an ex-boyfriend that I was in class because I didn’t want to see him. In fact, I was sitting on a friend’s couch gossiping away. (And yes. This is when I realized that I was really not into him. We broke up two months later.)
I have rolled my eyes at men.
I have turned my back to them when they have tried to talk to me.
I have flirted shamelessly with men, not because I particularly liked them, but just because they were there.
Granted, I have never slept with a man and not called him the next day. But I have done the female version of this. I have implied that a physical relationship could be, you know, an option and then have wandered away. Never to return. Feigning amnesia.
My point is–I think–that I can feel like a toll gate once in awhile. But, at the same, I am also a driver in my own car. I have gone through people, payed the price and then sped off. My point is–I think–that I am not some innocent bystander. I am playing at my own risk. Sometimes I’ll win and sometimes I’ll lose.
And sometimes I’ll be a bitch to a man who may or may not deserve it.
So ladies what have you done to men that has been, you know, not so innocent?
