I regret those times when I’ve chosen the dark side. I’ve wasted enough time not being happy. –Jessica Lange

Many times, over the last few months, I have heard people say to me, “Wow, you’re something of a man hater…” The first few instances, I laughed. Me, a man hater? The very idea seems ludicrous because I have a husband! I obviously couldn’t hate men that much. “I love men,” I would playfully argue with these friends of mine, “especially the bearded ones.”

 

But then these allegations, although coming from a non-offensive, constructive place of love, started to slightly offend me. I’m fairly sensitive and it doesn’t take much to make me feel bad. I know that chances are, these people weren’t attempting to hurt my feelings; but as a person who prides herself in giving literally everyone a chance, as well as a second, third, and fourth, as someone who tries to be habitually non-judgmental, the realization that I might be a man hater was absolutely startling.

I kept reassuring myself that it wasn’t true. I couldn’t be a man hater. What a terrible suggestion! Man haters are scary, beefed up women that bench press women like me as a pre-workout supplement. I’m not cold and bitter when I talk about men, am I…? I’m really just a hopeless romantic deep down inside. I just want everyone to find love. I just want everyone to be love.

Then I started to get a little defensive about it all. I started rationalizing that I shouldn’t have to apologize for the things I write about men. They should have to apologize to me for their terrible, disgusting behavior. I shouldn’t have to take flak from men who deem me a man hater; I should be recognized for standing up to them, for reminding them I won’t tolerate their nonsense. I should be commended for putting these selfish, ill-behaved men in their place because they very obviously need it! They very clearly need to be reminded that they don’t run the show, that their demeanor needs some adjustment, and that their lack of respect is absolutely unacceptable. I quickly started analyzing all these men, their behavior, and my blogs in response to them and I realized I was on the wrong end of the argument.

I’m not a man hater, friends. And contrary to popular belief, I don’t hang out with a bunch of women who have poor taste in men. I write from experience. And unfortunately, for apparently my readers (if you ask the nay-sayers), my experience with men, for the most part, has been garbage. They lie, they cheat, they turn things around and blame you instead of holding themselves accountable, the majority of them despise being confronted about anything, and a lot of them don’t have any regard for anyone’s feelings!

So here’s my response to all of that: I am not a man hater. But if you don’t want to be put on blast, you had better come correct. 

Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose. –Lyndon B. Johnson

I guess it really struck me when a male friend of mine told me that I seem to surround myself with women who have had similar experiences to mine. The basic implication was that my propensity to allegedly hate men was borne out of all these awful stories my girlfriends would tell me. And perhaps not only that, but also the idea that I purposely associate with likeminded women who have been through the same generic trauma as I have.

This particular notion makes me super angry but I suppose that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, no matter how much I might disagree. I can’t blame this man for drawing his own conclusions about me because we all do that, right? I just found it a little insensitive and indicative of the average male pattern behavior. 

The truth is that being called a man hater just sort of ruined my day because I cannot honestly say that I truly hate anyone or anything. I have made a personality out of being warm and friendly, I have made a career out of supporting individuals and identifying their strengths. So the idea that I’m being labeled as someone who so outwardly hates men hurts my feelings. It just isn’t the truth. 

I spoke to a [likeminded] girlfriend of mine about this and she said so eloquently, “Who cares if you are viewed as a man hater, Kate? There is nothing wrong with saying, ‘Hell yes, I’m jaded! Hell yes, I was hurt!’ Own it!” I was just being authentic, she told me, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Another girlfriend of mine maintained that she didn’t believe I was a man hater, per se. She just believed that there was a whole side to my writing that I had yet to explore. I know you have so many great things to touch on, she told me, and you’ll get there.

 

But these women, these likeminded women who have endured similar trauma, they understand me. They fully understand that while not every blog is sunshine and roses, it isn’t a sign of hatred. It just is what it is. It’s sort of like musicians: the best ones are the ones with tragedy, the ones who have really struggled, the ones who mix equal parts heartbreak and vodka to fuel their creativity. That’s the song people want to hear. 

The talent of being happy is appreciating and liking what you have, instead of what you don’t have. –Woody Allen

When I was a kid, I knew this woman who was in this crazy, chaotic relationship. In the beginning, they had more money than they knew what to do with, more classy friends than they could ever socialize with, and more expensive wine bottles than they could ever consume. He put on a great show but the reality was that he was a habitual cheater. And for whatever reason, it went on for actual years, even well into their older years. It just sort of became their lifestyle. He was never honest with her, so she basically just went through life unwilling to trust him. I mean, why even bother? He was clearly incapable of honesty. 

And while he wasn’t necessarily controlling, he was always attempting to delegate how she spent their money. It seemed like whenever he would return home from a business trip (chock full of spicy extra curriculars and very expensive dinners, of course), something drastic had happened. One of the kids was sick or needed braces, one of the vehicles had decided not to start or the air conditioning unit had gone out, they got bumped to a higher tax bracket because of all the money he made or the piano lesson prices went up. Something was always needed and suddenly he felt like a work horse, like she was always demanding things. 

Yet there he sat, in his custom suits and matching Brooks Brothers penny loafers. He had a girlfriend in practically every New England state that he showered with gifts and put up in expensive hotels. He lived an extremely lavish lifestyle but his wife allegedly was asking a lot.

I had another girlfriend that suffered similar trauma only she wasn’t married. When she first met her boyfriend, I am almost positive that he was in a relationship. While that probably should have been indicative of how he would act in the future, something inside her clicked. They were in love, and to be fair, I think that he was genuinely nice to her in the beginning. It was, after all, the honeymoon phase. 

But over time, things started to gradually change. He was suddenly very distant and secretive. He quickly morphed from a loving, supportive boyfriend to someone who literally couldn’t be bothered to return a text message. She caught him in lies tons of times and then quickly learned he was seeing someone behind her back. And while we could have all seen this one coming, that does not, in absolutely any way, excuse his behavior. 

But this scandalous, deceitful behavior never seemed to cease. He was incessantly telling her that he just needed some time to himself; that he loved her but couldn’t be sure that a committed relationship, no matter how loving, was something that he wanted. They would do this relentless back and forth thing and although I give her a ton of credit for handling the ENTIRE situation with the utmost class and affection, he played her every single time. It wasn’t that she wasn’t trying or pulling her own weight; it just literally made no difference. 

He would claim to be out at this particular location with this specific male friend and despite the fact that she probably shouldn’t have trusted him, she was satisfied. Because on her end, she was attempting to be more trusting, to give him the space he claimed he desired. And every single time, it would come out that he was actually two bars down from the one she was at with a former girlfriend of hers.

Did he honestly think through what would happen if they had just happened to bump into each other? Her expecting him to be home in bed because he was supposedly so tired from work only to find him with a former coffee klatcher of hers hanging drunkenly on his arm? Did he honestly believe that with all of these intertwining relationships in a tiny city like ours that it wouldn’t somehow get back to her? Did he even care?

I’m going to go ahead and go with no. Forgive me, but with men like that, their thoughts are pretty blatantly clear. He didn’t give a shit about her. He probably never did.

But I think that maybe the thing that I did wrong was put up with your bullshit for far too long. –The Wreckers, Cigarettes

I knew another guy who liked to paint me in a corner. He was continually pushing me and pushing me until I would literally snap from frustration. At that point, I would literally have no choice but to put him in his place. And from there, things would unfortunately escalate. 

The infuriating part about all of this, aside from him acting like an overgrown man child when he couldn’t manage to get his way, was that he was genuinely pleasant to be around. He was funny, really bright, and super easy to talk to. But sometimes, it just wasn’t worth the drama that came with it. Supposedly, he hated “repeating himself” but I would literally have to insert grown-up dialogue with him, over and over again, for the same disrespectful bullshit. And then, I would be the bad guy because I refused to put up with his nonsense. 

Well listen, friends. I’m a forgiving soul. If anyone approached me in the right way, took some accountability and apologized, I would forgive them and move on. You’re only hurting yourself if you hold onto old things, right? In fact, if my crazy ex-boyfriend came to me and said: You’re right; I was awful and for what it’s worth, I am genuinely sorry about it, I would acknowledge it, thank him, and be done with it. 

But the problem with this brand of people, this brand of men, is that they don’t care about accountability or making an effort to even acknowledge what they did. Like in this aforementioned instance, I honestly believe that man probably said to himself: “That’s fine; onto the next, instead of taking ownership, acknowledging that he was relatively out of line, and explaining why he randomly lied about little, meaningless shit. He would rather lose an allegedly valuable friendship and befriend someone who believes he has no flaws. I mean, I guess that’s a lot fucking easier than just being a good person, right? 

Hey, it’s all good, doll. I don’t need the toxicity.

Moral of the Crazy: The whole “man hater” debacle, it just really shook me. I never considered myself to be one until I kept hearing it. And if I’m honest, which I try to be, the echoing opinions all around made me sit back and think. I kept joking with my girlfriends like, Let’s be real: men are terrible! But that just isn’t so. I mean, look at my husband. (You know, one of those people who accused me of being a man hater said that I “basically think every man is a piece of shit except my husband, who seems to do nothing wrong.” I mean…)

The actual truth is that I’m not a man hater because that would just be stupid and discriminatory and I ain’t about that life at all. I do, however, have very little patience with men. I noticed this has especially worsened since I’ve gotten married. This is probably because, as earlier mentioned, my darling husband can do nothing wrong.

It isn’t at all, that I hate men, contrary to popular belief. I have just grown tired.

I’m tired of men who habitually lie as if it were their high paying job with benefits, who stare right at you even after you’ve caught them, and claim that they’re honest people. I’m tired of men who don’t understand how to act like people, who seem to have ZERO regard for the fact that you’re married, in a relationship, not in the mood for nonsense, or just not fucking interested. I’m tired of men who think they can use women for whatever it is they think they need and then maintain that it’s an appropriate way to treat another person. I’m tired of men who cheat on their women repeatedly and make up lame excuses as to why it keeps incessantly happening, because for whatever reason, they feel they’re worthy of such insane behavior. I’m tired of men who physically and emotionally abuse their women because they feel it’s their right to do so, because they feel that women are property and merit such awful treatment. I’m tired of men who don’t play an active role in their children’s life because they would rather go out gallivanting and doing God only knows what, because they don’t realize how goddamn blessed they are to have wonderful, healthy children. 

Friends, I am exhausted by it.

I’m not a man hater. I just detest disrespect.

Men are great but maybe they just take more time to figure out what’s worth fighting for. Maybe it takes the right woman to bring out all the good qualities that I’m positive most men possess. My hope for the future is that my fellow alleged man haters will dissipate and the only way to make that happen is to groom better men.

Boys, I’m rooting for you. 

Love your guy like a little boy and he’ll grow into a man. –Jack Taylor, One Fine Day