'Men have blatantly insulted me, my family, and my choice of career, but in a hilarious way'
(Except for me. My problem is that I’m too good at it and I need to remember that small children and people so elderly they can remember rationing during the Second World War are not the target market for my double-entendres.)
Irish people don’t flirt with one another, we identify each other’s weak spots and mercilessly mock one another for them.
I find the more that I truly like someone, the meaner that I am to them.
It’s a mark of my undying affection if I say things to you that will probably result in a couple of nights spent crying yourself to sleep, wondering where your life went so very, very wrong.
I tried to explain this to a friend of mine in New York who had the audacity to get annoyed when I asked her if she had cut her own hair with a knife and fork, and then laughed at my own joke for a good five minutes. (Those Americans. So sensitive.)
She accused me of ‘negging’ her.
Negging, for those of you who are unfamiliar, is where a man subtly insults a woman to make her feel insecure, thus ensuring that she becomes more vulnerable to his advances.
It’s from a book called The Game by Neil Strauss, who clearly spent his adolescence in his bedroom alone, furiously masturbating (I feel you, Neil), and has now decided to wreak revenge on all the girls who wouldn’t have sex with him while he was at school and the rest of us have to suffer the consequences.
Thanks, girls who wouldn’t have sex with Neil Strauss at school. Thanks a lot.
I had never encountered negging in an Irish context.
Of course, men have blatantly insulted me, my family, and my choice of career but in a hilarious way.
This is IRELAND.
We’re the children of Oscar Wilde, demonstrating incredible wit and intelligence as we decimate each other’s self esteem beyond repair.
But I’ve had two rather strange encounters with men recently that have lead me to fear that this phenomenon might be catching on here.
I’m in a coffee shop in Dublin. Cute boy that I vaguely recognise introduces himself and tells me he’s read my books.
“They were... interesting.”
Asks if he can sit with me. I, foolishly, didn’t say, “There are five other tables free. Please go away and allow me to enjoy being an anti-social introvert.”
He proceeds to ask me a dozen questions about getting published. He has sent his book away to “loads of publishers”, he tells me, and “none of them replied”.
Eyes narrow at me. “What’s the trick? What did you do?”
I resist the urge to scream at him that the trick is to write a good book and sort of smile weakly. (It’s okay, dear reader, I hate me too.)
After he made a few ‘jokes’ about how in order to get my book deal that I must be talented at oral sex (well, I hate to brag…), he then asked me if I’m seeing anyone, tells me he is single himself, and says “I find damaged women incredibly sexy. Just so you know” and gives me what is the most meaningful look I have ever seen anyone give outside of a primary school production of The Wizard of Oz.
In a wine bar with some friends, a stag party stumbles in.
Because I’m clearly the most attractive (or the only one not rocking a ginormous engagement ring, but let’s not get in to semantics) I am the human equivalent of the gazelle with a broken leg.
After five minutes of trying to ignore them leering down my top, I crack a devastating put down that Dorothy Parker would have been proud of, and one of the group laughs hysterically.
“That’s hilarious,” he says, in the same tone of voice that I would use if I had woken up to find a life-size Barbie doll riding a unicorn around my bedroom.
I nearly expect him to pat me on the head and say aww, baby made a funny.
And then he says — just wait for it — “You know, you’re not like other women.”
I think my favourite part was how delighted he was with himself, as if he expected me to say, “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to hear a man validate me in this way. Thank God I am not like all of these other, ugh, women. They’re the WORST.”
I mean, if he had said to me, “You’re different to anyone else I have ever met”, I’d probably like it.
Mostly because it would show his impeccable taste and discerning judgement, but also because I think that everyone wants to feel as if they’re special.
But when men say, “oh you’re not like other women”, what they really mean is “you’re not like media representations of women that I’ve been spoon fed for so many years that I just assume that it’s the truth”.
You’re not:
The jealous girlfriend
The grade-A clinger
The nagging wife
The dumb blonde
The bluestocking
The ball-buster
The baby-crazy walking womb
The desperate to get married singleton
How on earth shall I categorise you?
And then they act surprised that you’re just a normal human being except you don’t have a penis. (Surprise!)
The saddest part is I remember when men used that line on me when I was a teenager and I saw it as a compliment.
I didn’t want to like “those girls”, I didn’t want to be clingy and needy and ‘over emotional’.
“Don’t be such a girl” was, and still is, one of the biggest insults you could give anyone and we were encouraged to just accept this.
Because I’m not like other girls.
Because I’m a cool girl.
Because I’m a chick who can hang.
Be a good girl, find a guy, look pretty, don’t make too many demands on him, be easy going, don’t be clingy, don’t ask for too much, don’t actually have any needs of your own in case you scare him off.
And, most importantly, be different to the other girls.
Well, you know what? I reject that. I LOVE other women.
Some of the funniest, smartest, coolest people that I know are women — why on earth wouldn’t I want to be like them?
I refuse to see women as my competition or as obstacles in my way. They are my sisters.
I am proud to be a woman. I am proud to be like ‘the other girls’.
The sooner I get my witches’ coven set up, the better….
