The Terra-tory

I was originally gonna write this for just dodging shitty men but no. This can apply to everyone. So to everyone it shall apply!

1. ON THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE GENDER NEUTRAL STANCE OF THESE VARIOUS TRAITS TO WATCH OUT FOR

I say women and men but not in terms of individual gender. Instead, I refer to these two categories as arbitrary social classes. Now, if women had all the social power, status, etc that men currently do while men have what women currently have, we might theoretically end up with the exact same situation, just reversed. Women DO abuse power, they DO abuse status. Men CAN be victims. It is HUGELY taboo to transition between these two social classes in today’s society. This is why trans people are so likely to be punished for it, because in Christian-based westernized cultures, there are no social practices or avenues available to those who feel they must leave the class they were born into.

There is a case to be made about matriarchal and matrilineal societies not reflecting this hypothesis, but whenever I look into individual cases, I see a lot of mitigating factors where the men do in fact have power (for example, in one matriarchal society, I saw women who owned land, but the men had big say in a lot of other things, so the power was balanced). Men are simply not powerless in a matriarchy the way women are powerless in a severe patriarchy. If you want to disagree, give me evidence or shut the fuck up.

While these social classes are based on some level of biological fact, there’s really a very large grey area. This is where third genders come into play. Most societies that arise naturally without the hostile influence of westernized Christianity tend to have third genders. Rather than ignore reality and browbeat everyone into accepting this or that, many indigenous societies simply accept the expression of these individuals and award them a third bio-social class.

Because of the fact that there is actually very little sexual dimorphism in humans and the only differences people trot out are entirely at the extreme ends of the spectrum, I have drawn the conclusion that on average, there is virtually no difference in character traits held by anyone of any gender and therefore these shall be applicable to all. If you don’t like it, prove me wrong or shut the fuck up.

As a note, if you catch yourself doing these things, I think you’d better do some serious self-reflection.

In the interests of being thorough so readers understand exactly what my baseline is, here is my general life philosophy: Balance. People are different. You should seek balance, not homogeny. It has to be TRUE balance, though. You can’t just have opposite traits.

As a simple example, one partner might be slightly messy while the other might be cleaner. This puts the burden on one partner to do more cleaning than the other. This is not balance. But if one partner is slightly messy in small things but can deal with bigger things, like spring cleaning, while the other partner is cleaner in small things but doesn’t have as much energy for big things like spring cleaning, then they can balance each other. What you really don’t want is people on different extremes. In this case, both of them need to work on themselves.

2. THE LIST OF TRAITS, BEHAVIORS, AND SIGNS TO WATCH OUT FOR IN BOTH YOURSELF AND OTHERS

Now. The list.

1. They make blanket statements about the opposite gender that are steeped in bitterness and extrapolate general signs of abusive personalities to apply to all of them. (PLEASE NOTE THIS DOES NOT JUST SAY ‘ANYONE WHO MAKES A BLANKET STATEMENT’. NUANCE!! THAT’S A BLANKET STATEMENT AND YOU ASSUMING THAT’S WHAT I MEAN IS EXACTLY WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!!)
   • Example: “Women want men over six feet tall. They’re shallow.”
   • Example: “All men want are bleached blonde tatted up bimbos. They think with their dicks.”
   • WHY IS THIS A PROBLEM: While yes, men and women are affected by patriarchy, societal trends in what’s considered attractive, and our media diet as consumers, you want to avoid someone who looks right at you and assumes you’re someone else. They need to see you.
   • WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THEY THINK THIS: For men, the ones who hold these views tend to just react to passing abuse in the dating world by continuing the cycle, picking up and tossing women aside after getting the sex they want. When women struggle with this, it leads to a withdrawal from dating and general fury at the state of the world, which can lead to a more negative attitude. At its worst, both parties just assume the worst about the other.
2. Using any kind of science to suggest inequality is a natural state of things for humans.
   • Example: Phrenology as an entire field (that’s reading the shape of one’s head and pretending the flaws signal personality traits). This is actually an immensely racist practice disguised as novel self-discovery. Humans love self-discovery. But this is entirely to justify calling Black people apes or Native Americans savages by assigning arbitrary negative meanings to variable head shapes that may or may not be attributable to ethnicity (which are in themselves simply gene pools of populations in areas that have yet to intermarry outside their area).
   • Any scientific study of racial traits. Race is a social construct and research into it is entirely to justify it and should be discarded as hopelessly biased with a strong divisive agenda built into it.
   • Most of these things end up being pseudoscience anyway, but people don’t realize the difference half the time.
3. Serious mention of the alpha/beta/omega dynamic. That study was debunked decades ago. Generally it’s men using this to call themselves alpha, beta, sigma, whatever.
   • This is attempted enforcement of an entirely artificial pecking order (chicken term associated with hens, btw) through the use of a debunked study that allows men to take advantage of each other and crush each other underfoot in an attempt to justify why this or that guy does not get the girls or the social status among men.
   • No, the concept is not true. Yes, you should avoid people who think it’s true, especially if they consider themselves alpha.
     • This is because these particular individuals will enforce a serious social order, and given that currently women are second class to men, they are going to be very strict about women getting uppity and men disrespecting them. It means fights, anti-social behaviors, and general maladaptive traits. If they’re alpha then they have a lot to lose if you take this ideology away from them. Therefore, as part of human psychological defense mechanisms that are built into us for the sake of maintaining social order in a highly social species, they will go after you if you start proving them wrong.
     • So-called sigma males are literally just guys who they see as successful alphas who don’t actually ascribe to this insane debunked ideology, so the sigma males completely ignore all the chestbeating, which is in itself an alpha move so alpha no other alpha can compete. So I mean just be super awesome and ignore these fuckheads and you’ll be cooler than them. If I didn’t fall into the class of women, I’d be a sigma male, you see?
4. Use of ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ energy tropes, ideology, concepts, etc. The basic philosophy is that men in their masculine energy become the protectors and big boss lady, who is acting very manly and breaking down the bio-social classes these days in violation of the natural order (/sarcasm), can sense this and will instantly become soft feminine lady once she trusts him to take care of her and her wild lady emotions.
   • Seriously, what the fuck is this?
   • It plays off the concept of finding a man who makes you feel safe, or being a man who makes ‘your woman’ feel safe. Here is my issue with it, though: both people want to feel safe to be themselves in a relationship. How is this gendered? But this is why I’m saying watch out for this one. It’s unbalanced. Both should be able to be safe around each other, both should be able to protect each other. You are both protectors, defenders, lovers, everything. You have to be. Otherwise the emotional price for a man just being strong all the time is a breakdown and a midlife crisis.
     • I’ll note that there is a large subset of women who will dump a man for crying on them or being vulnerable. This is, I feel, related to the above concepts. Toxic masculinity, my friends, as enforced by women.
5. People who don’t bother to remember your name or constantly mispronounce it.
   • I’ll allow forgetting once or twice in big group situations or with workers who deal with a ton of people every day to whom you are not important. Past that? Eat shit. My name is my identifier, the thing I learned before I even knew what names were. It is me. Treat it with the respect it deserves and that translates to treating me with respect.
6. People who don’t treat their friends well.
   • If they can’t be a good friend, why on earth do you think they would be a good partner? They aren’t investing half as much into most friends, so if they fail that, then they aren’t worth dating.
     • (and don’t say ‘but my friends are important and I invest a lot!’, you’re not legally binding yourself to your friends through legal marriage and offspring)
7. Anyone who refers to their partner as ‘my girl/woman’ or ‘my boy/man’.
   • The absolute cringeworthy levels of possessiveness in this combination of words is off the charts. The use of ‘my’ goes without saying, it’s a possessive. But diminutives like boy, girl, speaks on some level to seeing that person as lesser, or as something to be owned or controlled. We control children by setting the rules and removing their personal autonomy because children basically want to kill themselves until they’re five and they need to learn how not to in safe environments. But to do this with full adults who are meant to be your equal?
     • People who use this terminology tend to be a lot more controlling. You see someone talk about how he’d never let his girl do this, or someone else say no way I’d let my man do that…you’ve seen it, you’ve heard it, you know it’s real. It’s a huge trust issue where the assumption is that the partner that is allowed to do this or that is going to cheat.
   • Woman/man is slightly less bad than girl/boy, but at the same time it’s still reducing someone to these arbitrary bio-social classes and all the inherent assumptions.
8. ‘Go with the flow’ people.
   • I generally hear men say this. I’m not sure what it will sound like in a woman (they are out there, though rare perhaps because unbalanced cismen are so dangerous when thwarted), but if you hear a guy say this on a date or in a profile or at any point, drop them and move on. They’ll flow right away from you. In this world where all kinds of forces are pushing and pulling at us, you don’t need a piece of flotsam that’ll only stick to you because you’re in the way. You need someone that’s gonna hold onto you.
   • The issue with ‘go with the flow’ is that they say it to make it sound like they want an organic relationship and will float away when they don’t feel a connection, but what I actually see these people do is use it as an excuse to troll for casual sex while pretending true love could strike at any time and you’ll be the one. The promise is to get you hooked long enough for them to score.
9. Future promisers who paint a picture of the two of you together before you even get to know them well enough to say if they’d be any good at it.
   • Someone once said “If I wake up next to you in five years then that’s fine” (after saying he went with the flow). I wanted to tell him with an attitude like that, if in five years he wakes up next to me, it’s either a hostage situation or it took him that long to convince me he wasn’t a loser. (spoiler alert: breadcrumbed and ghosted me. I studied his every move and am honestly surprised it took him so long, but it was fun to learn how people like him operated. Usually they quit long before they talk to me in person!)
   • We don’t know what the future is like but these particular individuals will talk about the general acceptable milestones like marriage, kids, growing old together, with such blithe ease that it’s clear they don’t understand or care about the work involved in even getting those milestones. That’s because they’re not here for that. They’re putting the hard work in elsewhere. Watch what they actually put care and thought into.
     • This is the same for both genders – milestones in a culture like marriage, kids, and stuff about building a life together.
10. Big power differentials between you and the other with no interest in adjusting anything to compensate.
    • There’s a general implicit one built in due to the bio-social classes at play within heterosexual dating, which the lower bio-social class must work around. Otherwise, the power differentials can be anything from social status, economic status, race (STILL A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT), gender, age, life experience, rank within the community/workplace, etc.
    • The one in power has to compromise and adjust. If they do not do this, if they are not mindful, then exploitation and abuse becomes far more likely. They may be a kind person, but they can absolutely destroy you without even thinking. It’s like a toddler picking up a butterfly by the wings, or someone huge knocking a kitten off a table just by turning around.
    • Some people might bring up BDSM as an example of where this is acceptable. IT’S ACTUALLY NOT ACCEPTABLE!! The power imbalance in BDSM is artificial and comes with limiters to make sure it’s all consensual and that it can be stopped at any time! If it’s not artificial then it’s abuse! BDSM sounds like a great deal to all the wannabe doms out there (no fuck you I’m not capitalizing ‘dom’. I am not enforcing your arbitrary power imbalances with my capitalization practices), but these same would-be doms are the abusive predators you need to watch out for on the scene.
11. Bitter people.
    • The bitterness will sour everything and impact how well they manage the relationship. Goes double if their bitterness is directed at the gender they happen to be dating. Why the fuck are you guys dating people you hate?? That’s insane.
12. They want you to convert to their religion OR they’re holding their nose to date you because of your religion.
    • This shows contempt for your belief system or a belief that their beliefs are more important. Contempt is a death knell in any relationship. Contempt is a profound lack of respect for your partner. One study (<– that’s a link, I gotta fix my theme) by Dr. John Gottman could predict whether or not a couple would divorce with a 94% accuracy rate based on whether or not they showed contempt facial expressions at each other during a 15 minute argument.
    • You can convert if that’s what speaks to you, but generally it’s like…do you really believe that if you’re only converting because you love someone? Or is it just window dressing? It’s not sincere, and if you change such a profound part of yourself without careful consideration for what you believe and need, it’s going to be very damaging.

3. CONCLUSION

Human relationships are complicated and nuanced, oftentimes driven by our social instinct to constantly reach out and connect to our fellow humans. There has been a massive upswing in abusive relationships or horrific relationship dynamics due to cultural practices, so more and more people who fall into the lesser bio-social class are choosing to simply stay alone now that they have this option.

It’s really hard to spot the bad ones if you have no experience. Every day is an arms race as victims try not to be tricked and predators develop new tactics. But one thing that has not changed over time is that humans fucking suck at lying. There are always tells. Pay attention, watch for inconsistencies, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll find the honest ones and dodge the nasties. Or perhaps you’ll read this and consider becoming more honest, though probably not if your main intention is to become the town bicycle.