Reader response to X

Guest post by Beatrice Lewis of A House of Secrets.

“Women have a wonderful instinct about things.
They can discover everything except the obvious.”
Oscar Wilde

Where do I begin? This [post] was a great summation of what disarray the state of “Womenry” is from what you’ve been reading on blogs; I too have seen the same written material over and over on very popular “help” sites. I’ve never seen myself look at the men in my life as “prizes,” nor the gifts they’ve given, rings, and such; perhaps I’ve equated them to a gift of payment for dealing with their crap; although I always refund the “money.”

I don’t quite understand the concept that men are “mine.” From my prior experience with my “best friend” turned stalker; I found myself acting or performing a role of vigilante wanting to protect other women from him taking them down too; because I was “his,” I was his property in his mind with exorbitant expectations placed on me. I would never want this placed on someone else.

Who am I? And after three attempts of self-sacrificing and staying in a toxic place; I realized it wasn’t my job to protect other women from this guy, but what I could do was tell my story and let other women take whatever tool I could give them to shed some light on their own personal situations.

I considered my story horrific in terms of how humans treat each other (outside other horrific crimes). I was very naïve to mental illness, mental instability, and grand manipulation; I thought I was smart enough to protect myself against falling into a victim role. And when everyone tried to warn or protect me; I was selfish, went against the grain, trying to prove I could ride in and “save” or “protect” a person with my magnificent powers. I laugh out loud when I think of this. Oh, when will we stop lying to ourselves?

As a teenager, I spent a lot of my time testing my mother on boys. I would ask, “What if he was black, what if he was Asian, what if he was Mexican, what if he was in a band?” And on and on I would test her. Her response every time was, “As long as he was good to you, treated you well, and doesn’t hurt you, it doesn’t matter “what” he is.”

My mother had always taught us, people are people. Men, women, kids, etc., we’re all just human beings, we are not “owned” by anyone, even parents don’t “own” their kids. I’ve also learned from many men I’ve dated that the line of respect falls into our humanness.

Accept those, as you would want to be accepted. Respect space, time, character, morals, values, and beliefs, and in return the right person you choose to be with will most likely grant you the same respect. Mostly men, have set society governance’s, ideas, and formulations of how women should behave; hence Feminism, but even feminism gets it wrong because once again feminism divides us, by color, ethnicity, gender, etc., etc; it does not unite women as human beings.

My experience finding even girl friends have been terrible because I don’t fall into their “ideals” of how we should act. If I’m gonna gossip, I’ll write; if I’m gonna compete, I’ll play a sport; and if I’m really hard up for that ring, I work, I can buy it; and if I want a partner, I want a side-kick. I’ve just wasted 14 years of my life on drama. It’s too short for me to waste 14 more, so I write. I’m trying to figure my life out. I’m leaning to go back to the things that I love, and learning to love myself all over again. There are hard choices I had to make and it means I’ve left behind quite a few people. It was necessary to leave some men and women behind.

:::—-::: （＾_＾） :::—-:::

I thank Beatrice Lewis at A House of Secrets for taking the time to press it out. I read her blog with a great deal of interest so I knew this response would merit its own space. Her essay is a response to my statement in X: “I still can’t understand dating as a concept. Let me blame it on how I was raised. I’ve always related to men as people and not as a potential someone or other. I’ve always just organically … You know what? I’m usually busy doing something.” Any other takers? Be brave, I’m waiting for you. Thank you for reading, SB.