JenTalksLoud

Happy Mental Health Awareness Month, and a shout out to my long-time emotional support animal, Minerva, who just turned 10!

There was a time in my life when figuring out my mental health felt like pushing a giant ball of ice up a mountain. Heavy, difficult, any progress made ready to slip through your hands at any moment. Relationship turmoil almost always the catalyst for a backslide.

It turns out, when your brain isn’t stuck in an ADHD loop of rejection sensitivity or spiraling into a depressive episode, you get to approach dating differently and with a whole new perspective. There’s nothing quite like going through a break-up and not crashing out that’ll tell you how well you’re actually doing. 

I definitely don’t have it all figured out, but I am celebrating this current place because I fought hard to get to it and I work hard to maintain it. By the grace of many good people who care about me, access to therapy, medicine, and Peloton, I’m doing well. I’m in a place where the woman I was 10 years ago had no hope of feeling as good as I do now. 

So, (for the plot, obviously), I downloaded two dating apps for the first time in nearly four years, just to see what’s out there.

• I did not know the premise of this app, so it was an interesting experience setting up the profile, but the IG algorithm got me with FEELD. I was apprehensive at first, but I stayed because I appreciate the level of transparency people have and the number of vocal anti-fascists. So far, the interactions have ranged from not bad to pleasant. 
• Bumble, however, is a different story. Right off the bat, I had a short exchange with a man who, after a few messages back and forth, unmatched me because I didn’t respond for twenty minutes. (Bro, are you okay? Did you forget we literally haven’t even met, and you’re treating me like a kept woman?) 

So far, all I can say is that it’s bleak out here. 

Women are not emotional support humans for men

There is, indeed, a loneliness epidemic. A recent PEW study found that 16% of men and 15% of women report feeling lonely all or most of the time. While the numbers are similar, I find it important that women turn to their networks more often for support and connection. 

Recently, I had two separate experiences that made me think about this. In the case below, there appears to be a contingent of men who believe women owe them the courtesy of teaching them how to interact.

Something about this exchange had me still thinking about it days later. There’s a ton to unpack, for sure. In part, it was because of how many people (not even just men) agreed with him. But also that he really believes his women friends owe him some kind of social education so that he’s more emotionally desirable to other women? That’s not friendship; that’s therapy. 

And ladies, if you have man friends like this, I’ll tell you what I said to @chiccgny: if a man doesn’t respect other women, deep down, he doesn’t respect you either. And if the price of admission to a man’s “growth journey” is you doing unpaid labor as his part-time therapist, leave that man on read. 

Tell us how you really feel

Another exchange, this time IRL, that took me off guard happened while watching game 5 of the Warriors-Houston series (with Uncle Danny and Tita Denise, who were in town, and Jordan, and our new friend Liz!) The bar manager, (or maybe the owner?), came over to us and made a poor attempt at lightening the mood during the 3rd quarter. It went like this: 

Manager: How’s the game going?

Jordan: Not well!

Manager: Well, you have four championships.

Jordan: I want five.

Manager: Spoken like a true woman.

Bro, I don’t know you. What does that even mean? That we’re greedy? That we’re never satisfied? Those women… want things? 

And I can hear the groans and eyerolls from people who think “it’s just a joke,” “it’s not that serious,” etc, etc. But there was something about how he was so comfortable – it was almost instinctive – talking about women, to women he doesn’t know, at his place of business, in this way. It’s giving, bitter. Like he owes a lot of alimony and feels some type of way about it and takes it out on women he doesn’t know.

If you think it’s acceptable to trash women so cavalierly, maybe reconsider how you regularly interact with them. It probably isn’t going as well as you think it is.

I know, I know, it’s not entirely their fault 

I understand the patriarchy’s role in creating the conditions that have led to so many men not having the emotional tools needed to process feelings appropriately. If we want this to change, we should be investing in, not slashing, mental health care funding aimed at supporting boys’ (and all young people’s) mental health. 

Overall, men who have gone to therapy and are working through their emotional baggage are far more attractive than the ones out here trauma-dumping in their dating bios while also stating they want a “drama/stress-free woman.” Which is why it’s so frustrating that many of them support policies that negatively impact mental health or shame men who are in touch with their feelings because it’s “gay.”

So much of where I am now with my mental health is because of my best friends. I am a huge proponent of male friendships and encouraging men to build community with each other. I want men to have access to the tools needed to sustain healthy and safe friendships and romantic relationships. I have great guy friends who know the difference between asking for emotional support versus expecting emotional labor from their platonic girlfriends. They know that respecting women isn’t revolutionary but basic human decency. They’re also men who will call each other in, and are mature enough not to hold the trauma of old relationships against women they’ve never met. 

This is going to be fun?

While watching game 1 of the Dubs/Rockets series at Tunnicliff’s, naturally, I made a friend. She was a very kind, drunk woman with bunny ears (it was Easter). After a while, I overheard her tell her friend, “Girl, I’m so drunk. That’s why I’m over here flirting with a lesbian.”  I’m not insulted, but I am not a lesbian. I am curious, though, if I give off such an “idgaf about meeting a man” vibe that that’s what strangers clock on sight. 

My priority, for now, is not to pursue anything other than what feels right and fun. The ease of that is something I have never quite felt before. I have a lot of other important priorities that make dating feel low stakes and okay on the back burner, like the graduate program I start later this month! 

I did (for the plot!) get tickets to an in-person dating event later this montb with Drinks in the District and Matchbox. Stay tuned for part two of what I observe while meeting people in real life. Regardless, the night will be successful because I can guarantee I will at some point dance and then go home with Taco Bell.