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Notes -
Well, I suppose you and I are more psychologically different than I thought.
I have to confess, though, that I’m not necessarily surprised — the only guy who ever mirrored my orientation in this way was that one guy from high school. Intriguingly I’ve had more “oh that’s how you see it too?” conversations with trans women than men, and actually more than cis women too — nobody crack an egg over my head. I have often found that people on the margins are those who most understand the precious nature of intimate connection.
Romance for a lot of both men and women seems immensely tied up in external status in a way it never was for me; while I absolutely recognize the norms of male performance in my own romantic success, when it’s come, I am also lucky that the performances that were appealing were abundantly personal to me, showing me at my best, being myself. And that the feeling I can, at times, inspire includes both attraction and companionship.
I believe all the things I do about love as transformation not because of things I read in novels, but because of what I have experienced in love. Every time someone has loved me it has changed me for the better. Not in the sense that “I was trained” or whatever people believe about women in relationships. But in the sense that I became more tender, more empathetic, more open to other people, and in fact more spiritual. I actually believe in God in part because of my experiences with romantic love. C.S. Lewis once called Eros “the thing in the world that most begs for idolatry,” (paraphrase) and I believe it.
But our discussion here and the serendipitous chat with my girlfriend prompted a really good chat with her last night — thanks for that. She made the point that what women dream about “in traditional romances, not the werewolf thing,” she added, is a man who cares about them, talks to them when they’re down, is emotionally available, good dad material. I made the point to her that a lot of men dream about the same thing — a woman who cares about them, accepts their vulnerability, believes in their potential, sweet and loving — good mom material. The great male fear is that a woman will love him only for what he can do, and will resent him and hate him if he ever stops giving interest on their principal. This shows up in complaints about nagging, the alpha/beta dichotomy, sexless marriages, if you find a male complaint about women this is what it resolves to. I don’t want a woman who loves me because I slayed the dragon, I want a woman who gives me the strength to slay him. “Behind every great man…”
If “cishet girl lore” can dream about a man who sees a woman for who she is, for her actual personality and soul and love her for this and not for the size of her tits, well, Cishet male lore also dreams about a woman who sees a man’s capabilities even when he’s down and yet believes in him. Loves him. For who he is, for who he can become. What both sexes truly want beneath the recriminations is very similar: love, affection, and commitment based on who we are in our innermost selves, not what we present to the world. This is the meaning of “intimacy.”
It is only because this is preciously rare that anyone settles for less. And men and women both feel its lack with great yearning. And sometimes, contempt.
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