#YesAllWomen

I am extremely intrigued by this whole #YesAllWomen movement.

I recently had a situation where I was becoming close with a man, but realized it had gotten to a point where I needed to decide if we were actually dating or just friends that had crossed a bit of a line. Several small red flags were popping up that indicated to me that this would not be a successful dating relationship, but nothing so flagrant as to say "I don't even want to be friends with this person". During our entire 'relationship' we had communicated our fears in dating as we now had many, many mutual friends and nobody wants that awkwardness of the "oh, it didn't work out" conversation if they don't have to have it. He assured me, to my face "the awkwardness isn't an issue, we'll stay friends no matter what". Stupid me, I believed him.

Teetering back and forth after a month and a half if I should in fact date this person or not, a very small, insignificant incident to him, but larger in my mind, let me know this in fact did not need to develop into a romantic relationship. At this point, we had never even so much as kissed, so I figured it would be an easier transition into only friendship than if we had become physical.

After a weekend trip with a large group of people that was quite awkward for both of us, I reached out to him on the Monday back to explain my feelings and let him know I thought we should just remain great friends, that I really appreciated that part of our relationship and just wanted to keep it that way, best for both of us.

At the time, he agreed, even acted like that was his choice as well. Again, stupid me, I believed him. Over the course of the next few days, he first gave me the silent treatment. Then attempted to have a phone confrontation with me over things I said that he views as "tasteless comments" about him. I texted him to let him know if he wanted to talk, I would, but I couldn't even figure out what he meant as I had handled the entire things with kid gloves to say the least.

He decided to take another route. He never did contact ME to discuss things, but he did decide to do some sort of smear campaign behind my back in order to persuade people to not hang out with me or invite me to places. And literally, the theme of the conversation when explained to me by a third party was that he stated "I wanted to date her, she doesn't want to date me, she's blacklisted". Ultimately, he just ended up making himself look bad to people, and I was fine and still invited to things and have these friends.

Now, I could roll off into a comedy-filled tirade here and decide to completely emasculate him in this paragraph. I could even decide to be incredibly flattered and mentally bathe in the idea that I have SO much female power that without so much as a single kiss, I can crush a man to the point where he feels the only way he can get over me is to eliminate me from his sight line for eternity. But mostly, I just feel outraged and sad for him. That nobody taught him this isn't appropriate behavior. That nobody informed him it isn't a woman's obligation to feel romantically toward him, even if he has done everything right. I'm truly hoping that at least one of his female friends pulled him aside and explained to him that it's actually ok for a woman to decide to just be friends with you and attempting to punish her for the way she feels is just wrong. #YesAllWomen should be able to 'friend zone' you without the fear of your attempt at retribution.

Then there was the time I requested an ex to leave my apartment after he asked me to rub his feet, attempted to change the channel on my tv, started rubbing my thigh with zero indication I wanted physical interaction and ultimately just grabbed at my crotch. When I asked him to leave, I was actually still nice. I should have been raging. While driving away, he texted me "That was a waste of my time. You were so rude and unwelcoming, you're unbelievable with your mood swings.". I told him I'm not obligated to rub his feet or have sex with him and I'm totally ok with whatever he'd like to call me in response to that. I also requested he never contact me again. That dude is about 2 shakes away from being an actual date rapist. He seemed to honestly believe the way he was behaving was acceptable and I was actually being rude by rebuffing his attempts to get physical.

Yesterday I was discussing these situations, both the tragedy at UCSB and my experiences with overreaction to being asked to be just friends, with a man. I was telling him about how uncomfortable I was about the things that happened to me so I can't imagine what other girls who have received larger reactions have felt. His response to me was "Well, a beautiful girl like you? If you reject a man, he's not going to take it well."  Really? REALLY? If that was an attempt at flattery, it failed. Did you seriously just condone this behavior after I told you it made me feel uncomfortable?

When women behave badly after being rejected, we're labeled as "crazy" and "psycho". If a man does it, it's because he's "hurt" and "lonely" but most of all, justified. It's ok, because our job as women is to return a man's affection, stroke his ego, especially if he's "a good guy". It's only appropriate for us to reject a romantic relationship with a man if he does something really bad to us. Right? Is that what I'm being told to understand?

Fuck that noise. I don't consider myself much of a feminist and I make concessions for all types of shitty behavior, but if you try to punish me or make me feel guilty for not wanting to be romantically involved with you, you need to get your shit checked. You've got major entitlement issues. And #YesAllWomen should be able to expect grown ups to act like grown ups.