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angelikaJ -> RE: guys suck, but i'm not a man-hating dyke (6/15/2011 7:01:40 AM)
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FR to various
The common expression: "Once a cheater, always a cheater" is often mentioned on these boards and is received with enthusiastic nods.
The thing is, it isn't always true. I know this because my father cheated on my mother, there was a subsequent divorce and he remarried the woman he cheated on her with. And he never cheated on her.
As a partner, as a wife, she was just a much better match for my dad and it was a monogamous happy marriage that lasted over 30 years, until his death 8 years ago today.
My father was not a perfect man.
I can't even claim he was all that great a dad as he was rather absent, but as a human being, and as a man in general?
He was a flawed but good man.
(And yes, my mother deserved better than to have had a cheating husband, even -or perhaps especially- if she was not mentally well at the time...but I think he was likely doing his best.)
But that is the problem with generalisations: they may be true some of the time, but even though our perceptions may indicate otherwise, they are never true all of the time.
Of course, Heather herself said 2% of men were decent, so it isn't all the time.
What I have tried to explain throughout the thread is that by nature, Heather, the men you interacted with were scum... but what did you expect?
Richard Gere?
Your sample size was doomed from the beginning. And if that is what you are basing your assessment on, you are going to be right: those men are more often than not manipulative, exploitative and abusive. And yes, some of those men are our doctors, teachers, lawyers, judges, architects, and government officials... and many of them have wives and families.
Under those circumstances, with those men, it is easy to understand how you came to that conclusion if that is all you knew.
However, happy well-adjusted men do not seek out street walkers, hookers, prostitutes, call girls and escorts.
And many depressed, non-well-adjusted ones don't either.
Many of our husbands, boyfriends, fathers, doctors, lawyers, judges, architects and government officials have not only never sought out paid company but have never cheated on their partners.
One thing I have learned, is that if you look for something hard enough you will always find it.
If you were to put all women through the same litmus test that you do men, my guess is fewer would pass than what you find acceptable now; if you were to view women through the same suspicious lens, how many would fail you?
IF you look for good, my experience is you will find it.
You may find that to be too suzie-sunshine-pollyanna-ish for you but I am 49 years old and it is how the world has proven itself to work for me.
I likewise discovered that if I looked for bad, I would certainly find that too.
I would rather find the good in the world and likewise contribute to it (and that is not to say that you aren't contributing to it).
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So it is evident that many women are in agreement about the nature of men, at least on some level.
This is disturbing to me because what does it say about the unknowing messages we are sending to the young men around us?
I have a friend who has been sending that message to her son since he was little. She had good reason: her father molested and abused her. And then she mated with and married someone who was (surprise of surprises) abusive to her.,, and the kids.
He is long gone now, but the remnants are there.
Her son who is now 17 has been hearing man-hate-speak for as long as he could hear.
He is a trans-person now... and there is nothing wrong with being trans, but I can not help but wonder if it isn't because she never gave him any safe room in which to be a man.
Edit: typo/clarity/spelling/perfectionism and the gift of time
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