I know times are tough. I know everyone’s out of work. But we’re getting just too tough on our lovers.
I’ve been hearing from men recently that the women they love are hurting their feelings. Not only about money (not making enough); not only about house work (not doing enough). But women whipping out the heavy artilleryf: Saying things, in arguments, that are seriously painful. Fundamental things, like the stuff a guy used to say to another in a locker room. About how fat he was when he was ten. That he was called “A tub.” About his penis size. That he was called “Tiny.” Stuff he told you in secret.
Ladies, do I have to tell you that any reminders of these horrible childhood secrets are completely off limits?
Do you think that reminders of things like this will EVER yield anything other than anger?
I know that in the middle of a fight–particularly now, when we’re all stressed out in a way we may never have been before–these deep secrets between you can manage to come to you with amazing clarity, each one lined up and ready to shoot out of your mouth like a row of bullets in a cylinder of a gun. At that moment, you know the meaning of cruelty and are shocked to find that you– darling, kind, wouldn’t-hurt-a-flyyou–are capable of saying the meanest things imaginable about his overall size, his penis size, his ability to succeed, and so forth.
Forget Truth, by the way. There is no such thing in an argument. Truth is nothing but a way to either hurt someone (or, if you’re “telling the truth” aboiut what you did or did not do, a way to absolve yourself of guilt). Making mean little points because they happen to be true is nothing but mean little points. Whether you’re subtle or using a sledgehammer, words about a man’s masculinity, or his fears, or his character, may in this climate be just called “playing hardball,” but I’m telling you right now, they’re playing something else: Out of Luck. That’s you, if you continue. No more lover for you, whatever his penis size.
It’s not your job to disabuse a man of his most prized illusions about himself–any more than it’s his job to disabuse you of yours. Nor is it to remind him of his most desperate moments in childhood. You needn’t agree with inflated assessments of himself, but you have to agree to prize them along with him. You have undertaken, as his friend and lover, the desire and intention to protect his good image.
And if you haven’t, if you see your job as destroying his delusions–in the name of “truth” or in the name of inflicting pain–well, then, you’re simply an emotional waterboarder.
And we all know what waterboarding is.
Please, my dear lovely friends, we are the gentle sex. We are angels. We are lovers. We are not torturers. Not now, not ever.
