Those Men

I spoke with a man today about my experience with another man, a complete stranger. Specifically, I told him that I said something to this stranger that you would not say in polite conversation.

He asked what happened and I physically winced. Because the moment it escaped my mouth, all of the typical thoughts and reservations surfaced:

I shouldn’t have mentioned it.

Now I’ll have to tell him what happened.

He’ll think I’m overreacting.

That I’m in the wrong.

I’m too sensitive.

I read too much into it.

It’s not that big of a deal.

I’m the problem.

I’m trying to get attention.

But now I have to tell him, because I brought it up.

It was such a minor exchange. But I mentioned it because it didn’t feel minor to me. Not because the situation was unique, but because my reaction was.

This time I pushed back. To a total stranger. I essentially said, “I’m not playing your game”.

I let myself feel anger, and then I let it escape my throat. And with a few colorful words I suddenly felt euphoric.

I wasn’t swallowing the truth of the interaction to appear polite or friendly or socially acceptable. In that moment I was not a “good girl”; I was a woman experiencing anger at a cycle that I am no longer taking part in. And I felt none of the embarrassment, fear, or remorse that I’d felt in the past when I dared to acknowledge the dynamics we’ve been taught to sweep under the rug.

I stepped off the wheel, with a bit of colorful flare.

I felt empowered.

A bit excited.

So I mentioned it. To a man.

And then I immediately regretted it.

Because here I was, almost frozen in those excruciating long seconds between when he asked what happened and I replied. Because the past taught me things I never should have had to learn.

The past taught me that men stop listening the moment they realize that what you’re expressing relates to your experience as a woman.

It taught me that, what they hear is only how it relates to them personally.

The rest is details that somehow fall between the mental railroad tracks and never make it to the station.

The past taught me that there are core assumptions that blur over the actual words until they appear to say whatever they expected to hear.

Assumptions about women being too sensitive.

Too dramatic.

Too angry.

Too hungry.

Assumptions that turn our experiences into anecdotes for their perception.

The past conditioned me to expect that, by telling the story, I would simply be reinforcing his assumptions that women are just angry.

He wouldn’t hear what actually happened, or understand what it was like from my perspective. He would only hear the outlines enough to fill in the blanks in a way that suits his understanding of himself.

Those were MY assumptions.

Picked up after years of being unheard. Years of daring to whisper the slightest hint about injustice, or unreasonable standards, or imbalanced dynamics, or the day after day struggle of pretending that none of what’s in front of you is real, only to be immediately reprimanded through defensiveness or dismissiveness or shame.

Because that’s the world that used to be.

But it’s not the world I’m creating.

So I spoke.

I spoke to that stranger. And then I spoke to the man who asked me, “what happened”.

I told him my brief experience. I didn’t spend time and energy explaining why I felt what I felt, subtly begging him to take the high road. I just told him what happened, how I felt, and what I said.

And he heard me.

He heard what wasn’t said. He heard the years that I didn’t spell out. He felt the suppression that I didn’t explain. He understood the exhilaration that I didn’t use language to express.

All of this – the experience, my response, the conversation that followed – all of this was small. Moments that passed so quickly you’d barely know they happened. Except they did. Like the tiny flap of a butterfly wing.

And that’s big enough to put on paper.

Because anyone who read this far will know now too.

They exist.

Those men.

They do exist.

©️2026 Cristen Writes