Alias (DO NOT USE A REAL NAME!!): Michelle
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Comment: A man that I’ve had a crush on since seeing him briefly at an event found me and requested me on Facebook sometime later. We chatted a few times, during conversation I found out he was a runner. I invited him to meet up for a run, we went on a couple runs. He was continuously flirting and throwing sexual innuendos at me. I told him “I’m not going there with sexting. (sex talk), I want to learn ‘who’ he is. After the second run, he admitted he was married. I told him I can’t see him anymore, “neither of us are strong enough to resist sexual urges.” He said he respected my decision. still texted me on a daily basis for the next few days. I caved in and we went for another jog. I invited him over to visit me at my house after the run. He had a lot of sexual tension, in which I stopped my self from reacting to. (Plus, my roommate was home ;)) When he left, he texted me. In which I admitted it was hard for me to resist and suggested to do a weekend retreat in a cabin. I wanted to have quality get to know him time…In more ways than one. He was thrilled and said “he’ll find a place.” Days went by and he never did. So I offered to do it. When I found a great place, I sent him the options. He responded with, I can only stop by for a couple hours.” My response, “I understand. However, at the same time, I know we both want the same thing, but you’re not able to give the time it takes to get there, maybe we should leave each other alone.” He said, “I understand, I can’t, I’m sorry”. Never heard from him again. I can’t get him off my mind. Where did I go wrong? (Besides the obvious, it’s wrong to date a married man)
Age: 30
City: Madison
State: Wisconsin
I don’t think you did anything wrong. I think this guy just chickened out. That is, if he ever really planned to go through with it in the first place. To me, it sounds like he was all talk. Most guys who throw around sexual innuendo casually usually are. If you have to talk about sex to get the person you’re with to think about having sex with you, that’s not a great sign.
I could address the issue of you pursuing a married man, but I don’t think I need to. Besides, I’m sure some of the frequent commenters will take pleasure in letting you know how problematic that is. That’s part of the reason why stories like this are so attractive to many people. They allow people to get on their soapbox and rant and cast judgment.
I mentioned a week or two ago that one of the issues I wanted to cover in my book was the more destructive side of women’s media. There are no shortages of examples where women turn to spill their guts on the internet. But a post on xoJane (naturally) this week really got me thinking about why this personal confessional style of writing has become so popular.
As you can see from the comments, the dialogue very quickly became concern trollish. And then it got nasty. One commenter openly pondered if maybe the reason the comments took such an ugly turn had to do with the fact that author was young, pretty, slender, and white. It’s no secret that women who fall into all these categories are often more valued in society just for being those things and not for any actual accomplishments they may have achieved. Other commenters questioned why so many people felt so comfortable offering an arm chair diagnosis of the author’s self-esteen and mental state. While the woman’s story was troubling, no doubt, it didn’t sound all that unfamiliar to me and I’m sure many other women who were well out of their twenties. She chose to have sex with a guy that she lived with that she claimed she didn’t find attractive. One night after they had had sex, he had offered his opinion of her body by telling her she was fat. This made the young woman want to put him in his place, so she would eat big bowls of pasta in front of him and wants to find other guys to bring home and have sex with to rub in his face.
Why all the pearl clutching? How many women have wanted to wave another, hotter dude, in the face of a guy who treated her poorly? And who the fuck cares that she omigod ate a bowl of pasta in front of him to spite him? Childish? Sure! But who hasn’t done that?
The story aside, it got me to think about why stories like this are considered so click-baitish. You want to believe that it’s because so many women can relate to feeling inadequate because of a dickish thing a guy said. That’s part of it, I’m sure. But I think there’s another, more destructive, reason for the popularity of such tales and websites like xoJane and even this one.
I think many people (you, me, all of us) get great great pleasure from telling women what they’re doing wrong.
Obviously, this isn’t only a woman on woman crime. Loads of men like to squat in the comments of xoJane or The Frisky or this blog so they can take a steaming dump all over women as revenge for not getting laid in God knows how long. I’ve also seen similar behaviors on red pill and MRA blogs. Guys pour in to tell the socially underdeveloped guy all the ways he’s setting himself up to be used.
The personal memoir writing niche is far more popular amongst women than men, though. One reason, I think, is that many women believe the best way to bond is to share. They choose to be revealing in the hopes that readers will identify with and validate them. You don’t see these sorts of stories from men very often. My theory as to why that is is that women are raised and encouraged to seek approval from their friends, from men, and from society. Men aren’t. There’s a confidence instilled in them by parents and peers just for being born male.
While there is definitely an upside to women sharing their stories and experiences, there’s also one huge downside. What these first person narrative tales are actually doing is a) encouraging women to be competitive and judgmental of each other and b) feeding into the idea that approval from our male and female peers determines our self-worth. It makes you (well, me) wonder if writing like this does more harm than good and whether or not it actually impedes the bigger cause.
