when you ask me why, I don't know what to say

I can look back as many times as I want to and tell you how I wish I had done something differently, but it won’t change the things I do in the future.

As many times as I have been made to feel uncomfortable, I have never learned not to make the mistake of remaining in uncomfortable situations with the hope that they’ll improve. I would say that I like to see the best in people, but that’s really not true. Most of the time I see the worst in people, and I expect the worst from every situation, and when things start to feel unsettling I assume that perhaps it’s just me. So when we’re standing in the dark and I’m telling you about the way he treated me, and the things he said to me, and you ask me why I kept talking to him after that, I really don’t know what to tell you. I feel my nails pushing into the skin of my palms as I clench my fists in frustration, angry but not quite sure at who. I am upset that you’ve reminded me of how stupid I am and I’m upset at myself for being stupid in the first place. Mostly, I am upset that this is the way things are for women everywhere, and that the common understanding girls have about these situations is something lost on you. I am upset that the burden has once again fallen on me to play translator for victimhood, to try and explain a response I barely understand. I know I sound angry at you, but I am not. I am angry that this is the way things are. But it is not your fault that society raised you differently, that you have never been in a situation that feels like walking on a tightrope over lava.

Asking me why it takes so long to distance myself from the men who harm me is like asking me why I find concrete buildings beautiful. I don’t have an answer for you, and I don’t always have the energy to state my claim and defend myself. In all fairness, I’m usually aware that someone is not good for me a long time before I fully accept that. But everyone tells me I’m overcritical, so I try to give people as many second chances as I can bear. When he jokes about screwing me, when he invades my personal space in a way that makes my stomach sink, I look the other way. I let these things go because all my life people have told me that I read too much into every situation, that all the times I thought someone was trying to take advantage of me, I was simply misreading the atmosphere. So I’ve learned to live with my feelings of regret. It’s a tedious routine, letting people bother me and only later acknowledging it, but if I acted on every instance when someone has said something that made me uncomfortable, I would not be able to bear day to day existence.

I know this isn’t something you could understand. I know that the way I continue to let people mistreat me will never make sense to you, because you have never been in a position where you are virtually unseen and unheard. I’m not even sure I can explain it in a way you could understand. Just imagine for a second that you have spent your whole life either being told you’re pretty or being told what part of you inhibits your ability to be pretty. Imagine every compliment you receive having to do with the way your makeup looks, the outfit you chose, your waist or your thighs or your cheekbones, always something about your physical appearance. No one regularly compliments you on the way you see the world, or your knack for getting large groups of people to cooperate, or the way you can synthesize academic information across disciplines. What people see you for is what is on the outside, and you know this. You also know that if you give them time, they can learn to look past it. Because you have been socialized to perceive yourself the way other people see you, you have learned not only to see from their eyes but to think for them as well. And as if this is not enough, you subsequently have to fit yourself into their way of thinking, because getting someone to change the way they see the world, or even just changing the way they see you, is too difficult. It is much easier to accept that someone wants to take advantage of you physically and try to work around that. If you have no one else to talk to, if this one person makes you feel happy minus the times they are trying to make a move on you, you’ll work with that. When you move to a new place, and the first thing you experience is being the subject of a rumor, and it feels like you can’t escape the way people treated you in high school, you will take what you can get. Sometimes, what you can get is someone who listens to you talk, even if they are only listening because they think in exchange for their time they get another pass at your body.

So in this world, where you amount to no more than your physical existence, it’s very easy to let people walk all over you. In so many cases, I have been in conversations where what I say is completely disregarded. I once said, “I have to go,” to a guy in the hallway and he literally replied “not bad, I just went home. It was fun.” Rather than listening to the words coming out of my mouth, he imagined the question he wanted to be asked, he imaged the conversation he wanted to be having, and he responded based on that. Men do this a lot. And no, it is not all men, but a fair amount of them seem to recognize that they don’t really have to pay attention to reality, because someone else will do so. That someone else is women, who are constantly having to alter situations and adapt themselves to fit whatever narrative is being put forward by men.

This may sound very abstract and vague, and you might feel like saying something along the lines of “Yeah, but, you’re generalizing about half the earth,” or, “I don’t really understand the point you’re making,” and that’s fair. I guess all I’m trying to say is that I constantly feel like I’m holding space and time together for other people. Even when we are standing there in the dark and you are asking me why I would keep talking to him and I don’t tell you that maybe it’s because my first instinct is to alter myself. When you say I am influenced by everything everyone else says, that I don’t generate ideas on my own, a part of me sees the truth in that. A part of me understands that I am that way, I am malleable. I am easily swayed because I have learned that to hold everything together, to fit into all the roles you expect me to play. I can’t be strong and unwavering. Maybe when you suggest something, it sounds good to me because I have learned to adhere to your suggestions. As much as I want to be my own person, that is painstakingly difficult when every day calls for something different, and within every day there are dozens of people who call for something different, and at some point all I can be is a blank canvas, ready to accept whatever version of me you see as who I am, because that is easier than fighting.

You’ll argue with me that this is not always the case. You’ll tell me I have worth as a person, that not all men are like the ones who have overlooked me. And I know that this is true. Sometimes, on the best days, with the right people, I find myself. It’s like spotting something out a car window and it passing by so quickly you can only glance at it. It’s a feeling of “I am this way” that is followed by an overwhelming amount of love for whoever that girl is, whoever I am without all the bullshit I’ve learned.

There’s a time and place in the future where you ask me “why?” and I have an answer, and it is not a posted in a corner of the internet that no one looks at. It is not coupled with clenched fists or a downward gaze, it won’t force you to say “It’s okay,” or console my choices. It is spoken to you with strength and honesty, in a way that allows you to understand, in a way that allows me to move on.