FED UP WITH MEN 🖕(and other pickup lines)

some gender war slop; pt. 1 of several dozen (minimum)

Last post (a few weeks ago; here’s a link for a refresher),

BY POPULAR DEMAND: My reflections on Woman- and Mother-hood (& other related issues)

I’d talked about being stuck on the sidewalk behind a woman pushing a stroller/pram. Any other time, I’d have carried on walking without a second thought. Maybe I’d have acknowledged her (or even the kid) on my way past; who knows. But I was on tenterhooks, as a few weeks prior I’d had a strange interaction, one that made me regard all stroller/pram-pushers with suspicion. . .

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I had to go into the city. The nearest subway tube station to my house is under a busy intersection. There’s an entrance/exit on either side of the main road, each with a stairway of 15 or so steps. As I began my descent, I saw a woman, already close to the bottom, carrying a stroller. She looked perfectly capable, and had seemingly got it down there without much trouble, judging by the unfazed-seeming infant (although I guess there’s always a chance the kid had been dosed with some sort of tranquilizing agent before they’d left the house). A few other people were passing her on the stairs below, headed in both directions.

The timing was such that I ended up walking past her on the short walk towards the ticket turnstiles. She huffed, glared at me, then looked down and started ostensibly talking to her child (I was the only other person in earshot).

“Yes, darling, I know! Some people are just selfish assholes. Oh, well. You can’t expect them to do the right thing.”

I feel obligated here to state, for the record, that, had we both arrived at the top of the stairs at the same time, I really would have offered to help. With her only having two steps to go, however, I’d figured it would be inadvisable for me to talk down to her, literally, and imply that she didn’t look capable of getting across the finish line without a man’s help.

On top of that, there was the “kid” issue—which added a whole ‘nother layer. In this day and age, if you see some guy being a little too insistent on helping some woman with her kid, you’ve got to assume that he finds (at least) one of them desirable. I’m not saying that this knee-jerk reaction is good or right, just that certain gestures, comments, interactions, or hobbies that were once considered benign, or even respectable, have now taken on a negative stigma. It’s a real minefield out there—everyone’s on a hair trigger. Demetri Martin had a great joke about this; you’ve gotta pick your words very carefully:

demetri.martin.daily

A post shared by @demetri.martin.daily

The trouble is that at a certain point it also means that anyone who is (or who wishes to appear) remotely normal/non-threatening knows not to go anywhere near this stuff; it’s radioactive. Earnest, well-meaning people who, in a different time, may have gone up to a lost/scared-looking child at the beach or an amusement park and offer to help, would now think twice. Let alone people who might have aspired to be more involved, like a Scout Leader, or whatever; those folks know they’d be submitting themselves to a lifetime of scrutiny and skepticism. It’s a no-win situation. There’s no way to ever get people off the scent, even if you are totally kosher. Cue the classic Mike Ginn tweet:

And so the only people left (i.e., the people who carry on as if that shift hasn’t happened) are those who don’t care about negative stigma, or don’t have to. They’ve either got some sort of Zuckerberg-level sociopathy/autism, or have the money/power to cover it up (or a combination of both).

. . . Or it’s people who want the forbidden fruit so badly that they’re willing to accept any consequences it might incur. Cue Louis CK:

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With all this in mind, back to our subway damsel-definitely-not-in-distress. As I passed her at the bottom of the stairs I gave her a 80% smile/20% wince that I hoped would convey all of the above (i.e., that I was actually being a good guy by leaving her alone). I’m not sure she saw me. She went through the turnstile next to mine, before barging past me on her way towards the platform.

“Don’t worry,” she said over her shoulder, “I forgive you.” She then looked down at her child. “We forgive him, don’t we, darling?”

“I didn’t apologize for anything,” I said.

She glared at me again, then made a big show of hurrying to the top of the stairway (which was perhaps twice as long as the first one) before picking the stroller up with a big old huff and starting downwards.

Was there any alternate sequence of events where she didn’t still end up annoyed? It seemed unlikely. I wondered which had come first: Her visceral contempt for people, or her crippling loneliness? The classic incel chicken-or-egg. Either way, obviously, the “admonishing people for how shitty they are for not giving you a hand” strategy is a great way to make sure they don’t give you a hand next time.

Still, I couldn’t help but feel slightly bad for her. Most of the time, this sort of self-sabotage is only a defense mechanism: you’ve been burned in the past, and you want to make sure nobody’s ever able to get close enough to hurt you again. But you’re still a human who wants and deserves intimacy at a fundamental level, so you end up trying to juggle these instincts in some pretty curious ways (e.g., those girls whose dating app bios are just statements like “FED UP WITH GUYS 🖕”).

Beneath her world-weary, miserable exterior, under all those layers of ossified scar-tissue, there was a hopeless romantic crying for help. She would never have admitted it, but I bet she had some sort of rom-com fantasy wherein a guy would find her abrasiveness endearing or charming; like a “how to lose a guy in ten days” thing; this was her clumsy way of “negging”. Maybe she spent her free time trolling all over Notting Hill hoping to meet her own Hugh Grant.

She just happened to be a few decades behind the times: in her day (she looked 40-something) a kid used to be a perfectly viable prop/conversation starter. Nowadays it’s like trying to hit on someone with a visible piss stream running down your leg. So we’d have to forgive her ill-advised strategy, and focus on the intent, not the execution.

Maybe I’d finally met my match; maybe this was the kind of kick up the ass I needed. Someone who would hold me to account, make a man out of me. Someone who wasn’t afraid to call me on my bullshit. This was a sign from the universe, a fork in the road: Step Up and Make Something of Myself? Or continue on being a sniveling, pathetic manchild. Hmm. . .

This imaginary meet-cute of hers was all-too easy to conjure: after receiving my slap on the wrist back at the first stairway, I would feel terribly ashamed, and would begin to grovel, and offer my Chivalry Services for the next stairway. At first, she (prim, aloof, chin-upturned, not even meeting my eye) would decline. I would insist. She’d decline again, but with slight hesitation this time. I’d insist once more. At last, she would acquiesce, but make clear that this was for my benefit, not hers. I would agree, and thank her for the opportunity.

Upon reaching the top of the stairway, I would realize that the stroller would be almost too heavy to pick up, but I’d manage to play it cool. On the way down, I’d joke about the kid having a future as a sumo wrestler or an NFL linesman (“Whatever your beautiful mom is feeding you, it’s working. You’re lucky to have her in your life. . .”). She’d sneak a glance at my rippling biceps, and be unable to help but be impressed. She bites her bottom lip and looks away, not wanting to be caught staring. Down on the platform, we’d get to talking. She’d apologize for being curt with me earlier; she’d just been having a rough day. (Her baby daddy was being an asshole again; withholding child support; unreachable, off the grid in Italy with that little whore he met at work.) I’d offer my sympathies, and ask her if she’d want to have a drink sometime; it sure sounds like she’s got a lot to get off her chest. It’d have to be at her apartment, she says, so that she could keep an eye on the baby. Of course, I’d say; he comes first—oh, and you’re a great mom, by the way. I can tell he’s your world; I really respect that. Ha, she’d say, tell Marcus that; he says I use the child support checks to go shopping. Well, let’s forget about him. You don’t need that drama anymore. Don’t I know it, she’d say. I’d cut to the chase: How about tonight? She’d pretend to think about it, before agreeing.

8 pm. She lets me in. I play with the kid in the living room for a little while, letting him show me his rock collection or whatever while she leans against the doorway, watching over us. She’s surprised by how easy; how natural this all feels. Eventually, it’s the kid’s bed time. She takes him to his room down the hallway. She reads him a story, and as she turns off the lights I can hear him ask one last desperate question: “Mama, can that man be my new daddy?” She pauses. “. . .I hope so, baby. But that’s up to him.” She’d come back down the hallway and curl up next to me on the couch. Alone at last. (I’d pretend not to have heard anything.) I’d slap on a Kenny G playlist, pour us both a glass of cab-sav, and get to work. I want to know the real her. Start from the beginning; we’ve got nothing but time. Midway through our second bottle, the floodgates would open. And my shoulder would be there to soak up the tears. Jeez, your dad sounds like a real asshole. Wow, thank you, he was. (Etc., etc.) I’d tell her that I could fix her, I could teach her how to love again: Guys are assholes, you’re so right about that. But I’m not like the others. I’ll treat you right. And the kid? No problem. I wouldn’t be the “step-dad”, I’d be the dad who “stepped-up”.

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Obviously, this was all hugely tempting. There’s nothing I enjoy more than wasting a significant amount of my time and energy to prove a random stranger wrong. But Operation “Not-All-Men” would have to wait: a train had just shown up, so I hurried down to catch it, passing her halfway. As the doors slid closed, I turned around, and we made eye contact. I smiled and gave her a little wave.

NEXT STOP: ETERNAL PUSSYHOOD, baby. Full steam ahead.

More on all this next time.

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In the meantime, a nugget wisdom of wisdom: Choose your path wisely. It may, at times, feel like there’s no difference, that they both lead to the same place, and that, whatever you do, somebody’s going to have an issue, so there’s no point in even thinking about things in this way. Whenever you feel that, just remember: that’s exactly what they want you to think…..

… Oh, before you choose your path, though, make sure to subscribe and share with anyone who you think would enjoy it. (Or someone who wouldn’t. Either’s cool.)