“If you’re raised with an angry man in your house, there will always be an angry man in your house. You will find him even when he is not there.”
“Cut” by Catherine Lacey
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Nothing puts me off from a man on a dating app more than any sign of anger. It’s either an angry look on his face (a clenched jaw, a hostile look in his eye) or something in his bio that sounds like they are frustrated at women as a species. Or should I rather say: at females.
Some of it might sound quite innocuous, but still, it makes me cringe. It’s either ‘If you don’t talk, don’t match.” Or “No pronouns”. Or “Last time I was someone’s type it was when that person needed a blood transfusion” etc. I am sure you have all seen all of that.
A piece of advice to men – just pretend to be generally positive and unthreatening, I am struggling to not be afraid of getting murdered daily as it is.
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The angriest men I have known closely in my life have always looked quite mellow at first glance. Those friends and ex-lovers who showed me their true colours at some point, in the beginning normally presented themselves as genial, open and progressive. Some of them had many female friends and seemed sweet and well-liked.
Until the moment when they felt more secure, triggered, scared or threatened and said something that just sounded shockingly despondent, cruel or misogynistic.
Anger is one of those masculine negative emotions that are easier to accept by society than female hysteria or sadness (which are, of course, clear signs of weakness) – but not when it’s a devitalising, frustration-driven seething that makes a man look pathetic and powerless.
I struggle with that. I feel for men who perceive themselves as being let down by current society but at the same time, it is hard to accept anger that in many ways fuels aggression against your whole gender.
Powerlessness is painful for anyone, but I think for men it must be even worse, as they will be always judged more harshly for it.
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I once cut off a friend from my life partially because he unironically called himself an alpha male (he was also sexist and misogynistic but I guess all of that comes in one package). He also believed in Jordan B. Peterson as his Lord and Saviour.
At the same time, I think I spend more time with men than I should and I think I am becoming a men’s rights activist in many ways. I was always a girly girls’ girl. I am convinced that some NGO ought to pay me for that emotional labour.
For example, I get irritated when women are critical of men’s appearances behind their backs in a nonchalant, demeaning way. I also try to treat all of my dates with respect and like people. It’s not always easy. I also see very clearly many advantages that I have in my life just because I was born a woman.
The right to express my emotions is one of them as well as the right to be soft and gentle.
All of those traits are obviously considered feminine and I know that they are becoming more and more acceptable for men in the current climate. However, I also noticed a certain degree of hypocrisy that we have when we praise feminine personality features in men.
I think they are considered positive mostly in those men who manage to balance them by being either successful, or generally good-looking and athletic, and of course ideally also charismatic, bold and confident.
Those men are almost by default brutally arrogant, so by subverting this expectation, they are becoming only more interesting.
It is almost like they earned the right to dip their one toe in femininity on account of their other virtues.
However, if you are both “weak” and gentle. Well, I wish you luck.
This is like the difference between vulnerability and insecurity. One is endearing, the other is frowned upon.
This could be a cruel world for you out there and I hope that with evolving society our mindsets will only shift to more acceptance and compassion towards people who feel left out.
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Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Matthew 5:5
Any mistakes you commit through audacity are easily corrected with more audacity. Everyone admires the bold; no one honors the timid.
Robert Greene
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Since I am writing about seething, women-hating men, it seems obvious I should write about incels, but I don’t want to beat that ugly dead horse.
So many people spoke about it and I would love to pretend that this is just something that exists on the internet (well, it doesn’t, see the aforementioned example of my ex-friend if you wish).
I am way more interested in people who are doing fine, maybe great even (at least from the outside), and still hold some misogynistic views that they might not be even fully aware of.
I don’t think there are many public figures who I hate more than Andrew Tate. I cannot believe real people are walking this earth who treat him as anything more than a pathetic clown.
He is a person who will completely seriously gender all existing human behaviours, including drinking coffee (yes, if you drink a coffee that is not brown and strong like him, you are officially at least intersex, which should be considered the most cost-effective medical sex transition process on the planet).
For my sanity, I will convince myself that most men see this as laughable and look for other ways to find their place in the world.
If you really think about it, isn’t it the lowest form of submission to change your whole personality due to feeling frightened by the opposite gender?
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You cannot repress anger or love, or avoid feeling them, and you should not try. But you should be careful about how you express them, and most important, they should never influence your plans and strategies in a way.
Robert Greene
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I read both “The 48 Laws of Power” and “The Art of Seduction” by Robert Greene, where he teaches people how to transcendent their emotions in order to play mental games with other humans and get what they want.
I feel like this type of power hunger is especially appealing to people who were deeply hurt and are now, therefore, angry. They want to learn how to hurt others back and become emotionless. They will go to extreme lengths in order to protect themselves from their self-destructive tendencies and take control over their lives by ruining everything that makes them human and tender.
Apart from the hurt and the anger itself.
I don’t think, however, that every type of anger is bad.
My therapist encourages me to get angry at people who wronged me because I tend to blame myself for everything that happens to me.
And sometimes you have the right to be angry because sometimes people abuse you. And they do that not due to your flaws or weakness, but because they simply can.
I have dealt with angry men my entire life and I feel like I deserve to be angry at that. Some of them I even loved and it is so hard to get really upset at people who you devoted so much emotion, tenderness, and energy to.
Accepting that you were abused might make you feel like you betrayed yourselves. Maybe even asked for the way you were treated.
Robert Greene says that anger “is the most destructive of emotional responses, for it clouds your vision the most.”
However, in an interview he gave shortly after his stroke in 2021, he also talked about anger as a powerful motivator.
How you deal with your anger matters – you can either externalise your shadow self or you can turn it against yourself. Avoid bitterness and becoming resentful. Anger can be your undercurrent that you don’t need to show, but you can fuel your ambition with it and turn it into action towards something worthy.
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Let grief / Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it— MACBETH, ACT 4 SCENE 3, LINES 228-29; MALCOLM TO MACDUFF
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I will always prefer my heart to be enraged, not heavy.
Do not go gentle into that good night
Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
When anger surges through thy heart
Let not thy foolish tongue take part.
Sapho
PS. I don’t know if anyone is sad about it, but the love series on my blog is definitely over.
PS2. I will repeat myself – I am almost certain that if you are reading this, you were not in any way a source of inspiration for this post. All of the people who were – are completely gone. Some from my life, some from this world.
