I am now over my Brazilian domestic crisis, which was related to my Louisiana domestic crisis. Both crises were very upsetting because they impinged upon my work, a fact about which I am quite embarrassed. I will have trouble with my work as long as I allow myself to be mistreated in general, and that is a fact.
I know that technically I should not speak to S, the friend who wanted to maneuver me into a motel room using my car as leverage, but I want to. We are neighbors and we have been friends for twelve years in one way and another. And Maringouin being a small town, we cannot avoid crossing paths.
What I have to say keeps evolving. I no longer want to talk about that incident, and I am no longer even interested in proudly saying, get away from me! I am interested in saying some other things, though. I do not know whether they are really for him, or for me only. Therefore I am writing them here, so you can comment.
Dear S,
I have thought a lot about what happened and could speak at length about the past. I am more interested now, however, in the future. I’m on speaking terms with you, if you are with me. That means I can be cordial in any situation. It doesn’t mean, though, that if the present difficulty blows over I am willing to return to an older status quo. It seems to me that we’ve known each other so long, the town is so small, and we live so near each other, we might as well clear the air.
I have thought of these possibilities:
PERHAPS:
* we just have a bad dynamic going because of some past history and should stop trying to be friends;
* or, if I stop ever letting you hug me, and stop sitting under the same blanket while riding in cold boats, you’ll understand I mean it about not having sex or sharing rooms;
PROBABLY:
* for just-friends, our relationship has too many domestic features;
* I have definitely accepted too many practical favors from you;
DEFINITELY:
* to me you are interesting to talk to, fun to do things with, and funny and nice;
* but if we hang out more, I want to do it very differently;
* that means I want to do it without the power imbalance I shall next describe;
* it was, by the way, that power imbalance that made me react as I did to your revision of plans for 01/09.
IMPORTANT:
* I am insecure around you because of what you’ve explained before: you are only interested in small doses of me, but you would like to have sex. This makes it hard for me to be myself. I try to be a small dose, be diplomatic, so that I am not too much / too flamboyant. At the same time, I am trying to diplomatically avoid sexual situations. Due to this situation socializing with you is always stressful, even though we have had some wonderful times.
* It is hard for me to understand why you want to spend as much time with me as you do, given the way you’ve said you feel. I am also slightly uncomfortable with you for this reason. I always feel tentative. I tend to be rather formal, almost in the way one is at work or on first dates.
* By handling the situation this way for as long as I have, I have given you more power over me and in the relationship than I ever should have done. That feeling of powerlessness has made me a confused and I think, confusing participant in our friendship.
* I am therefore going to stop this: stop feeling apologetic about who I am and about not wanting to be more than just-friends. If you’re interested in being friends with that version of me I’m willing. If not, that is fine too.
COMMENT:
I do find it odd that I have never felt entirely comfortable around you because I knew you were trying to maneuver me in some way, and I was trying to counter-maneuver so as to be able to relate but also keep my own space.
I realize now have been operating under the assumption that this was the level of discomfort you wanted. I saw my choices as being: (a) accept the discomfort or (b) separate entirely.
I am writing these things down for myself and for you, on the off chance that you would in fact be willing to be friends on terms more comfortable to me than those we have had, and that you, too, might feel more and not less comfortable if I am more myself.
Best to you —
Z
So: what do you think of this text?
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
I don’t know — you are addressing this guy very personally, as if he had the consciousness to compute and respond. I’ve learned that guys, to the degree that they have the tendency to clamber roughshod (which means not necessarily all of them, but far too many) do not identify their own actions as having personal qualities, but as being very generic.
So then, we, as thinkers and perceivers, give them a perspective on themselves and they tend not to be able to see themselves in it. They go, “No, I made no personal decisions at that point, to treat you in any particular way.” And they are right. They were merely chanelling the patriarchy, and will keep on doing it, because to them it feels right. It is only people like us who will try to divide up reasons, motivations, and idiosyncracies out of behaviour that originates from none of these. It is a tremendous waste of time. Patriarchal behaviour is generic, and as such has no inward motivation. Say it after me.
And, here is something from Stephen:
I have been interested in observing the below the surface patterns which have deterministic feature on life under patriarchy. My upbringing probably necessitates a more nuanced observation. In the rural set up that had a bearing on me –my mother was the most vital cog that kept the family together and sanitized the insanity of it all. My father worked in a small town and it was incumbent upon my mum to run the small farm as well as see to it in the town periodically my father was taken care of. She was practically running two homes and geographically removed. I remember at one time when he was involved in an accident and she had to be recalled from the fields to catch the next earliest bus to town. But when it came to the fruits of labour- my father was the controller. But wait! What broke me was when my father died and my uncles in cahoots with my elder brothers distributed my father’s estate among themselves denying my mother her only chance in life to for-once be a master of her destiny and in control means of production-there was a herd of cattle,goats,sheep, ploughs etc and the smallholding. And one of my uncles even wanted to “inherit” her as a wife despite the fact that she was then a 59year old grandmother. That women are the guardians of civilisation is recognised, in Shona society you will find for example, sayings like musha mukadzi literally meaning that for there to be family worth its name it is the responsibility of a woman. Implied in this is that the woman must succeed to give the family a life, civilisation although the odds against her are high. The obstacles patriarchy places in her way are such that she risks a mental breakdown every waking moment of her life. If she fails it’s not due to the imperfect society that patriarchy has created for her. Her failure is an anticipated outcome of her moral shortcomings.
In Shona society the old grandmothers(the matriarchy you loosely refer to) not only attempt to hold younger men to account when they stray but they also in their own way teach younger women to expect the inevitable-men are animalistic don’t expect human behaviour from them. Thus if the woman is battered and flees or threatens to break the marriage she will be told that dzimba ndidzo zvadzinoita, that is that is how married life is like. In other words, that is expected and nothing out of the ordinary in a marriage and therefore no reason to seek a divorce. Until the poor woman becomes another murder statistic!.
I am not sure whether other men will not realise this Jennifer, but if they don’t it is also largely to the consciousness that develops or is allowed under patriarchy. Our brains are also conditioned to normalise the abnormal. See no evil even when evil lurks everywhere and threatens one’s own person and sanity. The thing is what affects you Jennifer as my neighbour who is abused has a multiplier effect on society, me and those I hold dear, my children whom I may want as civilised an upbringing free from misogyny and violence. Must I sit back!
“Our brains are also conditioned to normalise the abnormal. See no evil even when evil lurks everywhere and threatens one’s own person and sanity.”
“It is a tremendous waste of time. Patriarchal behaviour is generic, and as such has no inward motivation. Say it after me.”
OK, yes. So I wrote this and a few other things today just to soothe myself, teach myself to stand my own ground, and/or also learn these things from you-all.
I saw your comment because I was going to be the first commenter myself. My comment was going to say:
“Yes, I realize this is a lot of writing just to tell someone I do not want unwanted sexual advances, and I want my refusal of these to be taken seriously.”
“Yes, the boil-down of this would be:
a) If you really want to be friends with me, that means you do not even try to have sex with me, or try to set up any kind of situation, such as sharing a room for a night, that I know from past experience means you want to share affection and if possible, sex; and
b) I am very upset that, after I made it crystal clear to you before leaving that I wanted to come right home from the airport and that I did not feel comfortable having you go to all the trouble of picking me up, you even suggested changing the plans on me.
c) I was upset that you did this after I had left, and right before you were about to be off line for six days. It really seemed mean / felt like a kick in the stomach.
d) I know I should have said a resounding NO when you first suggested it, and that I equivocated. That was because I know what a big deal it is to make that drive. I was trying to gather my thoughts. It was a tactical error on my part but honestly, you already knew items a) and b) in this list very well, and it’s would be unfair to say the problem is my not having communicated clearly.”
*
God. And I do realize I am wasting time and energy. Or at least I think I am. I don’t know, I am trying to heal something in myself, or teach myself something, give myself permission not to be so understanding next time.
I had to go through heaps and heaps of that (trying to heal or teach myself something), but when this involves trying to communicate, you only get yourself in deeper into a situation you want to get out of. Communication indicates caring, but patriarchs are not interested in the content of it, so far as I can tell.
So in the end what do we “teach ourselves”? Only that there is nobody behind the face of the person whom we want to express our hurts to. That there never was. That it had been an illusion all this time that there was a human being inside the picture that we could talk to.
To understand this point is true liberation.
So DA WHITEMAN is the Wizard of Oz!
“[T]here is nobody behind the face of the person whom we want to express our hurts to. That there never was. That it had been an illusion all this time that there was a human being inside the picture that we could talk to.”
This is liberating but also frightening, something I don’t want to believe, although I see it.
It’s the logical conclusion to draw when somebody is unable to respond to you on a personal level after repeated requests. Instead they just mouth some value or ideology that is quintessentially patriarchal.
Knock, knock, nobody’s home!
You can try it again, and still nobody’s home. Just some more patriarchal stuff that has nothing to do with what you said.
So you conclude that the person, as they represent themselves, does not exist. Or if they do exist, they are not in a position to respond freely as if they did in fact exist.
You have to realise that this is not our problem.