I ain't no gem, baby...

dated a man who treated us very badly

and for whom we made many sacrifices

and who we defended to our friends

because we needed to be supportive

of his “genius”

yes, he treated us badly but he was so smart and talented that maybe it was unfair to expect him to play by society’s rules, we told ourselves

and it felt kind of embarrassing to demand something as gauche as kindness (ugh) or maturity

from a “genius”

we lived in fear of being The Nagging Girlfriend/Wife Who Doesn’t Understand Her Man’s Unique Vision. 

you know, the woman from the first half of any biopic about a great man. the first wife, the one he divorces before act two.

instead we dreamed of being The Good, Supportive Girlfriend/Wife Who Knows Sometimes You Must Make Compromises. 

you know, the woman from the later half of any biopic about a great man. the second or sometimes third wife, depending on how long he lived or how many affairs he had.

it was genuinely chilling, because the longer we talked, the more it felt like all three of us had been handed the same invisible and very detailed script. we are all extremely liberal feminists and yet we’d still bought the whole narrative hook line and sinker, and i don’t think any of us fully realized how fucked up it was until we heard it from each other’s mouths. 

i should note, maybe, that these two friends of mine are two of the most brilliant, talented, competent people i know. they were, in both cases, just as brilliant as the boy they sacrificed for. also they were, in both cases, capable of maintaining this brilliance while still tending to their own needs like an adult and treating the people around them with a fundamental level of respect.

so in case it helps anyone out there right now, struggling white knuckled to last into the second half of an imagined Great Man biopic: there is no level of intelligence or skill high enough to exempt a man (or a woman or anyone anywhere else on the gender spectrum) from the basic requirements of human decency. i don’t care if he is moving shit around with the power of his mind like matilda, he still has to say “please” and “thank you” and consider the feelings of the people around him. if he cannot or will not do these things, he is not a genius, he is a baby. AT BEST.