"I love my mother" he said
"I respect her" he said
"I respect all women like I respect her" he said.
"After I meet them, after some time, then I take away the respect that they do not earn" he said.
That is when the lightbulb flashed in my head.
For a time now I was thinking there is something off with this very good friend of mine.
Intelligent man, driven, ambitious, handsome, has status, knows how to behave, and is getting laid like a rabbit on steroids.
But something was off. Still is off.
There was a burning wound in his soul, which I could see but not describe.
You see, one night, trouble arose on our bar table when two friends with latin fire burning in them, let loose their macho talk. This talk, loud and extreme for these lands of equality, raised a few eyebrows in neighboring tables, and TorturedTornMan got very angry because our talk on the table was not respecting women.
What was the talk?
About younger women being more attractive;
About strong and independent women being high risk for commitment;
About how good behavior of men is resulting in masturbation;
About how stwong and yndependent women are not able to bond;
etc...
TorturedTornMan got angry at this conversation, he said it demeaned women, he said he respected women, and that the conversation was not fitting.
That night, TorturedTornMan went to his booty call. Call at 4.45, booty at 5.00. Woman waking up to open the door to a wasted man. No problem there. It is an arrangement.
Next night, TorturedTornMan was behaving erratically. I yet do not know why that was.I assumed he was sober, I might have been wrong.
But the bleeding of a soul from being tortured into tearing in two parts came out that night.
After ingesting copious amounts of alcohol, the man who was angry at a conversation on the table that was a bit too much macho was letting out loose gems like,
"You scored or not?"
"Fuck these bitches"
"I don't give a shit about her"
"Who fucking cares about these bitches"
Loud. so loud in a way that i had to shut him up because his remarks nuked my interaction with the next table. And the next.
That night TorturedTornMan fucked a girl he met the previous night.
Drunken call, fifteen minutes of "Wehre are you" talk, meet at the bar, go home, fuck, pass out.
You see,
This man,
Has the status
Has the behavior
Has the look
Has the style
Has the money
And even if it does not sound like it,
Has a golden heart
But he is torn.
Like most men of my generation. This way or that way, torn.
Between what we are told, and
Between what we see.
I had not made the connection, until,
"I respect all women like I respect her"
..."I respect all women like I respect her"...
Let that sink in.
This man has been told all his life to respect women.
This man had great women in his life.
This man respects all women from the get go.
It is not
"I respect all women who deserve it, like I respect her"
It is not
"Women who prove worthy of it, I respect like I respect her"
It is
"I respect all women like I respect her"
Because he has been told
"Respect women", by a woman he loves and respects. He took that and believed in it, and out of respect, is trying to make it a reality.
I was also told "Respect women", but I was also not spared the stories of women behaving bad. there was balance. The balance was fortified by having great women, I want to shout while writing this, "GREAT WOMEN" in my larger family circle, genuinely strong women that I am honored to have met. I knew, there is this, there is that. Show respect, and show no remorse, depending on what is deserved, because there is more at stake than just one woman's feelings.
For him, there is no balance.
For my generation, with all the media, there is no balance.
We are told to respect,
We are told to respect something that does not respect itself.
This man is torn because he respects all women from the get go, and then is rejected when he is nice, he is rejected when he is sober, he gets laid like a motherfucker when he is drunk, and cannot give two shits about the woman he is fucking.
Or - and thus cannot give two shits about the woman he is fucking.
He sees, he lives, that he is punished when he is good,
He sees, he lives, that he is rewarded with pussy raining from the sky when he is disrespectful.
He still claims he is nice, that is the blinds in front of his eyes. He is the perfect fit of the aloof, indifferent asshole, with the belief that he is acting out of respect. He is not. He would not be rewarded if he was acting with respect.
He sees what he is respecting by default, is without question, is without fail, acting in ways that does not respect itself, that does not reward anything which respects its existence;
Hell, sometimes he even sees that the reward is based solely on the condition that respect should be not existing, that disrespect is the main selection criteria for what to reward;
He sees men, who like him, respect women, and act in respectful ways, only to rot in a wishing loneliness,
So, he loses respect, every single time, because there is no respect deserved.
He is torn.
His soul is ripped apart.
Because his mother told him "Respect women"
But women's behavior inevitably make him lose respect.
Instead of
"I am neutral towards women, and only give respect when they earn it"
He has,
"I respect women, and take it away if they don't deserve it"
No one has that much respect to give.
The fault is the Mom's.
She has been a great mom. She has been a great human. This has been her greatest mistake. In his eyes she cannot make a mistake, and she forgot to add the caveat of "If they deserve it" to "Respect women"
Unwittingly, she has sown the seeds of her son's destruction.
A gem of a man, one day will be an important man, saving lives, making lives better, a good man for a good woman one day, but torn.
I love this guy. He has enhanced my life in ways I will see in the future, in ways I cannot count now,
And I will risk losing this friendship by going against what his mother has said.
Someone will have to put the seed of the condition of "if they deserve it" into his head.
If the price of that seed, if the price of the first healing of a wound that will otherwise never heal, is the loss of a friendship, I am willing to pay the price.
Moms out there,
Please know you are Goddesses for your sons,
Please know that the little boys take your words as the same as God's word,
Know that you have given life to the boy, but you can take his soul away, by the words you choose, by the actions you take, by the example you give.
More importantly, know that this is why you need to have a father figure for the boy. That might be the elephant.
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