The fear of: “you should have known better”.
It was a pleasant day bathed in soft sunlight, not too cold nor hot and not too dry nor wet — just right. I started my activities with a nice conversation with my mom followed by a relaxing walk in the river valley park mixed with fun cooking experiments. A little more of my energy comes back every day even if I still take afternoon naps and my loneliness depresses me to various degrees.
While enjoying a few bites of grass-fed butter mixed with organic white chocolate (a little keto”ish” twist to help cut down on carbs but keep this treat yummy) I realized that I told my male friends right away about my break up, but, when it comes to my female friends, I waited more than a month. I was significantly more nervous to announce the sad news of my separation to S and my mom.
The shame I feel towards the turn of events definitely made reaching out to friends in general uncomfortable though, I’m just realizing as I write, that my apprehension was far greater towards speaking with women. I feared being judged and criticized by my consorts and not so much by guys. When it comes to romantic partner choices, I uphold women to be cautiously discerning, consequently, expect the same from them towards me. As for men, “well they think with their … so you can’t expect much out of them” is my assumption. Holly, that is super sexist of me!
I had absolutely no idea how much this gender bias influenced me till now. Victorian-era spirit, I commend you to exit this body! Seriously, what the hell?! I understand where it comes from with education and society, still, I was totally blind to the anchor this cognitive distortion had on me. This behind the scene preconception has been dictating my interactions for years, and particularly in the past month — I’m flabbergasted.
Even if I wouldn’t have expressed directly my pejorative opinions to others, I no longer permit myself to entertain such thoughts. It puts an unfair burden on women while belittling men. Self-awareness is a never-ending journey and that’s a massive judgemental habit to monitor and get rid of. My fear of being scolded by female friends totally explains my difficulties reaching out to them lately. Thanks to S and my mom for being awesome in supporting me through my difficulties and I will follow their example from now on. Women don’t have more responsibility in their choice of partners, we equally carry the weight of pairing wisely, no matter which gender we identify to. Time to put my binary sexist ideological relics to the trash.
