Hoo boy

A study was recently conducted in which 1,000 women were given seven ways men can deal with rejection, being asked to rank them from best to worst.

"Accept it and walk away" was first on the list.
"Just be friends instead" was close behind, in second.
"Ask again later" was the third most popular option.

"Shooting eleven people with a semi-automatic pistol, stabbing your three roommates, and running four people over before killing yourself during a police shootout" on the other hand... somewhere towards the bottom.

Seriously, it's times like these I wish I was a practising comedian. This stuff breeds jokes like nothing else does.

But I figured I'd say something about this from my own perspective. I don't wanna comment too much on the motivations behind the dude's crime, cos there's a 140 page manifesto I've only seen snippets of, and whoever you ask will interpret it differently. It's practically impossible to deny pervasive elements of misogyny given his sense of entitlement to women and the fact he called this whole thing a "War on Women", but for anyone to ignore the fact he lived in a country where guns are as easy to get as a Happy Meal, and the fact he had Aspergers (assuming his lawyers are being honest with that one) is for them to oversimplify the case. There are too many elements involved for me to pin down any single cause, or for me to begin ranking blameworthy outlets in order of responsibility held. I don't even care enough to bother.

I certainly don't feel sorry for the guy. He may have had Aspergers, but it was "highly functional Aspergers syndrome". I live next door to a guy with Aspergers--it doesn't make you go fuckin' insane. I can't see this guy shooting up the joint cos he thinks women owe him something. He's socially awkward, sure, but he's the last guy I envision shooting anyone. He shares no traits with the perpetrator. The psychopathy must have originated elsewhere; the Aspergers only could have fuelled what came from another source.

But getting off his MO, I wanna focus more on my own attitudes. Unfortunately, I bear more similarities to this guy than I'd like to bear. I too am in my early 20s, a virgin, and socially isolated (though not to the extent he was). My attitudes towards sex, however, have never EVER been anywhere near what this asshat took to be the truth. I've never thought rape to be acceptable or desirable, I've never felt entitled to sex, and I certainly don't think I'm some kind of 'perfect guy'. I'm skinnier than people half my age, I eat like a goddamn five year old, and I have very limited social skills--I'm about as far from perfect as men get, at least without turning into a wannabe rapist or serial killer or some shit.

But I still want what the perp wanted, to an extent: I want to be with women. I want a relationship. I want sex. And while I'm not inclined to go on a killing spree or start compromising on any other morals, it's something I'm really looking forward to, something I'm extra keen on finding and exploring. Unfortunately, this shooting, and people's reaction to it, has made reaching this goal much harder to justify.

I've been scared of approaching women for a long time, but I've known for a while that this is simply a fear of rejection and embarrassment that can result, not a fear of the gender itself. I would often justify this fear by saying to myself something along the lines of "well, what if you freak the woman out? What if you scare her? What if she thinks you're a rapist or some shit?" It was an internal reaction to justify avoiding the risk, seeing as the risk now involves them being harmed rather than just myself. It made it seem rude and ignorant to approach, rather than just potentially embarrassing. Skip to the start of uni: one of my classes this year had the lecturer ask "How many people in this room have been sexually assaulted?", wherein about a quarter of the women raised their hands. Upon seeing that, it made me go back to that supposed overreaction I used to have, and went "wow... perhaps I wasn't overreacting..."

Skip to the past week or so, and you run into this #NotAllMen & #YesAllWomen drama. From what I can gather, the basic synopsis is that women know that while not all men are liable to infringe on their health and autonomy, some men are liable, enough to make women paranoid of men on a daily basis. And this is all coming from women themselves; it's straight from the source, so I've no real reason to believe they're making this up.

But this is the exact same thing I was fooling myself to be scared of in the first place! Turns out that should have been my mindset, or at least it should be now!


Seriously, I can't work out why the fuck I would ever approach a woman if this is how they think. If this is all to be believed, women are going to be scared of me no matter what. It doesn't matter that I'm not a misogynist; it doesn't matter that I'm aware of women's plight; it doesn't matter that I want them to be happy. It simply doesn't matter because they know none of this, and I have no way of demonstrating those statements to be true, not without a great deal of time and resources, at least. I'd like to escape the fear of rejection and start chatting up women (or at least meeting more of them), but if the risk of scaring them is this high, why would I take such a risk? Why would I want to make them feel frightened just to kiss/fuck/date/talk to them? That sounds awful!

And before I get accused of derailing the conversation and being a nuisance and making everything about me, fuck off. Of course I'm gonna be reconsidering how I behave: that's what you're supposed to do when you learn about new perspectives. I'm not expecting women to read this... well I'm not expecting anyone to read this :P  But I'm not expecting women to read this and go "Hey! This guy here's gonna get a bit peeved if we're extra cautious cos he says he won't try to flirt with us or anything. So uh, yeah, pack it up, guys; we dropped the ball on this one." I'm pretty sure my desires for intimacy and romance aren't really important compared to people's safety and peace of mind. But I honestly cannot work figure out what justification there could be for approaching women given the perceived risks. I don't want to scare women or make them uncomfortable, and deciding not to approach them at all seems like the only logical way to guarantee that outcome.

I know I could still be overreacting, but it seems like less of an overreaction every time this topic comes up.