Enough (2002)

DISCLAIMER: I know there are a lot of generalizations in what follows. I am aware there are exceptions to the rule in all situations. But a lot of what follows is pretty damn accurate if you ask me.

I have something to tell you that's going to sound pretty damn strange coming from a male. One of those revelations about that speaks to my upbringing and I never really thought I would have to talk about. This is something that I foolishly assumed that everyone felt the same way about.

I respect women.

Now I know there are other guys out there who will say that they also respect women. And I am positive that there are plenty of men who not only say this but mean it as well. But I find that I genuinely like and respect women more (and more easily) than I do most guys. The anomaly being that whether I like a woman or not I always respect them for the things they have to go through and deal with that a guy will never really understand.

You see I've come to realize that I was raised to think a little differently about the opposite sex than most men I know. I was raised most of my life by a single mom. As a young and single woman of the eighties who was living in mostly big cities my mother dated more than her fair share of real losers.

By loser I'm not talking about guys who didn't do the dishes or open the door for her. I mean guys that were emotionally and sometimes physically abusive. Guys (and I do mean guys & not men) who would use drugs and get dangerous. Guys who made her feel bad about herself to make themselves feel better about their sad lives. And one time even a guy who put her into a hospital. I would need both hands to count the number of guys I have kicked out of my mom's house or had to call the police on to get rid of them. I lived for years as a child in an environment where I was exposed to the worst things a male could be.

I have no doubt that this has affected my relationships with women in some negative ways. I know that I tend to be too much of a caretaker with the women I love. Both overprotective and often catering too much about what I think will make them happy and not what they actually need from me.

That upbringing coupled with my experience as a young married man has had a pretty profound effect on how I view women and the relationships we guys have with them.

You have to know that I was married at the age of nineteen. Looking back I can say now with the wisdom of time that getting married that young may not have been my best move. But when you are young and in love you tend to wear very large blinders.

As a young man with a wife I would go out with my group of guy friends who were all, of course, very single. These guys were probably like most young guys (or most any age guys for that matter) in that they mostly thought with their lower regions. This was a wake up call for me. Hell, I had proposed to my (then) wife before we had ever had sex. To me finding that one person to spend the rest of your life with was all about love and how they made you feel and making (what I then thought was) a real emotional connection with that person. With my somewhat naive point of view I was for years exposed to all of the games almost all guys played while dating.

All of the lies a guy would tell a girl he was interested in. All of the games, little white lies, and flat out deceptions guys would use to impress a woman. All of these things were done with the selfish goal of "scoring" (in most cases) and then moving on to the next conquest. I could never understand the point of it all. If the woman you were chasing only saw this facade you presented them how could a relationship ever succeed?

Throughout the following years I worked in office jobs full of women who would tell me horror stories of bad first (and second and third) dates. These dates where a guy was obviously using a combination of parlor tricks he had honed with the sole purpose of getting into a girl's pants.

Or worse still were the women who had settled on one of these guys. Investing in a relationship that they knew was not working and were miserable in. Making excuses on a daily basis for the moron they were sleeping with and saying things like, "but I love him and I know he can change."

Even though the guy had cheated, manipulated, lied, or sometimes all of these things and more I would hear women make excuses for this "Man of their dreams".

Would you like to know another dirty little secret ladies? You're wrong ... but at least it's not your fault. As much as women like to think they know the men they are with you allow yourselves to be just a little deluded. You think he can change. You think all he needs is a chance (and just maybe a little nudge from you) to become something better than what he is now. You think these things because itÃ?s generally true of yourselves.

If you take a look at a woman in her twenties and then again in her thirties you will more often than not see two completely different people. Women are not only capable of major change over the course of their lives; they're almost preordained to go through at least one drastic change at some point. They are (in my opinion) designed to grow and evolve emotionally more than any guy ever will.

I think a lot of women assume that this is also the case for men. But that's not the case. For instance I know that I may have become a little more mature from my late teens to my late twenties. My politics or opinions may have shifted subtly over the last decade or so. But if I were to be honest (and I am trying every day to be just that) I would have to admit that I am basically the same guy I was when I was seventeen years old. And so are almost all of the men you have ever known. If Beavis & Butthead made us laugh at fifteen I can guarantee you we'll still find it funny at fifty five.

But I seriously digress.

I grew up knowing how hard women had it. I would see them putting up with less for most of their lives without seeing other possibilities. I would watch at the sidelines as the women I knew settled for a guy who treated them badly or took them for granted, worked for less money doing the same job, struggled with living up to a physical ideal determined by everyone but themselves, and often times even being taken advantage of simply for being female.

There's no denying that most women have it tougher than the men in this world. To me it seemed pretty obvious that women should be respected more than the average guy. Hell we'd have died off eons ago if men had to go through child birth ...

But I was having a conversation about this very subject with some women the other day and all I got were wide-eyed stares. Shocked looks from smart and intelligent women who couldn't believe that a male was saying these (what I thought were) pretty obvious conclusions.

Turns out a lot of women just assume that a guy doesn't respect her right off the bat. That they have to somehow earn it from a guy they are friends with or dating.

I don't think I know a single guy who would be caught dead even talking to a woman who he didn't think respected him. What would be the point? But maybe it's that some women are so used to being disrespected by others (men and women) that they let it slide because that's what always happens. It's the normal way of life for them?

But it shouldn't be. No one (man or woman) should ever put up with less than they deserve. Never let it slide when it matters. Never settle for receiving less than you give in life and I promise you your world will change overnight.