the coloured collective

I don’t think it’s terribly controversial to note that women, from a young age, are required to consider the reality of the opposite gender’s consciousness in a way that men aren’t. This isn’t to say that women don’t often misunderstand, mistreat, and stereotype men, both in literature and in life. But on a basic level, functioning in society requires that women register that men are fully conscious; it is not really possible for a woman to throw up her hands and write men off as eternally unknowable space aliens — and even if she says she has, she cannot really behave as though she has. Every element of her life — from reading books about boys and men to writing papers about the motivations of male characters to being attentive to her own safety to navigating most any institutional or professional or economic sphere — demands an ironclad familiarity with, and belief in, the idea that men really are fully human entities. And no matter how many men come to the same conclusions about women, the structure of society simply does not demand so strenuously that they do so. If you didn’t really deep down believe that women were, in general, exactly as conscious as you, you could probably still get by in life. You could probably still get a book deal. You could probably still get elected to office.

Being with men who were not interested in offering abiding closeness meant that I never really had to be close. Yet I could have an image of myself as this open, giving woman who really desired closeness, at times feeling smug because I worked so hard on the ‘relationship.’ Working to be close with someone who is not interested in sustained closeness not only depresses the spirit, it makes you a perfect target for aggression. […]

Many women who are warm and openhearted choose men who are closed and shut down because we hope we can provide a catalyst for them to open up. Our efforts usually fail, because these men have not made their own commitment to being more open. Trained to be nurturers and caregivers, women often think we are behaving as we should - doing what we have been socialized to believe is a woman’s job. We may even experience the constant tension between these two different value systems - a man who has chosen to avoid intimacy and a woman who desires intimacy - as stimulating. Importantly, though, this unfulfilling work keeps us from the real work of intimacy.

But most of all, stop thinking that what people so loathingly refer to as the “friendzone” is some sort of purgatory women put “nice guys” into. My friendship is not a crappy consolation prize that you’re left with if I deny you a sexual relationship– and my body is not your reward for good behavior.