on my post about seeking fulfilling female friendships instead of draining, isolating het relationships, I keep seeing OSA women saying something along the lines of "It's not enough." I understand the craving¹ for romantic love, but men are not capable of giving you that. I'm sorry. The men out of Jane Austen novels are not real. Men like that do not exist. Men do not care about you. They do not respect you. They might pretend to, but they will turn on you in the end. Even if by some miracle you do wind up with "one of the good ones," and I'm being generous in saying there are maybe 100 of those on the planet, how do you know he's actually one of the good ones? Are you willing to bet your life on that? Your whole life? Finances, pets, health, wellbeing, sanity, housing, employment/schooling? What about your kids' lives, if you choose to reproduce with him?
Every single woman raped or abused or murdered by her intimate partner thought she was picking a good one, or at least that she could fix him. Change him. Every. Single. One. What makes you better than her? Smarter than her? Do you think she was stupid? What makes you think you are different? Do you think she just wasn't trying hard enough? That she didn't love him enough? Is your reasoning #NotAllMen?
I know you want to be loved. Men can't give you that. I'm sorry, but they can't. Getting angry with lesbians and other separatists for pointing this out to you does not change the cold, hard reality of that. We're all part of the radical feminist/rad-adjacent community here, right? Let's employ those critical thinking skills and really, really think about this.
How is that generous estimate of a ~0.000000000143% chance that you won this shitshow of a lottery worth the risk of the special hell that men visit on women every day²? Why do you think he's different? Could he have fabricated any indicators that he's different to entrap you³?
It's a very simple cost benefit analysis. The reality of it is that you can't access the romantic love you deserve either way. Men simply aren't capable of it. Why? The most optimistic answer is patriarchal socialization, which we all experience in one of two aggressively gendered ways. Think long and hard about whether or not the risk is worth it. I promise you, it's not, and I'm sorry it makes you defensive to hear it. Men simply do not see us as human.
¹Yes, it is a craving, not a need. No one ever died from lack of sex or romantic love.
²Again, men's choice to abuse is always, always men's fault. If you're going to jump down my throat accusing me of victim-blaming women, save your energy and devote it to developing reading comprehension instead.
³Yes, men do this on a massive scale. See Reddit for multitudinous examples. No, #NotAllMen are Redditors, but all men tolerate Redditors and their misogyny to some extent.