What I don't understand is why it is that men seem to think that women owe them something. I have an on-and-off again guy friend who I was talking to last night, and it came up, not for the first time, that he thinks I'm a shitty person. When I told him I try to be good to all people and want what's best for everyone, he told me that wasn't true and that what I want is what's good for Kelly. When pressed for an explanation, it was this:
We've done this before and the last time you didn't listen to a word I said but then I had to hear about some guy you just met and you're calling him master (which never happened btw) and doing everything he wants (that part may have happened) and all I wanted was for you to listen. Has nothing to do with sex. Been there. Done that. Nothing changed towards me.
A Little Bit of History
During the six or seven years that this guy and I have been friends, he's let it be known that he's interested in being more than friends with me, and I've let him know that I don't feel the same (part of the time, I was married, so those years are a moot point anyway). We stayed friends regardless because, call me crazy, I don't think friendship should be contingent on whether or not people want to have sex with each other. During our friendship, I did what normal people do when they're friends with someone: I talked about guys I liked and guys I was sleeping with and because we've always been so open, I was pretty detailed with a lot of it. As you can see, this was problematic, not because he was jealous but because, and here's where the problem comes in--both his with me and mine with men in general--my choosing to have some type of intimate relationship with these other guys instead of him makes me shitty and selfish and only interested in what Kelly wants. So this person is basing his opinion of my basic character on the fact that I wanted other guys instead of him, and that's so far from okay, I don't even know how to argue with someone who has a viewpoint like this.
Another guy friend of mine, this one as close to me as anyone ever has been (except for people I've had sex with because that's a kind of close we've never been), a good person who's not chauvinistic at all, once told me resentfully that he feels like there's a party in my pants and he's not invited. I can't say that he was angry about it or accused me of being a bad person because of it, but he was definitely petulant and felt slighted by my choices.
The thought process of these two men is something I just don't understand. I've listened to plenty of guy friends I've been attracted to over the years go on and on about girls they like, girls they've fucked, and girls they've wanted to fuck, the whole time wishing they were wanting to fuck me, but never in my life has it made me angry or indignant. Envious of the other girls, sure, but the feeling that these guys owed me something just because I wanted it never once crossed my mind. If only I were skinnier and prettier is much more likely the thought that crossed it, and I'm willing to bet that, at least in the case of the first friend I wrote about it, the thought that he was inferior never occurred. To this friend, it was in no way about something wrong with him, only about something being wrong with me.
None of this would matter, it's true, if I didn't care what people think. I do, though. I hate when people think bad things of me--not all people, of course; if I don't care about someone, that person can think anything s/he wants about me; it's why I never address the crazy things my ex-Glenn's told his camp about me; I'm one-hundred percent of the mind that what people I don't care about think of me is none of my concern--or things about me with which I wholeheartedly disagree. The idea that this guy who knows me so well thinks I'm selfish and not a good person makes me...well, it makes me upset enough to justify my actions--or inactions if you want to get technical--in a blog, and I have to say, if I were a guy, I think I'd feel the need to do no such thing.
