Well, dear reader, I have bad news. Before the third month of the year had begun, I had already broken my New Year's Resolution... multiple times. (This is in fact the reason I don't generally make them - most of us mere mortals should be well aware that we can't keep them!)
Against my own strict and clear instructions, I have: messaged specifically forbidden men; looked at others with a hopeful eye; and even been on the verge of (let's pretend anyway, that I was only on the verge of), catching feelings for another (who has of course caught no such feelings for me).
But my experiences have led me back to my resolve. How sick and tired I am of my emotions, my thoughts, and even my fucking actions, being dictated by men. By my own desire for men. By my relentless and hopeless hope that someday, some man, will know me, for everything that I am, and want every single part of me... for his own.
As a child my mother taught me about things men want... words you hear everywhere like "mysterious"... the evocative ideal of a woman who you can see but never fully know, who teases and tests and tricks men into submission. Wantable women are guarded, wantable women are slow to say yes, wantable women don't fuck around and turn their exploits into a public joke about themselves.
And I was struck by one thought - that if this were even vaguely true, then no man would ever want me. My mother would have had me (and would still have me) change myself to fit what they want. But what could be less feminist? Less true to myself? And in terms of love - the entire fucking point, surely - less determined to be be a full-blooded, romantic FOOL... who will be loved only for who I am, everything that I am, and everything that I have been and will be?
And yet the men are in agreement with my mother.
So alone it is.
And maybe next time, dear reader, I will have something other than god-damn, fucking MEN to write about.
