It’s Not Me, It’s You

26 January 2021

My therapist asked me what my ideal relationship looked like. I told her a long distance one. She wasn’t thrilled by this response. 

I told her until general conditions regarding men improved, I didn’t want to have much to do with them. The effort usually wasn’t worth it. So why bother? Plus, I don’t want to wake up one day and realize I’m with a creep, or worse, an absolute psychopath. I’ll pass.

I have yet to feel an urgency to find a mate. Perhaps that will change but it’s been fairly consistent for three plus decades. Even as a child I was content to be alone. Sure I liked my family and friends, but when the playdate ended I was more than happy to enjoy some me time. Is this abnormal? Could be. 

One year for Christmas I received a Ken doll. He was alluring at first. Shiny and new, but I soon realized he wasn’t as cool as Barbie. His accessories and clothes were lacking. Even the clothes I made for Barbie out of paper towels looked better on Barbie than on Ken. The effort I put into making his personalty more interesting seemed tiresome as well. 

I quickly realized Barbie was more fun when she was hanging out with her friends, the other Barbies, or when she was alone. Not when she was attached to Ken. Soon Ken was less and less in the mix when it came time to play Barbie. I think my brother enjoyed playing with the Ken doll, not often, but I’m sure it was a pleasant respite from always having to be one of the Barbies.

Barbie didn’t really need Ken. I questioned his relevance and often wondered what all the fuss about being in a couple was about. Barbie and Ken were advertised as the perfect couple. In my eyes Ken didn’t hold up his end of the bargain. It only made sense to me as a small child to assume that a human boyfriend would probably fall flat just like Ken had.

Barbie wasn’t the only one with a man in her life that I couldn’t wrap my little kid head around. I read a lot of Nancy Drew growing up. Nancy is a badass, who drove a cool car, a mustang, and who could solve any mystery. She was fearless and unstoppable and really good at her job. Nancy was the embodiment of a role model.

The only problem I have with the Nancy Drew series is Ned, Nancy’s boyfriend. Talk about a dud. I didn’t understand why Ned was even in the books. To me, he just distracted from the important mystery at hand. I found him annoying, and frankly a little too needy. Nancy had a lot on her plate and Ned didn’t add anything meaningful to the story. 

I remember literally skimming over the Ned sections and jumping back in when the story got back on track. If there are any Ned supporters out there I’d love to know why. Surely, you must have your reasons. 

Looking back, I seemed to have a lot of issues with the male figures in the books I read and the toys I played with as a child. I didn’t understand what was so great about them or why they couldn’t live up to the hype. Or more importantly why their existence was so essential. 

As a kid I grasped that boys and girls were different and possessed different parts. At a young age I was taught that your privates are your business. They were off limits for show and tell. A your eyes only sort of thing.

So you could understand my confusion when I saw a penis while walking home from school one day. I did a double take. I hadn’t imagined it. It was really there in broad daylight. I saw a stranger, a grown man, with his pants down and his junk exposed leaning against a fence not far from where we stood on the sidewalk. I turned to my older sister, maybe a fifth grader at the time, and asked what the deal was. “Why is that man’s pants down?” And, “doesn’t he know that you aren’t supposed to show off your privates?”

I asked a lot of questions, using my outside voice because we were outside. I knew it wasn’t cool to let your privates out when you were outside. My mom told me that. My sister tried to shush me, but I needed answers. She was wise enough to keep me walking and talking so that we could pass the man and his exposed penis. I’m fairly certain she guided me to the other side of the street, to put a little extra distance between us and the penis that shouldn’t have been on full display. 

As we passed, I noted the man did not appear phased by us gawking at what we saw. He didn’t pull his pants back up when he heard a little girl loudly asking about his penis. He just left his dick dangling in front of him. I was seriously perplexed. 

Hadn’t anyone told this guy that it’s impolite to show your dick off to anyone who hasn’t asked to see it?  Something tells me the pervert probably knew better, but clearly couldn’t help himself from exposing himself to children.

If men lived by the rule that you only show your dick to someone when asked, we’d live in a very different world. Keep that shit in your pants fellas. It ought to be easy to leave your dick in your pants and only let it out when it receives an invitation to make an appearance. I learned early on that common sense thinking when it came to one’s penis was a little too murky to navigate for far too many men.

My first dick run in happened when I was in kindergarten. I’d learn that it would only be the beginning of living in a world with actual dicks and an abundance of dick-like behavior. Sometimes it was easy to tell if someone was a dick right away, but others were a little more nonchalant about their dick-like tendencies.

Take my former coworker Kyle. I had worked with Kyle for a while and had hung out with him and his girlfriend before they broke up. We were friends at work and outside of work. One night after work I walked to a bar with some coworkers, including Kyle. I don’t recall anything of note that happened at the bar that night. At the end of the night I walked home with my coworker Kyle.

Kyle’s house was closer to the bar than mine. So we stopped there. I figured I’d sleep on his couch and walk home in the morning. For some reason someone was already on the couch. Could have been a roommate’s friend. Kyle said I could sleep in his room. I didn’t think anything of sleeping in Kyle’s bed next to him. 

Not long after getting into bed, Kyle got a little fresh. A little too fresh. I wasn’t into Kyle. We were just friends. I told him to go to sleep. I continued to shut down his advances, but he persisted. I worried that his persistence was starting to resemble aggression. I informed him, again, we wouldn’t be sleeping together. I debated whether I should get up and walk the rest of the way home. Sure it was the middle of the night, but it wasn’t that much farther. In that moment it  seemed like a safer bet, rather than deal with Kyle.

Before I could make a decision, Kyle passed out. I didn’t sleep much and left as soon as the sun came up. I walked home thinking a lot less of Kyle. 

He apologized about it later. It seemed sincere. He admitted it wasn’t cool. We were just friends I’d told him. He said it wouldn’t happen again. Yeah, no shit I thought. Like I’d ever plan to find myself in a similar, or any situation, with him again.

Years after I’d moved away, I found myself back in town for a bachelorette party. I ran into Kyle at a brewery. I said hi and made brief small talk, planning on rejoining my ladies at a nearby table. 

In our short conversation Kyle asked how my life as a lesbian or whatever I considered myself was going. I laughed This struck me as odd. Kyle knew I wasn’t gay. If I were gay, I’d be gay. Of course there have been many times and situations I wished I was a lesbian, including that one time Kyle made me feel really uncomfortable.

Then it hit me. He was still pissed I had shut him down when he tried to have sex with me. Clearly he had not gotten over his bad behavior, but instead of owning up to it, he felt the need to blame me for what didn’t happen. Cool.

He couldn’t actually think the only reason I didn’t sleep with him was because I was a lesbian. But the truth was that me being a lesbian was a more satisfying explanation other than I simply had zero desire to be anything but the most platonic of friends with him.

What did this twerp think, that he was God’s gift to women? I beg to differ. No thank you. Move along jackass.

It’s telling because I know that he knows I’m not into women, and yet this was his lame attempt to nullify his ego. I had thought that night revealed a lot about Kyle, clearly he’s even more pathetic than I originally thought.

I wish I had some snarky remark to respond with at the time, but I just smiled and said I needed to rejoin the gaggle of women I was with. I didn’t bother to wait and see if he would ask if all the women I was with were also lesbians. I mean there were a lot of us and we seemed to be enjoying ourselves and no men were a part of the festivities.That would be all the criteria Kyle needed to go on. Plus no one in the group was showing much interest in him, so the chances of the table leaning towards the lesbian persuasion ran high according to his calculations. I walked away from him, utterly alarmed at the audacity of this asshole. 

It’s been a long time since I played with Barbie, or devoured a Nancy Drew mystery. I loathed both of their boyfriends and the need for them to have them in the first place. It felt so automatic that when you get older you needed to look for your person. We are taught to believe that there is one special person for each of us. But what if there’s not? What if you just meet a lot of unremarkable people you’d never want to spend a great deal of time with. If you are lucky enough to find someone you not only can stand, but also enjoy being with, shouldn’t that simply be a bonus and not a requirement for a successful life? 

My own experiences, especially early on, taught me that life is full of dicks. Is it worth navigating through the douche bags until you find one that doesn’t utterly revolt you? I don’t know. Maybe. But if you don’t find one worth it, no need to fret. You can rest easy because ultimately you are more than enough all on your own, whether you realize it yet, or not.