RatsandCandy666

The internal conversation known as dreaming is no more an event limited to the hours of sleep than the existence of stars is limited to the hours of darkness. Stars become visible at night when their luminosity is no longer concealed by the glare of the sun. Similarly, the conversation with ourselves that in sleep we experience as dreaming continues unabated and undiluted in our waking life.

I remember, when I was breaking up with one of my exes years ago, he listed all the ways I made his life better when trying to convince me not to go. And I asked him, “but how do you think you make my life better?” and he was taken aback. “I don’t know,” he said. He’d never thought about it. When I date people, I devote a lot of effort to making their lives better. When I’m with women, I read about health issues that effect lesbian demographics (higher rates of breast cancer, obesity, and depression.) When I’m with men, I read about health issues that effect straight men (coronary issues, blood pressure, and emotional issues esp. around anger.) When I date people of color, I research POC health/discrimination/etc. issues, especially issues around dating white people (mental/health effects of internalized racism, institutionalized racism, the types of micro-aggressions I may be likely to commit.) When I date people with less money, I pay for shit. When I date people who are messy, I organize their shit (even though I’m also really messy.) When I date people with physical limitations, I massage their shit (weird Emma past: I went to massage school.) But, especially with men, this energy feels so unidirectional. Women are frequently more reciprocative, but men often seem completely uninterested in helping me improve my life in any way. They often care about impressing me, by having nice shit, or looking good, or pulling in bank. But, they almost never take a look at my life and ask themselves “what is Emma missing, and how could I fill that role?”

At its most basic level, all of this emotional labour is saying to another human being “you matter. I will take my time to show you that you matter.” And maintaining that glue is something that devolves mainly onto women, 24 hours a day. It feels like most men are taught (ex- or implicitly) to do emotional work only when it gets them something they want now, whereas most women are taught to do emotional work as part of an ongoing exchange that benefits everyone.

I’ve been having a lot of anxiety about dating men again in a way I don’t get about dating women. And, I’ve been trying to understand that and… it’s like, this feeling like my life will be a life of perpetual drudgery or somehow permanently grey. I associate dating men with being forced to do a lot more menial tasks than I do when I date women. And, I see flashes of this when I go on dates with men. They’ll start bitching about work, say, and I’ll be expected to reflect back their emotions and process this with them. Women do this less frequently, and if they do, they tend to be appreciative of the effort I’ve put into listening to them. Men often won’t even acknowledge that I’ve done anything. They’re probably unaware that I even did. I am terrified of becoming someone’s anger dump. I have had to work so hard to expunge all the negative shit that’s been dumped in me up to now, I can’t go and let someone just fill me up again. I can’t keep going to therapy, and yoga to allow whoever I’m dating the privilege of dumping in me. I won’t.