Member-only story
Pitfall Relationships
Women — Would This Weird You Out?
Or… am I holding men to a double standard?
After he and I conducted a very brief, and poorly performed small-talk convo (because we both suck at it) he said this to me at the pick-up zone outside the school:
“Let me know when you get your period. We can suffer together.”
I stood there… dumbfounded, and managed to eek out an, “Erm, ok. See ya.”
And yet, I wasn’t entirely sure why I was having the reaction I was having.
This is a man I consider a really close friend. He’s a straight man, with a partner, and two daughters — very much like me, minus the man part. We’ve seen each other at some pretty low lows. We’ve come in clutch for each other when life has been particularly determined to kick us in the teeth.
He’s recently unemployed, going through it, struggling to find motivation, struggling to find a project, tired of everything on his plate. No flow. I recognize that particular state of affairs, as I’ve spent a significant portion of my life looking for the instruction manual that everyone else seems to have picked up at birth.
We’d met outside the school, and I’d done what friends do. I’d commiserated, and listened, and talked about the…
