Men fear women laughing at them.
Women fear men will kill them. Kill them and their babies.
A few years ago I met a man on a popular dating website and we went out a few times. His interest in me was intense and initially flattering, but I knew after we’d been out a few times that we were not a great match.
On what turned out to be our third and last date, he shared a story of intense trauma from his childhood that haunted him, some 40 years later. I listened with empathy and encouraged him to seek help for overcoming the complex emotions associated with the event and even recommended a couple of therapists.
The next day he was in constant contact, via text, email & phone and later in person as an uninvited guest at my home. I was busy with work and kids and didn’t return all communication promptly. He began to accuse me of being insensitive and uncaring and that he regretted sharing with me. Shortly – and by shortly, I mean hours – after that text, he began berating me for thinking myself superior, that I was a stuck up cunt and a cold hearted bitch. I told him that he had no right to speak to me that way and that if couldn’t speak to me with kindness and respect that I didn’t wish to hear from him again.
A barrage of texts and emails followed, each increasing in anger, vitriol. Rather than simply blocking him, I sent him a text telling him that his communication made me very uncomfortable and no longer wished to hear from him I blocked him from my phone and a couple of days later, I blocked him from social media. A few of weeks after our last communication, I noticed a familiar car outside my house. And the next day as well. I contacted an acquaintance who worked for our municipal police department who offered to drive by in a squad car. I never heard from him again, and fortunately, that is where my story ends.
But based on the tragic stories above and for every woman who has watched a man’s flirtatious mask turn to anger when she turns him down, here’s what I know:
- You are not entitled to spend time with someone or forge an intimate bond with someone if that person does not wish to do the same with you. And if they say “No thank you” to a date? You are not entitled call them a dumb bitch or an ugly ho. You are most definitely NOT entitled to shoot them.
- If you buy a woman a coffee or a drink, you are not owed sex in return.
- If someone has asked you to get out of their life because you hurt them or because they fear you? Get the fuck out and stay out.
- You may not use your past to manipulate someone into caring for you or bonding with you. Women are not in the rescue business, unless they’re fire fighters or police officers or other rescue personnel.
- If you can not control your temper, let go of your anger, wallow in self pity or behave unreasonably or recklessly you do not deserve patience or “another chance.”
Mental illness is a very real disease in this world, one shrouded in shame, stigma and often left in the shadows. But if you she “makes you crazy” and you threaten a woman’s safety, insult her, demean her or hurt her children because you were “rejected?”
You are a piece of shit, buddy.
