Flippant Thoughts on Forgiveness / Pain, Part 4

I recently applied for a writing joh. When they asked for a writing sample, I realized all my writing exists at an intensity level of roughly +487,000,000.

Here at the blog, it's all pain and suffering, all the time.

So, instead of titling this "Pain, Part 4," I'm calling it "Flippant Thoughts on Forgiveness." Let's dive headfirst into the shallow end, shall we?

Moo... Photo by bertknot

Forgiveness is hard, particularly when you can barely identify the source of the pain, particularly when you can't even bring yourself to write the words, "I'm hurt" or much, much worse, "I'm still hurt."

That's not how it's supposed to work, is it? I'm not supposed to still be hurt. Forgive and forget. Deal with it and move on. Positive mantra about moving confidently into the future. Hoorah.

This is the pain that never ends, it just goes on and on my friend...

I've found, unfortunately, that ignoring unresolved pain is a lot like ignoring all that C-4 you have buried in the backyard (analogy credit to labullets). It will explode in your face. You will wonder what happened. And then you'll be like, "Oh yeah, remember that time I buried all that C-4 in the backyard? Guess it wasn't as stable as I thought."

My buried pain usually turns into anger.

But why? Why am I so angry?

I'm standing outside the dorms on the second floor landing, watching his light blue pickup pull away from the office, and suddenly, I'm filled with uncontrollable rage. I kick at everything in sight, including a bright orange safety cone. Writing this, I still wonder if it is my fault. If I am a bomb waiting to explode.

I've written before about a traumatic experience that left with me with the kind of pain that doesn't get better. About how I blamed myself for hurting the person who had hurt me.

I actually apologized to him years later for using him as an emotional punching bag. At the time, it felt good to realize and acknowledge what I had done, to have a ready-made slot that I could comfortably slide the experience into, neat and snug.

I can see now how I reframed the experience, making him the victim, myself the perpetrator. I had blamed him unfairly for causing my pain. I projected my pain onto him. I hated him instead of hating my dad. I was angry at him without justification. I refused to forgive him—worse, I didn't want to.

I could label it, "That time I took all my worst inclinations out on an innocent person because I'm broken" and move on.

Telling the Truth

Except, that wasn't exactly the truth. But it made me feel better. I didn't have to alter any of my pre-existing ideas, particularly the one where there was something deeply and indelibly wrong with me.

I mean, what was the alternative? I needed someone or something to blame, and the only person available was me. Because the alternative was too dark to consider:

That what he had done to me was wrong.

That what he had done to me was wrong, though well-intentioned.

That what he had done to me was akin to spiritual, emotional "rape." 

That what he had done to me perpetuated for years the very shame that he sought to heal. 

And in the aftermath, I was left alone, emotionally shattered and unable to breathe.

This is what makes me feel a little sick to my stomach, now that years have passed. It's one thing to drag out someone's deepest shame by force—it's another to blame them for feeling wounded and angry after the fact.

You Need Witnesses

There's that famous passage in Matthew 18 about confronting someone who has sinned. About going back, again and again, trying to reason with the person, trying to get them to see your point of view.

This passage is often used to shame Christians who don't follow this exact procedure in every and any conflict with another believer, such as Christians who complain about Mark Driscoll on the internet, as if the correct thing to do were to show up on his doorstep tomorrow with a Bible and a stack of good intentions. 

But considering it now, I wonder about the part where you bring a friend or two with you as witness.

Because what if the other person refuses to see your point of view or denies that anything happened? ("No! I did not steal your oxen. These are my oxen. I've owned them for years, years I tell you!").

If this happens, you need other people who will stand with you in your truth, who will bear witness to your grievance: 

Yes, you were abused.

Yes, what happened was wrong. 

Yes, that is Buttercup and she is your cow.

Yes, I believe you. 

Yes, you are not imagining things. You are not crazy. 

You can't forgive someone for something that never happened—

I can't forgive him or anyone else if I don't acknowledge and accept the truth of what happened. And I need someone else to bear witness to that truth, someone else who can drown out the accusing voices that tell me that I'm crazy, I'm imagining things, I'm too sensitive, I'm making it all up to get attention, a unicorn gored me and I'm filing a formal complaint.

I've become convinced that forgiveness cannot happen without truth. Healing cannot happen without truth. You don't need the person who hurt you to say, "I was wrong. Please forgive me" but you do need someone in your life to say, "Yeah, I totally get it."

This happened for me last year. And in that moment, I could finally breathe.

Why is Church Cliquey? Part 5

Forgive all the exposition in this post, it feels necessary to set up the stunning conclusion—I made this part of my Why is Church Cliquey? series because this series has turned into the story of my relationship with church. The good. The bad. The heartbreaking.

This is where we're going to get specific. Are you ready? I'm not.

Exposition

Some background: I left my church in 2014 because my ex-boyfriend (who was abusive) went there and also held a leadership position. This wasn't a political statement of any kind—I walked in—I saw him—I walked out. Once I realized he still attended and was also apparently on the same volunteering schedule as me, I never went back.

His presence made a safe place unsafe.

Later that same year, I reached out via email to the leadership at my church. I objected to my ex-boyfriend being in any kind of leadership position, and I said so in my email. I never heard anything back, not even to acknowledge that it was received. 

So there you go. There's not much to it—just my moral opposition to someone that I knew to be abusive serving in a leadership role at my former church. I don't know what I expected, exactly. I have no basis for believing that he ever went on to abuse anyone else at the church, partially because I cut off all contact. 

That was in 2014—fast forward to last year. My old church got a new pastor. I've never met the guy, but I have many friends who still attend the church—let's just say we have a lot of mutual fb friends.

So I was stalking his fb page (like I apparently do) and I saw that he had recommended the book "Love and Respect."

Reader, I got angry.

I know, I know, anger bad. But seriously, I saw red—or more accurately the red and white color scheme of the Love & Respect franchise.

I had never read the book, but I was familiar with its ideas. I had written about how its precepts disproportionately place burdens of shame and fear on women.

Rightly or wrongly, I was angry that the new pastor of my old church was recommending this as a "good Christian book" about marriage, knowing how it skewed toward the subjugation of women.

Then, it got worse.

I talked to my friends about this and they brought up that not only had the pastor recommended the book on his fb page, he had also preached about Love and Respect from the pulpit and AND—he was leading a premarital group that used Love and Respect as the focus.

Clearly, this guy was not just a fan (Love and Respect "liked" his post on fb, so I guess Love and Respect is a fan of him)—he was an acolyte, an evangelist for this particular ideology.

This felt too personal to ignore, like someone bursting into my living room and launching into a diatribe about how all half Asian half white women recklessly abuse semicolons, so I finally read the book. Insert ALL THE SWEAR WORDS here.

It was too perfect, too much of a cosmic coincidence—the church I had left because of an abusive relationship had hired a pastor who preached an abusive ideology.

Why?

On the one hand, I mean, it kind of makes sense. The Christian church has long had a misogyny problem and Christian men are probably just as likely to be abusive as anyone else. I realize, counter-intuitively, that not even my ex-boyfriend's misogyny was "personal"—he likely views all women the same way, not just me—I wasn't the only "bitch," after all.

On the other hand, it makes no sense at all because this is f***ing 2016 and I live in Los Angeles, California. This is the same church that regularly had a woman—yes, someone with ovaries—preaching from the pulpit (much to the chagrin of some members of the congregation). This is the young, hip, hipster church filled with artists, musicians, actors, writers. This is MY church...was my church. How could this happen?

Think about it: this pastor is leading couples who are dating or engaged through the book "Love and Respect." Dating—they're just dating and already they're being inculcated into these ideas of "what marriage should be" and "what male/female relationships should look like" and "how wives should appropriately (and unconditionally!) respect their husbands."

Young women are already learning that they should continue to "respect" the men who abuse or betray them, that they should lower their expectations for intimacy and equality, that they are especially culpable for any current or future problems in the relationship—and all this presented as the biblical secret to a good marriage.

Meanwhile, young men are taught that they are entitled to unconditional respect from their girlfriends.*

Yeah, I would say that makes me pretty angry.

Love and Respect is a Religion

And it's like, of course—of course this pastor doesn't just like the book "Love and Respect," he lives and breathes it—because that's how these kinds of ideologies function. You don't just read the book and go, "Hmm, that was good."

You buy the DVD teaching series. You infuse an unsettling power dynamic with casually sexist yet charming jokes and anecdotes from your own marriage. You lead seminars on its principles. You directly quote its ideas and concepts in your sermons without citing your source, implying that this is straight from scripture. You lead multiple book studies. You are one step away from buying special underwear with the Love and Respect logo.*

That's the thing about "Love and Respect." It's counter-intuitive—it has the quality of a "special revelation" given straight to prophet Emerson Eggerichs—this "truth hidden in plain sight" that God chose to reveal, but only to him!

Joy Eggerich (daughter of Emerson) writes in her blog about the concept of unconditional respect: "This was something I struggled with for years as my father was unpacking the powerful truth of respect for me."

"Struggled with"

"for YEARS" (emphasis mine)

And she's HIS DAUGHTER

If you read Joy's blog, you can tell that she's a fairly intelligent person—and yet she struggled with this concept for years? Bullsh**.

This is just one example of women twisting themselves into painful hermeneutical, political, and emotional positions in order to obey God's "command" to demonstrate "respect."

I can certainly understand how someone like Joy might end up in this position—she would have to basically renounce her entire family, risking their disapproval and rejection, in order to break out of the system. So she buys in, 100%—at one point even dating a man who uses her own father's concept of "respect" to cow her into submission.

Love and Respect takes the questionably biblical prescription for female subjugation and male dominance and places it on par with the gospel of Christianity.

Biking My Way to Freedom

I don't know how other people find the strength to leave an abusive relationship, but my moment happened on my bike, pedaling through the streets of Los Angeles on my way home.

I was crying, a total and complete mess. But as my entire body strained against the resistance of the pedals, something broke through the pain and the grief, overwhelming me—

It was a single word: No

That's what I feel now when I think about misogyny and the church. My church. My former church.

No. Just no.

This is not a polite, "No thank you, I would not like any misogyny with my Christianity." This is a declaration, a boundary line, a scream.

No.











*You could argue that the gender roles within Love and Respect are only meant to apply to heterosexual married couples, but in Christian culture, dating is meant as preparation for marriage, so dating relationships should mirror the eventual marriage relationship. Furthermore, you are communicating that in the most significant and central relationship of her life, a woman must always operate in a one-down position. Tell me this doesn't influence her other relationships with men. 

*Things that I know happened and are not just hypothetical: No. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. No.

Undateable: Why Single Christian Guys Are All Dented Cans - Anger

I've written about anger in this series before--in the entry on Entitlement and in the entry on Cowardice. In fact, if I've written about anger in every entry in this series, I wouldn't be surprised in the least.

Photo by Ferran Jordà

This is not about a normal, everyday kind of anger. Anger--the kind of anger I'm talking about--is tightly wound up with entitlement and an underlying sense of victimization:

Victimization: I have been injured.
Entitlement: I have a right to be angry.
Unspoken Assumption: I have the right to enact revenge and/or even the score.

This kind of anger feels dangerous, because it is so deeply rooted in a sense of righteous justification.

Instead of calling it "anger," it might be more accurate to refer to it as bitterness, resentment, or rage--an anger cherished, nurtured, held close.

I'm writing about anger not just because I drew it out of the jar as a writing topic (which I did), but because--

Anger is my Achilles' heel.

If you want something from me, try getting angry. I might just crack.

For whatever reason (maybe getting yelled at as a kid, I dunno), anger has an unpleasant effect on me: My throat tightens. I get quiet. I go numb.

I've learned that anger can be a form of manipulation and control. And it works. I can't think of a single abusive dynamic that I've been a part of that hasn't involved this kind of anger.

One guy I worked with would yell at me, then get even angrier when I responded neutrally instead of emotionally.

He would consistently tell me about how angry yet another guy was with me (triangulation).

This happened again in another situation, where one dude capitalized on the anger of another dude to overcome a break in our relationship (bonus points if it's someone in a position of power, authority, or influence):

"___ is very angry with you. You need to do something. I can help you fix it."

Essentially, Dude A used fear of authority, specifically fear sparked by someone in authority (Dude B) being angry with me, to get what he wanted.

I mean, it worked--maybe a little too well: I soon after entered into an abusive dynamic with Dude B, a dynamic centered around anger, fear and control. It felt a little too much like being handed from one abuser to another.

That was last year. This year, I found myself once again sitting across from one man telling me that another man was "very angry with me." I find this funny (rule of 3; first time tragedy, second time farce). If you find yourself in a conversation where one person is earnestly telling you that another person is angry with you, and what are you going to do about it, I can say with certainty that something is wrong.

But I digress. Achilles' heel.

This is about anger and Christian guys and being undateable.

I had an epiphany once, while working on this series: "Christian men don't actually respect women." And then that thought kept me up all night the way that 3am thoughts sometimes do.

I think there's some truth to it: some men and some Christian men do not see women as equals. They do not see women as fully human. And it's hard to respect someone unless you view them as fully human.

I've heard from a reliable source that "anger is a gateway emotion." If we think about shame as the root of this kind of anger (abusive anger), a disproportionate response to perceived slights* makes a lot of sense:

How would you feel if something not quite a person (that you don't regard as an equal) made you feel completely worthless? Especially when everything you believe about yourself and everything society encourages you to believe tells you that you are superior, the genuine article, the real thing?

It would be incredibly enraging. The balance must be restored. Someone or something must pay. Shame is an unbearable emotion, and it must be displaced onto the body of another.

In this case, violence is just settling the score, evening the debt, restoring the equilibrium.

Where does the shame go?

I've written before about how the burden of shame accrues to women. Even the way we talk about and think about anger contributes to this burden. Anger more than almost any other emotion is seen as "out of control" or "out of my control," serving as a justification for violence.

The less that men are "in control" of their own emotions or passions, the more women are responsible for the outcome of those emotions.

This is not to blame shame for the abusive anger of men--rather, the underlying belief that men are more valuable than women, more human than women, more entitled to respect, dignity, rights, justice, power, autonomy, etc.

Yes, I blame misogyny. I blame Christian teachings that emphasize complementarian gender roles. I believe that a system that enforces rigid, narrowly defined gender roles enables and encourages the abuse of women.

As men displace their shame onto women, they feel better, while women feel worse. Messages from our culture that implicate women in their own victimization serve to reinforce this sense of reverse responsibility: You are the one at fault. You caused your own abuse. You caused your own assault. You were not hyper-vigilant enough.

I suspect that just as men cannot heal the shame of women, women cannot heal the shame of men. And women are definitely not responsible for the underlying misogyny of men's anger.

Another important point: Submission to this type of anger is a bad idea. For so long I bought into a conception of Christian reconciliation that entailed submitting passively to unhealthy and abusive anger. I thought that by demonstrating humility I could heal the relationship and reestablish equilibrium. I even apologized to my very first abuser for treating him poorly (not listening to him, not respecting him). Not even joking.

For one, it doesn't work. It can even intensify the abuse. For another, there is nothing Christian or holy about submitting to dehumanizing behavior. Any theology, church, person who tells you otherwise is selling you an abusive crock of ****.








*I owe this idea to a discussion of Roy Baumeister's writing about abuse at WenatcheeTheHatchet. While I don't agree with Wenatchee's interpretation, I did find Baumeister's ideas about men's rationalizations for domestic violence helpful.

What About Grace?

These three words have stuck with me.

I had just set clear-cut boundaries in a relationship. Someone I had been close to hurt me--intentionally or not, I have no idea. I set boundaries in order to protect myself, not punish him. And he responded with anger:

"What about grace?"

I remember how much he seemed to hate me, even as he uttered these words.

What I was doing was the opposite of grace: Not-Grace--condemnation, judgment, bitterness, unforgiveness (a sin for Christians).

By setting boundaries in a relationship, I was refusing to extend "grace." How often is grace invoked when a public Christian figure has an affair, sexually abuses children, uses shame and ostracism to control church members. How often is grace invoked by Christians in an--as far as I can tell--ungracious tone of voice.

Here, let me lecture you about what grace is, right before I bash you over the head with it, you sinner.

Grace as artillery. Forgiveness as a weapon.

What is grace, anyway?

I picture something beautiful. Something quiet, yet unrelenting.

In that moment, I didn't feel grace. I felt anger, hatred, and blame--if he hated me, if he abused me, it was my fault for not being graceful, or full of grace.

In this lopsided arrangement, grace is always for the perpetrator, never for the victim. It shames you for not being more forgiving. It reminds you that you too are an imperfect person in need of grace. It urges you to forgive, well before you are ready. It puts the burden on you to restore the perpetrator to wholeness.

So, what about grace?

Reflecting from a distance, Grace was setting boundaries. Grace was asking for help when those boundaries were violated. Grace was having the courage and the freedom to leave. Grace was feeling safe again. Grace was and is refusing to blame myself for the actions of another person.

Grace is not intimidation or threats. Grace is not a tool of manipulation or coercion. Grace is not an angry, 6'4'' man cursing at you, getting in your face, and demanding that you forgive him.

I crave the grace of small, tiny moments when I am allowed to grieve. When it is okay to be not okay. Where my reactions are not judged or rejected.

Grace. What about it.

Undateable: Why Single Christian Guys are All Dented Cans: Entitlement

I went back to the beginning recently, and read about the misogynist, the coward, the racist, and the guy who won't take "No" for an answer.

And I found it striking. Partially because a few things have happened:

1. I stopped going to church.
2. I'm not sure I want to date Christian guys anymore.
3. I encountered more than one man who is a husband, father and believer in Jesus Christ, and also spouts Red Pill Reddit language and rhetoric.

This last one, if I'm honest, leaves me feeling heartbroken and confused--I feel betrayed, somehow.

And that sort of leads me to today's topic, entitlement.

"Entitlement" feels like a hot button word that gets thrown around a lot, particularly in articles about Millenials and the job market. But what does "entitlement" mean in the context that I am writing about?

I turned to Google to find out what exactly people feel entitled to. The results were predictable and a bit dull--the short version is that people feel entitled to government benefits, such as:

Entitlement to medicare
Entitlement to social security
Entitlement to paternity leave
Entitlement to bank holidays

And the puzzling:

Entitlement to kill a mockingbird

My two favorite things to be entitled to:

Entitlement to wear kilt
Entitlement to tea breaks

Photo by George Redgrave

Sam Heughan in "Outlander" on Starz

Yes. One thousand and one times yes.

[Why has no one made a calendar of attractive, possibly shirtless men in kilts drinking tea? I would buy the hell out of that calendar.]

So here's my unofficial definition of entitlement:

Entitlement is an unwritten, unquestioned and often unconscious law held to be inviolable and true, so that when the law is broken, the entitled person is justifiably angry, hurt, and vengeance-seeking.

[And its converse: Entitlement is an unwritten, unquestioned and often unconscious law held to be inviolable and true, so that when the law is upheld or enforced, the "victim" of the entitled person cannot justifiably be angry, hurt, or vengeance-seeking.]

I feel like entitlement, taking the posture and role of the victim, and not taking "No" for an answer are all tangled up together.

You learn the unspoken rules of a relationship, sometimes when it is in the process of ending, often after it has already ended. In one of my relationships, the unspoken rule was: You are not allowed to leave.

Entitlement is the unspoken law that leads to violence.

You see, I don't think anger, or the pain at the heart of anger, causes violence. There's another step there, another component--

The man doesn't kick the dog because the boss yelled at him. The man kicks the dog because he believes he has the right.

Let me give a simple, everyday example:

The law: A woman must always graciously and without rancor accept a compliment from a man. [Especially if he is a stranger]

It's funny, really. It's violence wrapped up in "You're beautiful." And what's even funnier is that the violation of this law is already presumed, the compliment followed immediately with, "I can give you a compliment" or "That's a compliment you know," before the woman even has time to react--the hatred trailing so closely on the heels of love.

And it's not just strangers.

I've thought a lot about the disparate rage that men have directed at me--from the first emotionally abusive relationship I had in my early 20s, to more recent experiences. I think about a story that a friend once told me.

He was a friend of the family. And he had a crush on her, despite an age difference of some 20 years (she was in college, he was in his 40s or 50s). He was giving her a ride, but she had brought a friend along--probably for safety.

And for whatever reason, he was angry with her. Angry because she brought a friend. Angry because this wasn't going according to plan. Angry because she didn't reciprocate his feelings. Angry.

And he threw acorns at her.

In the scene I imagine, there is nothing playful about it. He is looking down, not making eye contact. Scuffing his shoes against the dirt. Casually picking up an acorn. Half-heartedly throwing it. The petulant anger of a 10 year-old in the body of a middle-aged man.

There's another guy that I know. And he's one of the good ones. But I was recently struck anew by the memory of something he once said about my writing. I was struck by how passive-aggressive it was, this single comment. Rage, buried deep.

I laughed it off, initially. "He's just intimidated," I thought.

It's always just some guy. Throwing acorns.

I have no desire to date an acorn-thrower. But if even the good guys are like that--I don't know. It breaks something open inside of me.

I wonder if entitlement is at the heart of misogyny--these unspoken laws:

"You don't respect me": You must respect me
"You don't give a s*** about my intentions": You must give me the benefit of the doubt at all times, and forever.

It's not anger. Because anger doesn't cause abuse. It's not pain. Because there are many, many men (and women) who experience intense, searing, heart-rending pain and yet fail to abuse anyone.

It's not that they rage--it's that they feel justified in their cruelty.

I'm trying to avoid dating abusive guys.

The Church & Mental Health: Interview with a Therapist: Bryan Hall, Part 2

Photo: "Memorial Church" Don McCullough

Yesterday, I began a new series on "The Church & Mental Health." I'm interviewing Christian therapists to talk about the intersection of spirituality and psychology. 

My first interview is with Bryan Hall. Here is Part 2 of the interview. 

Bryan is a therapist who specializes in the entertainment industry. In this section, we talked more about family systems theory, domestic violence,  putting a smiley Jesus face on everything, and why the hot girl in AA is always the last to get sober. This interview has been edited for clarity.

BH: I get parents dropping their kids [teenagers] off, [saying], “Fix my kid. Tell them to stop doing drugs. Tell them to stop being angry." They think I'm just going to get out a bat and beat someone's head in so they stop doing this stuff.

...I know what's going on but I do therapy with the kid. What you find then is that it's not a “this kid” problem, it's a bigger problem.

"We need family therapy," so I bring in the whole family. And then what you find there is, this isn't a family situation, it's a couple's thing.

Because the kid is doing nothing more than acting out the unaddressed psychological issues of the parents. And sometimes these guys are preachers and sometimes they're cops. And sometimes they're like, “I'm not the angry one, you're the angry one.”

I've literally had parents right in front of their kids in the middle of a session call them “a piece of shit,” say, “If he would get his act together, this whole family would be fine. He's 95% of the problem," and sit there looking at me.

And I'm sitting there thinking, are you listening to what you're saying? No wonder the kid—I'd want to get high too, if I had you [as a parent].

And there few things that really—I'm not at all a violent person, but I hear that stuff, and it's like, we're on the 12^th floor right now, I bet I could throw you through this window and see what happens.

But I just have to sit there and be like, “Okay, okay.”

And then what you find is--I'll ask the parents, “Okay, I talked to little Johnny here for a while, and yeah he's doing some things that are not in his best interest. No one's going to argue with that. Never gonna say drugs are okay, anger—I get it. What about you? He told me about how you grew up, and his grandma and grandpa, your parents, and, wow, your dad was a really violent, abusive guy, he was drinking a lot too, huh. So what are you doing to take care of yourself?"

“Oh no no, I don't have time for that. It's all his fault--he needs to stop—I'm not gonna--”

So you get the parents--because by definition there's a power differential between the parents and kids--saying, “No no, we're not looking at our issues, we're looking at the kid's.”

And so you find that when you do couple's therapy, it's not a couple's problem, it's two individual problems. Because what happened was these two people never dealt with the issues of how they grew up.

And the mindset is, “Well, I've got 10 problems. You're hot. Let's get together—you've got 10 problems—and so we'll get together and cancel those problems out.”

Last time I checked, 10 plus 10 equals 20, and not zero.

So now, what really happens is—I've got my problems, you've got your problems, let's get together—oh, well now we're actually really connected, so I kind of have your problems and you sort of have my problems.

So now we're going to have this fire going on and this problem back and forth, but we can't say anything to the church because everybody's gotta put a smiley Jesus face on everything, right? We wouldn't ever want to be honest. Because God knows Jesus was never honest, he just went around lying about things.

And I get this all the time:

“Well, if my husband would do this and get his act together”

“Well if my wife would stop doing this--”

“My girlfriend that--”

So where I spend most of my time is trying to get people to look into the mirror:

"Well dude, hate to tell you this but the only person on earth you can control is yourself. The only person that she can control is herself. So you are 100% in control of your 50%. But no more no less. So you can't control her. You can't force her. At the very most you can scare the crap out of her."

I was magnetic north for domestic violence situations about a year ago. I don't know why, I just got a lot of them at once.

If you're some huge weight lifter dude--or maybe if you're not—you can scare the crap out of your girlfriend or your wife, beat the shit out of her, whatever, okay—she might do what you say in that moment—but in the long run, she's not going to like you, your kids aren't going to like you.

But she's too scared, she's too codependent, maybe there are economic factors, maybe there are kids involved. Maybe there are reasons that she doesn't leave.

In an average DV [domestic violence] case, it takes the abusee—and one out of five times it's the female that's abusing the male—an average of thirteen times leaving and coming back, before they leave for good.

So you would sit there and say, “What is your problem? This guy's beating you up. You had to go to the hospital. Why don't you just leave?”

Which is kind of the equivalent of talking to an alcoholic and saying, “Why don't you just put down the alcohol? Why don't you just stop doing it?" Oh no crap! I had never thought of that before I lost my house, my kids, and everything else.

So there's a lot more to it, but you can see how in that situation, the obvious person is the violent perpetrator. If you're the guy and you're beating up your girlfriend where she has to go to the hospital, that's easily seen.

What's not so easily seen is why does that girl feel so poorly about herself that she would be with this guy? Is she trying to fix him? And what you find is there's a lot of issues from the way [she] grew up.

So, back to your question, if everyone looked at themselves, then all of a sudden, people's level of overall health would change--it would go up. Then you would find much healthier relationships. Because if a person is unhealthy, by definition they cannot have a healthy relationship.

Again, they can be the pastor, they can be the worship leader, they can do all this fancy crap and look really good, and go home and beat the crap out of their kids. And that stuff goes on. Big name preacher, "oh praise Jesus" and all that, and their kids need to go to the hospital.

But, “Oh no, we're not going to tell anyone about this stuff, we're going to keep secrets. We're going to keep feelings buried."

There's an old saying one of my bosses likes, it goes: “Feelings buried alive never die.” And what happens is they come out in other very nasty ways. 

There are people that come in and say, “I want this guy to be like this and I want him to have that and I want him to be like this and have this list--” And that's fine.

I just say, okay, so if this guy came by right now, would you be his dream girl that had this and this and this together? They don't really like to think about that.

But there's an old Al-Anon saying that says, “2s don't attract 10s.” And there's a bunch of 2s walking around going,

“Well, I want this 10 as a girlfriend or a boyfriend.”
“Dude, you're a 2.”

And we're not talking supermodel girl with less attractive guy, we're talking about psychological-level functioning. So, okay, you want a 10, I get it. But right now you're a 2.

Go work on yourself. 'Cause all you're gonna get at this point are 2s. You can't figure out why your last 25 boyfriends have been such jerks? What's the common denominator there? I try not to be that blunt, but at the end of the day, that's the question. Because it comes back to: I gotta look at myself.

And if you're young, if you're hot, if you have money, if you're successful—you don't need to do that. Because there's always going to be somebody else to pick up the slack. There's always some other drug to do. There's always some other credit to get.

So when they say that the hot girls are the last girls in AA to get sober, that's true. Because it's only when they get old enough to where, “Oh, every last guy isn't throwing themselves at me to get me this or do that, well I guess something ought to happen here.”

...to be continued.

You can find Bryan at his website. 

The Church & Mental Health: Interview with a Therapist

Photo: "Memorial Church" Don McCullough

Today begins a new series on "The Church & Mental Health." I'm interviewing Christian therapists to talk about the intersection of spirituality and psychology. 

My first interview is with Bryan Hall. 

Bryan is a therapist who specializes in the entertainment industry. We talked about family systems theory, spiritual hypocrisy, addiction, how to deal with your issues, religious abuse, what the good little Christian mom has in common with the drug addict, and much, much more, which is why I'm breaking this interview into several parts. This interview has been edited for clarity.

We jumped right in talking about how the church often ignores psychology.

BH: Here's how I usually explain it: It seems to me that if we examine what the Bible says about a person that they have three components: there's the physical, we have a physical body; we have a spiritual component, but we also have a psyche—psyche is the Greek word where we get “soul.”

In church, most people (unless you're kind of fringe) [will say],

“Oh, you broke your leg, go see a doctor."
“Oh you've got a cough, go get some antibiotics”

Most people aren't going to have a problem with [the physical component].

And of course, in church, they're going to talk about Jesus and how he'll save you […] we've got the whole unseen spiritual realm. But they seem to neglect the whole psychological component. They seem to neglect a person's experiences, emotions, will, what happened to them, traumatic events.

And that's a problem because if you think of these three components as three spokes in a wheel and one or more of those components are broken or damaged--how well is that wheel gonna work?

Q: Can you talk about the difference between the spiritual and the psyche because I feel like those two things are often conflated.

BH: Well, what you find is that all this stuff is very intertwined. And you can find psychosomatic instances which are physical manifestations of psychological trauma that hasn't been addressed. You can see how if a person's serotonin levels or dopamine levels are altered, not present, damaged by drug use, it's going to affect their psychological condition.

You also see—less easily of course—but there can be demonic influences, spiritual connections between that and a person's physical body or their psychological state. So, the spiritual side involves what is God saying to you, what is his plan...

The psychological part is things like: A person has the desire to use drugs.

Well, but the reason that people do drugs is because it numbs out their feelings. It numbs the feelings that are usually unknown to them in the first place, but that manifest themselves very predominantly in a multitude of ways prior to the actual drug use.

So, somebody comes along and has these feelings, and somebody says, "Smoke this, shoot that." Well, they feel better for a brief time. I work with a lot of addicts. And what I've said for years is, “The drugs are not the problem”

I work with drug addicts straight out of prison--teardrop tattoos and the whole bit--and the drugs are not the problem. The drugs are like gasoline on a fire: They make everything worse, but they're not the actual core problem. Because the core problem is the feelings that the person is trying to avoid feeling.

Q. What would be the Christian equivalent? I'm sure a lot of Christians are tempted to do drugs or do drugs, but I feel like it's more than that...

BH: But that's an important point because a lot of people think, “Oh, I don't do any illegal drugs, I'm not some alcoholic on skid row, I'm not a homeless person. Therefore, I don't have any problems.

The thing is, people can be addicted to shopping. People can be addicted to the gym. People can be addicted to TV. You've gotta define addiction as anything that's done to avoid the real pain and issues.

And if you don't look at it from that perspective, you've missed everything.

Because there are plenty of people in AA meetings for 30 years that haven't had a drink that are still a complete mess.

Q: I mean, could someone be addicted to church?

BH: Oh sure, people can be addicted to 12 step meetings. And it comes back to what are you doing to avoid bigger issues? And it makes it much easier to see the gang banger with the tattoos and the needle in his arm that got busted by the cops, then it is the good little Christian mom that never says “No,” and does Bible study Tuesday, and picks the kids up Wednesday, and does the church cooking Thursday.

Because she's not doing anything illegal, but she's avoiding her real deal by doing Christian-type works.

Q: So what would you say about avoiding the real issue—which is really easy to do—How do you not do that? It's easy to say “Face your issues” but what does that mean, what does that look like?

BH: Well, there's a multitude of ways to address it because it's a multifaceted problem. If it was just, “I'm gonna wave this magic wand, or I'm going to give you this pill, or tell you to go read your Bible five times and then everything will be fine,” then great.

Q: Well, I think that's the thing--being a Christian and going to church, you expect that the emotional health and mental health thing will take care of itself: “I'm going to church, I'm listening to sermons, I'm going to Bible study, so I'm going to be an emotionally healthy person.”

BH: It's not accurate, but I understand what you're saying. And what you find is that there's a few potential things underneath that as well.

This is the oldest one and the most hideous one: simple control. And we can look back at the middle ages or we can look at the church in the Palisades right now, where the person on top does not want to deal with their own issues, but you know what, they're on top. They're the pastor, and nobody can mess with them.

So they can continue to rage and have anger issues, they can continue to be very unhealthy in a multitude of ways, but these ways will not necessarily get them in jail.

They can look down on people, they can be narcissistic, they can have people cover up their drug use, they can do things, some more overt and some more covert in nature...

So that's one reason that that happens, because what's the best way to make sure nobody's looking at me and my issues which I can't deal with? It's to look at you and yours. So I'm going to sit here and scream:

“You better not look at porn!” But you better not look at my browser.

“You better treat your wife right!” You better not find out what I did to mine last night.

Q. Are you relating this to pastors?

BH: Oh yeah, pastors do this. It's so funny where you can go to church and most people will say the spiritual component is necessary and like I said, if you have a physical ailment, go see your doctor, but if you bring up the whole psychological thing, it's like, “Pray more you sinner!”

Well, the converse to that is if you go to most 12 step meetings [you can talk about the physical and the psychological] But then you bring up Jesus and it's like, “Aw, man, we don't do that here.” But they'll stand up there and say every kind of, “The universe told me this. and the rocks told me that, and the sun told me this.”

Well, how many people are that way because they actually met God and said, “No, no, I'm not going to have it.” Or are they that way because they were religiously abused in some way? It's usually the latter.

They grew up going--let's face it, what are the two requirements to be a Christian, which really means get into heaven. Number one, don't screw your girlfriend, number two, don't drink. If you do, God really hates you, but he might let you into heaven if he's having a really good day and he doesn't see you and you sneak in the back door. But everything else is not okay.

So we can sit here and rage, “You got to do this, or you haven't gone to church six times this week,” but we'll forget about the pride and arrogance. We'll forget about the fact that, “You can't do drugs,” but let's go to Bible study and have twelve plates of brownies. Food's an addiction, easily. And it's a very prevalent one.

So these are the okayed versions of “We're gonna not deal with our issues, but let it out in this way.

Q. Sort of the double standard.

BH: Yeah.

Go to Part 2

You can find Bryan at his website.

The INTP & Giving Zero Fucks, Part 1

Okay--any other INTPs out there:

Have you ever been accused of not caring about something that someone else thinks you should care about? Like their feelings. (j/k)

No?

Maybe it's just me.

There's been a recent spate of articles and memes about the giving of f***s, such as The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*** and 12 Historical Women Who Gave No F***s--

Spoiler alert: how many f***s did Sojourner Truth give? Zero. She gave zero f***s--

My Hero.

These have inspired me. Mostly, they've made me laugh. Maybe because otherwise, I would be crying.

Because yes, I too have been told I give zero f***s. Here are some things that have been said to me:

"You don't give a s*** about anything that doesn't have to do with you."

I can't help interpreting this is as, "You don't give a **** about ingratiating yourself with me." Which would be true.

"You only do exactly what you want to do."
.
..And your point is?

"You obviously don't care about the material."

Really? Is that why I'm taking on thousands of dollars in debt for a degree in English literature?

"You don't care about my opinion."

I did something other than what you suggested. Last I checked, it was an opinion, not a mandate.

"You decided pretty early on that you didn't want to do this thing, so you learned how to do this other thing instead."

I'm choosing to see this as a compliment.

"You don't give a s*** about my intentions."

You're right. "I didn't mean it" ceases to be a good excuse when you repeatedly hurt someone. If I have to choose between me and your good intentions, I choose me. 

Believe it or not, this blog post is not meant to be a defensive "F--- you" to anyone who has ever criticized me.

What I mean to accomplish, and whether I accomplish this or not remains to be seen, is a thoughtful exploration of how INTPs can fail to meet the expectations of others to, essentially, give a f*** or have the appearance of giving a f***.

Perhaps I'm only speaking for myself, but I have trouble giving a f*** about anything I do not give a f*** about, or worse, pretending to. I'm not a people-pleaser. I occasionally offend other people. I'm direct. Sometimes, I'm too direct.

One of the top posts on my blog is INTP = A--hole? Seriously. People wonder this all the time. I wonder about this all the time.

I think it's partially one of the consequences of having a non-gender-conforming personality--as an INTP and a woman (or if you prefer, as me), I run into the disconnect between how a woman should be or act and how I choose to be or act.

I have a certain amount of anxiety about not being a "nice" person, whatever that means.

I have this idea that arguing something passionately is not nice. Failing to put the feelings of other people first in a collaborative setting is not nice. Being myself is not nice.

It's not all angst over here, though. Sometimes I find myself laughing because, well, giving zero f***s is fun. And I like myself for it. I tell myself, "You're an a--hole!" and then I chuckle (I'm also a weirdo, apparently).

So let's talk about the downside of giving zero f***s, specifically about the accusation, "You don't care."

"You don't care," is at core emotionally manipulative--it is not an actual statement, but rather a plea for recognition or a stab at reaction.

"You don't care," is also emotionally coercive: "You should care. Shame on you for not caring. If you were a good person, a good Christian, a good girlfriend, a good employee, you would give a f*** about what I want you to give a f*** about."

And so this phrase can launch you into a flurry of wounded justification and protestation: "I do care. I DO CARE about literary theory, dammit! What do I have to do to prove it to you?" It puts the onus on you to prove that you give a f***.

When you react the way they want you to react, all the power is squarely in their court.

There's a button labelled PUSH ME TO GET A REACTION. And that other person pushes it.

"You don't care," is a diversion. Suddenly, all the focus is on you as you desperately try to defend yourself, to "prove" that you are a good, caring person, not the terrible daughter, sister, wife, friend they must think you are.

My dad used to regularly accuse me of being "selfish" and "ungrateful" when I didn't do what he wanted to me to do--and it would always send me into emotional tumult--

Because the shame was already there. All he had to do was pick at it.

Now I can see that this was not only a form of manipulation and coercion (to get me to do what he wanted) but also a diversionary tactic. If you yell and wave your arms about enough, you'll eventually get the cathartic emotional response you want--from the other person--she will cry or protest or engage with your harsh accusations. And you will feel better. Even better, you will be safe from accusation yourself.

In the cruel way that these things tend to work themselves out, I've grown up to be an extremely reserved and non-reactive person.

And that brings me to another thing that people have said to me:

"You don't react."

And it is precisely this lack of surface reaction that I feel has intrigued and infuriated the people around me and made me a target for control and abuse.

The non-reaction I built up in response to my father's anger triggers other men (they always seem to be men) who desperately, and for their own reasons, want to get a reaction from me.

So, there's the downside of giving zero f***s. At least for me.

That being said, as I mentioned earlier, I do genuinely like some of these things about myself.

I like not caring what other people think. I enjoy not conforming to gender stereotypes. I like saying exactly what I want to say. I like the freedom to be myself and pursue my own interests. I like how singleminded and focused I can be when I truly care about something.

I even appreciate some of my emotional restraint, because I feel like it gives me the upper hand in certain situations, and also because it makes space for other people and their emotions.

In conclusion, giving zero f***s is awesome. Emotional manipulation, on the other hand--that really sucks.

Coming up next in Part 2: How to get an INTP you know to give more f***s.

See also, Part 3: How to give more f***s as an INTP.

Should I Stay Or Should I Go?: Knowing when to quit a job, relationship or kickball team

Ever have a job you hated from the first minute of the first day? What about a boyfriend who made you feel small and alone after two weeks of dating? Rarely do jobs or relationships start out as toxic or abusive. If they did, we would leave right away.

So how do you know when to quit? What might happen if you stay?

Dr. Henry Cloud makes the distinction between "pain with a purpose" and "pain for no good reason."

Pain means something is wrong. My friend and fellow blogger goes into detail about that here, and I also wrote a post about pain here.

Bottom line: Pain Bad. Also, there are different kinds of pain, and it can be useful to define which kind of pain you are currently experiencing. Is it getting better? Is getting worse? Are you feeling numb to the pain? How does the person/atmosphere/task make you feel on a regular basis?

There are some kinds of pain that are inescapable--akin to being stuck on the 405 at 5pm on a Thursday. If you can avoid it, by all means do so. If you can't--that's life.

But there are other kinds of pain that are simply not worth it.

I read somewhere that there is a name for pointless suffering: torture.

Sometimes we buy into the idea that it's supposed to be hard--marriage isn't easy. Learning to play the violin or make the perfect pie crust might require long, tedious hours of practice. But there are some kinds of pain that are not in the service of a greater good. There are some kinds of pain that only break you down over time.

So, is this suffering (assuming it's not inescapable) making you a better or a worse version of yourself? Are you suffering for no good reason?

It's also good to process how you are coping with the pain. Are you using healthy or unhealthy coping strategies?

For example, disassociation from your environment, from people, from a hostile relationship can be an extremely useful coping strategy--however, rarely is cutting yourself off from your emotions a good long-term strategy.

Even if you are not working in an abusive or toxic environment, emotions like frustration, boredom, and dissatisfaction are worth paying attention to. Maybe they don't mean you should immediately quit your job--but they do mean something. Like maybe now is good time to move on, if you're able.

As for work situations and relationships that are abusive, the first step is recognizing the cycle of abuse. Here's an example from a work situation:



"Cycle of Abuse" by Avanduyn -  Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cycle_of_Abuse.png#/media/File:Cycle_of_Abuse.png

1 - Tensions building: As the deadline closes in for a project at work, I start to feel a sense of dread. Although I am doing all I can, I still fear that my boss will be displeased with the final product, no matter what I do or don't do. I have seen him explode in the past, usually the night before the project is due. He has also made threats about what might happen if there is a repeat of past "failures." I feel like something terrible yet undefinable is about to happen.

2 - Incident: The night before the project is due, as predicted, my boss explodes at me in a company meeting in front of our entire team for "Not presenting it in the right way." I feel helpless and unable to defend myself. I feel worthless and doubt my ability to ever get it right. The entire room is thick with tension, anxiety and fear. Everyone else looks completely cowed and no one stands up for me. My boss justifies his belittlement as necessary because other tactics (praising me, telling me I'm doing a good job) have not worked.

3 - Reconciliation: My boss is absent for much of the rest of the week. When I see him again, he appears to be in a better mood, and no mention is made of the meeting.

4 - Calm: My boss tells me he is just trying to help me develop in my career. He seems to want to work more collaboratively and tells me that I have a lot of potential.

A note here about anger and distinguishing between normal, reactive anger and anger that is abusive:

I think there is a difference. As far as I can tell, abusive anger (unlike normal anger) tends to fill the room. It has layers of hurt, shame and blame that go far beyond the context or situation at hand--imagine that you and this person are in a relationship and you cheated on them and ran over their dog on purpose--that's what it feels like. The goal of abusive anger is to hurt, control and punish the other person.

If you are in an abusive situation, I would recommend getting out now. Instead of thinking about what could be--he could be the man of your dreams, this could be the job that catapults you to success, it could get better, there could be an opportunity here to do something you love--think about what is.

Think about what might happen if instead of getting better, things actually get worse--whether it's your partner's anger or an abusive cycle at work. Abuse tends to escalate gradually over time, so that boundaries that you never thought would be crossed are suddenly fair game. When you are in a toxic or abusive dynamic, it can be impossible to see the situation objectively--even more so if the relationship or job constantly puts you in fight or flight.

Here are some not-so-great reasons for staying in a bad situation:

1. You keep thinking about the good 'ol days when you first started the job/relationship.
2. There's a small chance conditions will improve.
3. He/she can change. You believe in them!
4. You're afraid that no one else will ever love you or hire you again.
5.You want to prove "them" wrong.
6. You are seeking justice for wrongs done to you.
7. You are waiting for permission to leave.
8. You think that the pain is making you "better."

I once overstayed a bad job situation by roughly three months--three of the worst months of my life, not to put too fine a point on it.

I kept thinking that when I finally left, things would start getting better. What I didn't expect was that, instead of getting better, things just stopped getting worse.

I feel like this is an important distinction. Are things getting worse? Is the abuse escalating? Are you continuing to put yourself in a situation that you know is harming you emotionally, physically, mentally? Get out. Stop waiting for them to get better. Stop waiting for him to change. Stop waiting for people to listen to your side of the story. Get out get out get out.

You are more important than any job or relationship.

If you do choose to leave an abusive relationship of any kind, take steps to protect yourself from retaliation by making sure that person has no access to you (preferably), zero leverage over you, or if that's not possible, that you have a support system and a safe place to go.

I'm rooting for you.

Undateable: Why Single Christian Guys are All Dented Cans - The Myth of Persistence

Photo by quinn.anya

So I've started doing this thing where I'm completely honest with men. Why?

Well, for one, it amuses me and my dark sense of humor. I get to say fun things like:

"I'm not interested in pursuing anything romantic with you."
"Hitting on one person on the fb status of another person is kind of a douche move."
"You fondled my earring at a BBQ and it made feel uncomfortable and disrespected."
"When you grabbed me from behind around my ribs directly under my breasts [yeah, that happened], I felt unsafe and violated."

Yep. That's right. Just waiting for the marriage proposals to roll on in.

For another, I'm done protecting a man's feelings at the expense of my own personal safety.

And that brings me to the topic for today in dented cans: THE MYTH OF PERSISTENCE. And yes, it definitely deserves to be in all caps.

There's this weirdly longstanding myth out there that women want men who will continue to pursue them even in the face of blatant rejection (see also, "The Notebook").

You say, "I just want to be friends."
He hears, "I just want to be friends until I change my mind and decide we should definitely get married and have five kids."

You say, "I'm not interested in you in that way."
He hears, "I'm not interested in you in that way, but you should definitely grab me and try to kiss me."

You say, "I like someone else."
He hears, "He's probably a douche-bag--so you still have a shot!"

To the men that believe this myth, "No, I'm not interested" means "Try harder. You're not trying hard enough. Persist long enough and I will say 'Yes.'"

Except it doesn't mean that.

No--when you persist in pursuing me after I have made my feelings clear, I can only assume that there is something wrong with you either emotionally or mentally. And the last thing in the world that I desire is to have an emotionally or mentally unstable man pursuing me, or worse, believing that I owe him something--a date, friendship, my time, a second chance.

In short, when a man will not take "No" for an answer, all my self-preservation instincts kick in, and all I want is for him to stay the **** away from me.

I feel fear and anger.

Fear--because if this man apparently can't understand or chooses not to understand the words that I use to communicate (perhaps if I did an interpretive dance?), who's to say what other boundaries of mine he won't violate due to this "misunderstanding"? If he has already violated my verbal boundaries and made me feel unsafe, there are still other boundaries he has yet to cross: emotional, spiritual, mental, physical.

But truthfully, I have trouble understanding the level of pure terror I feel when a man refuses to take "No" for an answer.

My best guess is that this is a dehumanizing experience--I am not a person to these men. I am the projection of all of their baggage about women. I "owe" him something--my body, my "Yes," a chance for him to prove that he is the man of my dreams and we are meant to be together-- In short, I cannot give consent because I am not fully human. His pursuit has very little do with me, and so much to do with the fantasy world he has created in his mind: A world in which I should say, "Yes."

At a certain point this fantasy becomes far more important than my humanity. And that is terrifying (cue visions of being chained up in a dungeon somewhere by a man who "just wants to love me," and is willing to wait as long as it takes for me to realize that).

My guess is that many men fail to understand this as well--they have never experienced fear for their personal safety in the context of romantic relationships, partially because women are not encouraged to pursue in the face of rejection, in fact, quite the opposite. Any romantic rejection is humiliating and shameful.

And what about "Not Leading Him On," that crime that women seem to be accused of at a substantially higher rate than men? Why do women so often take the path of least resistance, trying to "let him down easy." It goes back to fear, again. Women have been taught that saying "No" is not only rude, but also dangerous.

A stranger came up to me in the 99 cent store and told me that I was "beautiful." He followed this up immediately with, "That's a compliment you know."

Of course, I enjoy compliments most when they are followed by vaguely hostile or threatening statements. I also enjoy being put in a situation in a public space where I am expected to thank a stranger for harassing me or be subjected to the accusation of "ungrateful b___ who can't take a compliment."

Unfortunately for me, as a woman, I fear for my physical safety. Therefore, I try not to engage with men in an aggressive or potentially escalating manner.

The same goes for turning down men who are romantically interested in me--but as it turns out, it matters very little what I say:

I've had different Christian guys: Corner me in a car and demand repeatedly that I go out on a date with him, then text me to apologize and tell me that he really "respects" me; Tell me my job is on the line unless I let him back into my life (as a friend, of course); Ignore my request to be "just friends" by grabbing me and dipping me for a kiss, all while citing the scene in "Hitch" when Will Smith and Kevin James accidentally make out ("You lean in half way, then wait for her to go the other half").

Then there's the anger--yeah, being seen as not quite human kind of pisses me off. And there's the icky, would rather not think about it, idea that my biracial, "exotic" looks only contribute to the extent to which men are able to project their own fantasies onto my very real, non-white (but still human!) body.

The intersection between race and perceived sexual availability is a fraught one at best--but whether it applies here or not, let me just say:

I don't want to be touched, grabbed, or groped in public by men I don't know.
If I say I don't want to date you, I mean exactly that, and I don't care to repeat myself.
I am in no way obligated to explain to you why I am not interested. I owe you no justification whatsoever.
If you won't take "No" for answer, consider yourself banned from my life.

So why is it that Christian men are so horrible at grasping the concept of women as fully human?

The word "consent" is quite the buzzword these days, but I believe there are many Christian men who do not grasp the concept:

Consent (or if you prefer, "Respect") isn't just about sex. It's about respecting the boundaries of another human being--seeing them as fully human--in every single interaction, romantic or not.

There are certain things that "Nice" Christian guys tend to believe or say that are inconsistent with consent:

One, believing that if you go to the trouble of asking a girl out, she should say, "Yes," just because you took a risk and put yourself out there.

Two, if you ask a girl out and she says, "Yes" even though she is not ultimately interested, then she is leading you on.

Three, you are a "Good Christian Man" but every girl you ask out says, "No," meaning that there is something wrong with them, not you. You are a victim of feminism, shallow female whims, or unfair discrimination.

Four, if a girl says "No" before the first date or after five dates, you deserve a full, complete, and honest explanation as to why.

Five, women don't actually know what they want. They read romance novels and "Fifty Shades of Grey" and then complain that they don't want to be raped, beaten, sexually harassed, or coerced into sex. What gives?

One and two are obviously contradictory, but I have heard both. Trying to control whether or not someone says "Yes" or "No" to a date is contrary to the idea of consent--and trying to control a person's motivations in general feels fishy.

For three and four, being rejected sucks, obviously. But believing that someone else is "wrong" for rejecting you or that the the entire female population is delusional because they are not romantically interested in you is also contrary to the idea of consent--particularly to the idea that a woman should be able to choose to date or not date someone for any reason. Yes, any reason, even one you think is shallow or stupid.

Also contrary to consent is manipulating a person into unwanted contact of any kind.

For five--well, perhaps that is the subject of another blog post, but it boggles the mind that women are still not allowed to be complex or contradictory beings with a freedom of choice and personal autonomy that transcends one particular sexual fantasy or choice of reading material. "Women don't know what they want" seems highly correlated with the myth of persistence--"Women don't know what they want" but "I (a man) know what they should want." Gross.

In conclusion, if a guy will not take "No" for an answer he is, in my opinion, undateable.

Up next in the Dented Cans series, a post on entitlement.

Undateable: Why Single Christian Guys Are All Dented Cans - The Coward

Aristotle on bravery in "Nicomachean Ethics," from a translation by Terence Irwin

Welcome to my series on dented cans AKA single Christian guys who are undateable (to me!). 

After tackling the fluffy, soft as a guinea pig's butt cheeks topic of misogyny, we are now moving onto a much less potentially inflammatory topic: cowardice. 

[I swear, I am literally drawing these topics out of a jar. Swear to Blog.]

Now, you may see "coward" and "cowardice" and think, "I know where she's going with this!" And I bet you two pounds of canned beets that you're wrong (I hate beets. Hate 'em). 

You see, I too am familiar with the diatribes, written and otherwise, urging Christian dudes to just step up to the complementarian gender roles plate and ask a girl out already. I mean c'mon! How hard can it be? Think of all those lovely, eligible, extremely single Christian girls who are not too busy writing wistful letters to their future husbands to say "Yes" to dinner and a PG movie with you (and who if you play your cards right, might even agree to marry you after the third date!).  

This is not that blog. If you want to read (or hear) about how Christian men should stop being such [women?] already and just ask a girl out, you can go here, here, or here. And good dating to you, sir or madam.

The truth is, I'm as ambivalent about this topic as a single Christian woman could possibly be. I feel like the "Be a man and ask her out" and "Be a woman and wait for him to make the first move" setup smells awfully like the traditional gender roles that have traditionally kept women in a one-down position of power in adult relationships (such as those between a boyfriend and girlfriend or husband and wife). 

Just speaking personally, if my church wants to reinforce these gender roles--you know, the ones where men get the final say on all decisions, men lead and women follow, men love and women submit, etc.--then I also want a "real man" who will carry me 20 miles in 5 feet of snow so that I don't get my dainty feet wet, who will bring home the bison while I sit at home sipping tea and refining my embroidery skills, and who has the physique of Chris Hemsworth and goes shirtless at all times. Just saying. 

So, no. This is not a blog about how Christian guys are cowards for not asking girls out. I really can't speak for any one guy's motivation for not asking any one girl out. The closest I can get is that he doesn't want to. The whys beyond that are beyond me and my personal scope of knowledge. However, if someone wanted to write a blog about this, I would support him or her at least 101%. 

And now to get back to my subject: Cowardice. Merriam Webster unhelpfully defines cowardice as "the absence of courage." I have a different definition, which I will expound here, at length (you lucky readers, you).

I define cowardice as deliberately hurting, humiliating, abusing, harming, putting down, or bullying someone from a position of power, privilege, or advantage (usually because you can and because it makes you feel good, (read, more powerful)). 

A story: 

I was working in a small business packing and shipping books for a living. I had long thought that the office manager had a crush on me (it wasn't reciprocal). 

So one day we were particularly busy, everyone was present, and I was packing and shipping the heck out of some books. The OM became irate and started yelling at me for overpacking the boxes. 

He took out some of the books that I had already packed and threw them (well, maybe he placed them) on my desk. 

He yelled at me in front of everyone: in front of my boss (his boss too) and in front of my coworkers. 

I was so angry. I confronted him the next day and told him I was not okay with what he did. He admitted to "being a huge jerk" and said he had actually been angry at another coworker who was not me.

This incident has always stuck with me for some reason. I think it's because when I thought back to the power dynamics of the situation, there was no one else in the room who would have been safe to yell at. He couldn't yell at our boss. He couldn't yell at my married female coworker or either of my male coworkers. 

I was it. 

The only way I can explain it is that liking me gave him some kind of carte blanche to vent his anger on me--

Or perhaps I was just the least powerful person in that room. 

I wish I could say that this was an isolated incident. That I've never before or since had a male boss/coworker/supervisor with romantic interest in me treat me with disrespect and anger because I rejected him. That I've never again had a man humiliate me, abuse me, condescend to me, or shame me under the guise of "just doing his job." 

I wish I could say I have never felt trapped in a job in which a man repeatedly violated my boundaries and made me feel profoundly unsafe. 

You see--here's what I don't get about abuse in our current culture: 

All the shame accrues to the victim: "Why didn't she leave him when he hit her?", "Why didn't you walk away?", "What were you thinking dating him in the first place?"

Why are we neglecting to call out the abusers and the bullies for the cowards that they are? I see nothing as more cowardly than punching out a woman who is half your size or using your position of power as a white, male, conservative blogger to further shame rape victims into silence (I'm looking at you, Matt Walsh). 

I fail to understand why Ray Rice dares to show his face in public while Janay Rice fields questions about why she stayed.

Somehow the definition of "being a man" still includes dominating women and treating them as objects to be controlled. Slap her around and you're a "man," not a coward.

After the incident above, I left that job soon after. I was afraid. I didn't want to become OM's emotional punching bag merely because he had a romantic interest in me. I felt like the most likely target, and I had no way to predict that there would be no future incidents--what if he had a really bad day? What if the mice ate all the books or I packed books into boxes in a way that just didn't suit him or the sound of me hitting the "s" key repeatedly started jangling his nerves? These things are impossible to predict. 

This is what I'm having trouble wrapping my head around. That abusers abuse because they can, because they want to, and because it makes them feel good.

He yelled at me because he could.

[Little to no risk to himself: If he yelled at the boss, he would risk getting fired. If he yelled at a male coworker, he might risk getting punched.]

He yelled at me because he wanted to.

[Anger feels bad.]

He yelled at me because it made him feel better.

[Letting anger out feels good.]

In the nearer past, a man viciously attacked and shamed me at work. I'm still traumatized by what happened. 

But here's the thing: 

He used what power he had to punish me, to put me down, to degrade me and "put me in my place" and it made him feel good. If not that, I'm sure it made him feel better--more empowered, more in control.

I also knew, based on past experience (I'd been to this rodeo before), that this was part of a pattern of abuse: His actions signaled to me that this could and probably would happen again: anytime he felt disempowered, received a nasty letter from the IRS, or felt angry about something else going on in his life--

It wouldn't matter. How I did my job wouldn't matter. What I said or did wouldn't matter. If he wanted to take out his anger out on me, he would find a reason.

Imagine that being your everyday, working reality: stretches of rainbows! and sunshine! punctuated only by abuse for no other reason than he "felt like it."

A coward will not confront his boss about injustice or mistreatment, but he will take it out on someone weaker than he is. In fact, he feels justified in doing so and often feels like a victim himself.

That's the problem with cowards. They are too smart to attack someone who has more power than they do, because they know they will suffer the consequences. They don't even much care for engaging an equal. But someone who is "weaker"? Perfect. 

For whatever reason, cowardly men also seem to feel perfectly justified taking out their anger on women who have romantically rejected them. Often, they take on the mantle of "victim" (of society, women, the government, their boss) to justify their behavior and deny their own power and culpability:

"I wouldn't be such an asshole if a woman hadn't broken my heart."
"I was a nice guy until I got rejected for the 20th time."

So, that leads to the question, how do you deal with a coward? 

Directly. To his face. Tell him in no uncertain terms that his behavior is unacceptable.

There's a great book called Verbal Judo about conflict and communication. In it, he talks about three kinds of people: nice people, difficult people, and wimps. You can guess who the cowards are. He recommends calling wimps out in public or confronting them in private (not recommended unless you are in a position of authority). 

Faced with real power, a coward will back down 100% of the time. It's that cliche you see in movies: the underdog can't take it anymore and fights back, leaving the bully a blubbering mess. 

There's some truth to that.  

This is not about playing nice, conflict resolution between equals, or fighting fair. Cowards never fight fair, so watch your back and enlist the help of an older brother or sister if necessary. Here are some possible responses:

"I will not tolerate being spoken to like that."

"Stop it."

"Back off."

Make yourself look as big and threatening as possible. Pretend you're at Yosemite and he is a brown bear. Show that you will not be intimidated and he will scuttle away with his tail between his legs.

Remember, he is not looking for an equal fight. He only abuses those he perceives to be weaker or more vulnerable than he is and will probably be shocked if you actually fight back.

Or you could just punch him in the face (I take no legal responsibility if you decide to take this route but I'll probably be cheering for you from the sidelines).

I jest. But in all seriousness, watch out for the coward. I had a lot of difficulty processing what happened to me until I started looking at it from the lens of power. To you, it might be a conflict between equals, but to him, it's all about making you feel small by any means available (shame, condescension, repeating negative things other people have said about you, attacking your character and personality, blaming you for everything, etc.). You become an object of uncontrolled hatred and rage.

The crux of what makes Christian guys undateable is that their actions often indicate that they don't view women as human beings worthy of equal respect.

Cowards don't respond to rejection very well (how would you feel if some inferior object rejected you?). And neither do some Christian guys. More on that later.

The glass jar has yet to speak on what I'll be writing about next. Till then.

Next: The Myth of Persistence