Androphobia

This is a follow-up post to Dreaming Lonely, which I wrote last week.

It hasn't been very long since I started practicing seeing myself as removed from dating, but some really interesting things have happened in my brain since then. In just a week I realized how many of my opinions and decisions were giving in to an external pressure. When I thought I would have to marry one of them, I started seeing all men as either suitable or unsuitable and adjusting my standards by prospects. Whether shallow or not, all men were measured by some standard as either a match or mismatch to myself. This man was too stupid, that one too callous, and all of them more or less masculine, which seemed to be the biggest problem. And each man was put in the yes, no, or maybe bin until such a mythical day as he should choose to raise his hand and politely ask permission to excuse himself.

There are two logical problems with my bins. Firstly, I am judging men by women's standards, and it just isn't fair to men to expect so much of them. That was a little facetious. The truth is, you will never judge anything fairly if using the wrong criteria. Whether because of our cultural gender programming (*whimpers*) or because of some mystical and eternal difference which nobody can precisely pin down though they will continue insisting that it exists, men and women are different. More precisely, the genders differ. Some of the wonderful things I admire in my sisters may not be encouraged or even present in my brothers. They might have been trained to think to different ends, or they might have been selected for a different divine eternal role.

The second logical problem is that I have been dividing men like Moses divided the Red Sea and walking through on dry ground. Suitable men to the right, unsuitable men to the left. It seems to me an inescapable part of dating. Tinder, right? You swipe left, or swipe right. Yes or no. Every person in the appropriate gender is assigned and sometimes reassigned a position in relation to your interests and standards. They stand before you and are judged. It's necessary. Either you'd talk to/date/marry them, or you wouldn't. But people are never a simple binary: good man or bad man. When you're dating, every encounter with the appropriate gender contributes to the next judgment. Should I talk to him again? Should I wave and smile? Should I say something personal, or keep it at smalltalk? Should I suggest we do something sometime? Should I accept a ride home from him? These are all "yes" or "no" questions. Swipe left, swipe right. And there's an incredible pressure to make these decisions. My roommates are constantly telling me to "give him another chance." The pressure to give in, to lower my standards, if only to avoid labels or animosity, is intense.

STAHP. NO.

I am no longer in the game. I'm not a coach, I'm not on a team, and I'm not a recruiter or scout. I am going to watch from above, from the bleachers. I can cheer a good deed here, maybe encourage a low spirit there, and see if I can't learn to appreciate the different skills of the players. If I can't, then I will find a different game to play. Maybe chess.

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