The separation from the patriarchy began i think at age eight. After breaking my arm, i lived with an uncle and aunt who got on so well that the household was absolutely peaceful. Then i went back home to my parents’ extraordinarily sad relationship and realised that something was terribly terribly wrong there.
My parents’ relationship was patriarchal with my mother effectively in full revolt against it. Which meant and I mean continuing unresolved conflict reigned. I never saw them resolve an argument, I never saw them repair, I never saw the relationship improve. Which meant I repeated their mistakes.
Effectively I thought my mother should have been treated better. And she raised me to respect women, so I tried to as best as I could in a world that simply had no qualms in disrespecting women. No the old times weren’t better, they were broken – horrendously so.
And i knew something was wrong but i didn’t know where to start that different path for me. Because men are so stuck and unhappy in the patriarchy – and yet they try to impose that failed regime thinking that this time it will work. No pal, it never did. Because everybody gets killed – the women and the men. No one outlives the patriarchy. No one.
But there have been challenges along that journey. And although I cannot revert there has been a cost.
I struggle being a sensitive man (aka intense, deep and meaningful, overreacting, too emotional, the insults just roll on) in a patriarchally dominated world which frustrates me immensely.
I’ve tried to fit in by listening mainly but unfortunately (is it possible to listen too well to someone?) afterwards i leave people – almost always women (i don’t know why) embarrassed at proferring secrets they’d never tell others. Men I barely can get to talk at all. And the conversations almost always lack depth – especially with men who are socialised not to ask questions nor give any more than glib look-at-me answers.
When I talk I’m told I “talk too much” or I’m ignored or talked over by narcissists and extroverts. Consequently I usually try to restrict what I say to two minutes which seems to be the limit of people’s tolerance for me. – it certainly was all my wives could stand. There are extremely few exceptions to this even though I try to be interesting, entertaining and funny as per how I am in training.
The way i feel is that although i’ve bent my efforts to understand everyone else’s language, fewer have made a similar efforts meaning few speak mine meaning that i identify with Valentine Michael Smith (aka Mike from Mars) from the novel Stranger in a strange land.
i sound as if i am a snob but the truth is I don’t fit it in and I cannot fit in despite my efforts. i want something more than talking about footy scores or TV shows or celebrities or comparing possessions.
Positively, most positively, there have been occasions when I have been seen, heard and understood – but these have been extremely rare (three or four times ever). I thought that the odds were one in one thousand but it seems more like one in ten thousand. If you read the novel, you’ll see that Mike from Mars did better than me!
And though this journey of the sensitive man has had it’s consequences I cannot and will not revert.
