#problematic players

a while ago, I was dating this guy. he was, to me, extremely sweet. felt like he had a good heart, was loving, made time for me, bought me gifts and brought me joy. I thought we had a future together, all that stuff. lots and lots of dopamine, to have a charming, handsome guy that loves me and to love him back.

the only thing that was a little hard to stomach was that he was far more right-leaning than I was. not maga trumpie or that kind of standard but you know the more central guys-talk crowd: no qualms about the r word, not afraid of the occasional racist joke. and for a while, I lived in a very, very interesting headspace. one where I was able to either excuse off the occasional crazy joke (“haha sure, it’s too woke to get offended at that obviously, it’s just a joke made in private”) or even in a sense getting into it (“it’s good for me to see the other side, understand other political views etc, I’ll hear him out and empathize”). and for a while, slowly but surely, I was losing my own boundaries and thoughts, my own viewpoint, for the fear or maybe the shame of being too “woke”, killing the vibe, not being accepting.

more than half a year into this relationship, I happen upon his text messages. in the very beginning when we were just going out, he had showed me a few snippets of his convo about me to his friends (and it all seemed very flattering, I fell further then). I’d always kind of wanted to read the rest. and I did.

and it’s tough, but it’s to be expected. alas, I happen upon misogynistic texts, slightly racist texts, downright mean texts. about me. from when we first met to even when we started agreeing to see each other, is this perverted, guy-talkified view of myself presented to the boys, and the boys are eating it up. and it was so, so very sad. but thinking about it: also expected.

and you know what? that was an alarm clock, the late after school bell, waking me back up. the months of slowly excusing and the months of slowly trying to understand “his world” and “his viewpoint” and the months of thinking I need to dial down because “be realistic in our woke demands, they have good intentions even with the layer of non-political correctness being had. he volunteers at the animal shelter, you know!”

and it was enough to remember why we fight and why we think and why we are so outraged in this culture war of ours. I don’t want to live in a world where basic empathy and basic respect for even the person you end up loving become so hard. I would rather die.

from a firsthand look and a secondhand look and a thirdhand look at sports culture, I’m going to tell you this anon: the battle to change sports culture, especially all the way to the inside, is almost unfathomable. It’s almost impossible, you would think with what you see and hear and infer that it is only so much worse in private.

but that doesn’t mean and will never mean that it is still not a battle worth fighting. an almost is hard, a small percentage is daunting. but that’s never ever zero unless we make it so by giving up, by accepting, by believing “oh … maybe I’m trying to be too woke, here.” I got into motherfucking college. I got into a motherfucking doctorate. I am still alive today. I am smart and capable and know that no “locker room talk” subscribing man belittling and two facing me from his own regard will mean anything to me. and that mindset should go for hockey culture too; what are they if not just more of the same character? I know what empathy is: do they?