I Hope You're Happy. And Then I Hope You're Eaten by a Shark

A friend of mine posted on Facebook last night: I just don't understand why people do things that hurt others on purpose. This post was made in response to an ex boyfriend, who was contacting her to "rub it in" that he'd broken up with her. A thread of about 40 comments followed, the majority making statements such as, well, all men are ass holes, or all women are bitches who spread their legs for blah, blah, blah. And the whole time, though people were saying these things to cheer her up, I was having a much harder time accepting that someone had gone out of his way to hurt her.

Here's the thing with the word ALL: it's not great. It's not accurate, nor is it fair. The word ALL implies that every single man on Earth is the same cheating pig, and that every single woman on Earth is a slutty whore. Which is clearly not the case. The word ALL implies a level of sexism between men and women that sadly does exist, but that we should all be doing our best to eliminate. ALL men are not ass holes, nor all ALL men the same cheating pigs. Similarly, not ALL women spread their legs for any and everyone, nor are ALL women slutty whores. Are they out there? Absolutely! But it's not fair to lump people into generalized categories of men versus women; and to those of us who do not fall into the "typical chick" category, it can be incredibly frustrating.

Because I am a woman, I am assumed to be several things: weak, timid, shy, and also bitchy, moody, and irritable. Because I am a single woman, I am often also assumed to be a little slutty. None of these are categorically true of my personality. I am as far from weak and shy as one can get, and while I may be bitchy at times when I'm mad, I am not generally a bitchy irritable person. And I am certainly not slutty. These are generalizations that people make of me because of my gender, and it's insane to me that in 2014, we're still doing that. We are still generalizing and stereotyping. That's not okay!

But, I digress.

The whole point of this blog is to point out the ways in which men and women do, in fact, hurt each other, and the fact that we do it intentionally, and how royally fucked up that is. People seem to innately know the best buttons to push to cause other people the most amount of pain possible. How do we do that? And why do we do that? Why, when you break up with someone, do you then text them to make sure they know how  happy you are without them? Why is it that causing intentional pain to someone else, can make us feel any sort of satisfaction? People are weird. And I of course include myself here. I have caused pain to people on purpose. I have wished bad things on people on purpose. I am not on a high horse pointing a shameful finger at anyone; I too, am guilty. But that doesn't make it any less weird. Hurting someone on purpose is weird. Not to mention it is probably not all that healthy for your karma.

Based on the thread of comments below my friend's Facebook post, one would generalize that in order to hurt men, women fuck another man, and in order to hurt a woman, men reach out with some sort of emotional string, and then back right back off. And maybe, despite my disdain for generalization of men and women and the coinciding stereotypes, these things are in part, true. In my experience, if after breaking things off with a guy, I sleep with someone else - or even go out on a date with someone else - I tend to get that jealous, insecure, maybe-I-don't-want-you-but-I-don't-want-him-to-have-you-either, reaction. As if somehow, these guys would still like to have a hold on me, or to have me on the back burner for when they realize that they're ready for the relationship now, and then when I move on, they see their epic fail. Similarly, it would seem that I have been most hurt by a guy who still gives just a little bit of emotional lean in. He texts you occasionally, just to say hi. He calls you randomly when he's drunk, or maybe he sends you a friend request on Facebook - but of course, not until he has another girl on his arm to brag about.

It's just stupid, the way we are all so mean to each other.

No matter what someone did to you or the reasons it didn't work out, everyone does deserve to find happiness when all is said and done. Maybe the two of you weren't happy together, but instead of looking for ways to hurt each other, you should be working to heal yourself and find someone who makes you happier. Logically speaking, that does make the most sense. Pursuing your own happiness with someone instead of looking for ways to sabotage someone else? Seems simple enough, right?

Mind. Blown!

The ways men and women intentionally hurt each other, is fucked up. It's not cool to play mind games or to try to keep someone in your pocket if you're not really interested, and it's not emotionally healthy to put happiness aside in search of sabotage. If we spent half as much time focusing on our own inner peace and what made us truly happiest, as we do on causing pain to other people, we'd all be happy little critters wandering around.

Nothing but sunshine and rainbows.