i'm sick of hearing about your boyfriend

you're trying to kill the man in your head, but what about the man in your bed?

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I’m so excited, because I finally managed to make plans with my friend that I haven’t seen in a long time. Everything is different than when we first met, as teenagers—as little girls. We’ve grown up now, both with busy schedules, and it’s getting harder and harder to find a date when the two of us are free from our worldly necessities to spend some much needed time together.

Except, nothing is really different. We talk about what’s been going on in our lives, very briefly. Updates that need to be said, to get them out of the way. Then we can finally move on to the most important topic, which is what we’ll be talking about for the remainder of our coffee date anyway; boys.

She tells me she’s been seeing a new guy. What’s he like, I ask her. He’s tall, and kind of cute (she’s reluctant to show me a picture, so we’ll just have to take her word for it), but apparently he never takes her out on dates, and doesn’t want to be exclusive, so she’s unsure about him. Which is why she’s also talking to another guy that she hooked up with a few months ago, who she suspects has a girlfriend, but anytime she tries to confront him about it he changes the topic and tells her he just really wants to fuck her standing up.

I tell her to stop talking to that guy, because he sounds like an asshole? I’m not sure how I feel about the first one either. She asks my opinion, so I give her advice that could be boiled down to: stop seeing them, you could do better. I know she doesn’t actually want my advice, or even care about my opinion. She’s not going to listen to me at the end of the day, and we both know it. She gives me an almost apologetic look as she’s listening to me, like she’s telling me she is going to fuck that guy standing up.

When I get home, I’m frustrated and angry. I have been feeling this way whenever I meet up with my single girlfriends, and we end up talking about their messy ‘situationships’ for hours. I don’t want to put the blame on them, or undermine their feelings, but all that goes through my mind when I listen is why would you do that to yourself?

Except when I sit down with my friends who are in long-term relationships, it’s not any different. Her boyfriend calls her every hour, asks who she’s with, he even asks for pictures as ‘proof’. I give her a weird look, open my mouth to say something, but then she asks him the same questions back. When they’re not on the phone, they keep texting each other. I’m almost offended that she keeps looking at her phone when she’s with me, but I’m honestly more curious to know what they could possibly have to talk about in this moment. I ask her if she’s happy in her relationship, because that seems like the only way I could get her attention. She tells me she feels suffocated sometimes, he’s too jealous and overbearing. She tells me all the arguments that they had since we last saw each other, fights that almost pushed her to break up with him—but instead she just broke a few plates or mugs and moved on. Because she loves him. What else is there to do?

Once again, I get home all frustrated. I don’t remember the last time I met up with one of my girlfriends and didn’t talk about their boy problems. I think about the time my friend decided to sleep with that one guy who had a girlfriend, because he was giving her a lot of attention just when she needed it. She said she wanted a man to want her, but she was so distraught by how he treated her that she ended up going to therapy afterwards. I think about my friend who, whilst getting a college degree abroad, was begging her high school graduate boyfriend who had no dreams or aspirations to get some language courses so they could at least live abroad together. She once told me her biggest wish was to have an interesting conversation with him, because he never told her anything she didn’t already know. I think about my friend who confessed only after she broke up with her emotionally unavailable boyfriend that he refused to call her any pet names because they were ‘too serious’ (even though they had been dating for years), and that he treated her like shit during sex.

I feel like I’m going crazy. I feel like Miranda in that one scene in Sex and the City—how did we get here? How do we, as intelligent and self-sufficient women, keep putting ourselves in these ridiculous situations with men, to the point where it’s all we ever talk about?

While scrolling on tiktok the other day, I saw this video where the creator is talking about the difference between a girl with a boyfriend, and a girlfriend. A girl with a boyfriend, is just that, a girl who happens to be in a relationship. It doesn’t consume her life, it doesn’t take over her personality, or her friendships. Unlike the girlfriend, who makes sure to put her boyfriend first, regarding everything.

some of the top comments on the video. i was shocked to read these as i expected most people would agree with the message

I think all my friends have become girlfriends… or worse, they want to become girlfriends. I get that being in a relationship means you have to have a special place for that person in your life, but why do women always go up and beyond, especially when it comes to the men in their life? Are the men even reciprocating this? From what I’ve seen, no. Why are women always girlfriends, while men are just boys with girlfriends?

I’ve realized this is why I hate my time on tiktok. Every other week there is a new trend all about showing off what a good man your boyfriend is, and women are jumping to the chance to get likes and views (and validation) from their golden retriever boyfriends. The comments are always filled with other women who are commanding the man’s behavior; I can’t believe he was happy to peel an orange for you with no complaints, he’s a good man Savannah! The other comments are women wishing for a relationship and a man like the one in the video. When it comes to women who are not in good relationships, they also post about their boyfriends of course, for what reason I haven’t figured out yet. She posts a 5 minute rant about how her boyfriend never helps around the house, never helps with the kids, and he can’t even go grocery shopping without calling her every few minutes about where to find a product. The comments are siding with the woman; what a piece of trash, wow that’s weaponized incompetence girl (hello buzzword), you should break up with him! She doesn’t of course, instead she posts a follow-up video talking about how he’s actually such a good boyfriend and you guys don’t know their relationship, stop leaving hate comments please! The third and most distressing category is women who post their hot brothers or dads for views. I don’t know who’s weirder, the women posting that with those intentions or the women in the comments actually going wild over a random good looking man on the internet? Are we really that desperate?

I know that it’s my duty as a good friend to listen when my girlfriends are ranting about their boy problems, but can at least my tiktok scroll not be about men? I mean, why are women so obsessed with men?

Many women have already asked and answered this question in their own time. Maybe the most important rite of passage in a young girl’s life is reading this famous Margaret Atwood excerpt for the first time,

Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Up on a pedestal or down on your knees, it’s all a male fantasy: that you’re strong enough to take what they dish out, or else too weak to do anything about it. Even pretending you aren’t catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you’re unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.

How can women talk about anything but men when the most valuable and tangible currency in a woman’s life is her proximity or relation to a man? As Andrea Dworkin said,

Women fight for meaning just as women fight for survival: by attaching themselves to men and the values honored by men.

Although women will always be women first, we are human second. It’s in our nature and instincts to survive and to adapt. Since the day we are born, we see and we learn that surviving happens on men’s terms. It happens by adapting to our societal roles and expectations, but also by hating our nature and our femininity. We hate pink growing up, or make fun of girly hobbies, and convince ourselves that we’re not like other girls. I mean who would want to be a girl in this world when you know it only holds pain and suffering?

It’s so easy to judge a woman’s actions from the outside. I can’t just tell my friend to break up with that guy (as much as I’d like to), or how their relationship is not normal or healthy; she has to realize that on her own. All I can do is love her and hold her hand through it so she can one day see that for herself. I know that the reason she thinks she deserves that type of love is also tied to another man. I know the reasons why she thinks she has no value as a single woman. I know why she’d rather be unhappy in a relationship with a man, than happy without a man. I have felt all this myself, so how can I possibly judge her?

When I was in high school, I was that ‘annoying feminist’ girl, who always made sure to argue with the boys when they were just ‘being boys’. Who never kept her mouth shut. Who never took the jokes as just jokes, and always said something back. At some point there were even rumors going around that I was a lesbian. But the most distressing part to me, was that my girlfriends never said anything, never fought back. Sometimes they even laughed at the jokes. Why?

I haven’t changed in this regard, I’m even more argumentative and stubborn with men now. I refuse to coddle a grown man—whether it be about his political beliefs, his morals, or his lifestyle. I mean why would I? The other day, a friend and I were in the metro, laughing about something, when a man came over and complimented us on how lively and cute our laughs were. He then proceeded to talk to us until he had to get off the metro, making conversation with us as if we would find his conversation more interesting than what we were laughing about before he interrupted us. He made some stupid comments, and basically started to explain my degree to me (as men do), and I kept correcting him, telling him that he was wrong. After, my friend asked me why I didn’t just go along with him, why I kept redressing him. I was baffled. He was literally mansplaining my degree to me, I mean it’s so cliché it makes me want to cry, why would I just go along with that?

I don’t get it. At what point do we just accept catering to men our whole lives? At what point do we stand up, talk back?

Whenever I think about this, I’m reminded of this famous Andrea Dworkin quote,

Many women, I think, resist feminism because it is an agony to be fully conscious of the brutal misogyny which permeates culture, society, and all personal relationships.

Patriarchy affects every aspect of my life, even more so because I choose to recognize it. It also makes me more angry, miserable and infuriated than my girlfriends who choose to ignore it. But never in any case do I think that ignorance, when it comes to patriarchy, can be bliss. Especially right now, in this social and political climate that we’re living—when recognizing it literally means life or death for women.

Even so, I just can’t help but think that there’s more. There’s so much more to me, and my girlfriends, regardless of what any man tries to tell us¹. So much more, that I’m bursting at my seams, and I want the whole world to see it. Call me stupid, but I just can’t live my life thinking and believing that I can’t ever de-center men from my life. That I can’t be happy in a relationship with a man, that straight women are doomed. That I’m supposed to accept the way the world treats me, and learn to live with it. So, I won’t.

And it starts by talking back. It starts by recognizing ourselves, women, as significant beings and therefore recognizing our suffering as valid. I have never in my life felt any less than a man, in fact—I feel so much more than any man I have ever met in my life. Maybe, it starts by acting like men. I know now what Cher meant when she said I am a rich man. And I want that for myself, and I want that for my girlfriends. I feel hopeful, because I am obstinate. My rebellion makes me feel unbound by my shackles of womanly suffering.

I know I could sit here and talk for days about how men mistreat women. About how hard it is to even exist as a woman. I know. You know. We’re living it. But I feel more implicated by my girlfriends, and their actions. I don’t want to talk about men and their wrongs anymore. I don’t care. We have been talking about it for decades. It’s up to them to fix themselves now, not us. I want to talk about women instead. I want to talk about myself, and my girlfriends.

I want my girlfriends to stand up for themselves. I want them to stop taking shit from men. I want them to be angry, rude and un-ladylike. I want men to think they’re a bitch. I also want to see them in good relationships, with good men. And I want them to be so happy in their relationships that we never have to talk about boyfriends again.

As much as I used her words, if Andrea Dworkin read this, she would laugh at my innocence and naivety. She would think I’m living in an illusion, covering up my chains in flowers and petals to make myself believe that I could ever be more than I am. She would tell me, rebellion can rarely survive the aversion therapy that passes for being brought up female². If Margaret Atwood read this, she would remind me that I’m just pretending to be stronger than misogyny, that again, I’m living in an illusion. They would probably be right. But I’d still choose to believe.

If patriarchy is the unstoppable force, then I am the immovable object.

happy international women’s day!

love, asli

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2. From Right-Wing Women, by Andrea Dworkin