Articles, essays and general thoughts...

A Mexican porn star, an Ojibwe tradition, falling into facism and the implications of your avoidance. A manifesto for connection. 13 min read *A note: Woe to the boys who burned the girl in the middle of her journalism degree whose training entails becoming particularly observant and bold, who constantly thinks about the world’s problems and how to best communicate them. I’d never drag your names through the dirt, only add my own experience to the much larger, more significant conversation.* *Also, please forgive this blatant heteronormative, binary analysis. It needs to be addressed* I once worked with a larger than life gay man who, after one too many glasses of chardonnay, became loose lipped about his wild sexual and romantic experiences. He talked openly about his ex husband who he hadn’t stopped thinking about in the seven years they’d been apart. He was a porn star, a God in bed, Mexican, equally packing as he was handsome, only slightly involved with cartels in his family’s avocado empire. They met at a strip club in Montreal. My coworker plotted how he’d run back to Mexico, break up his ex’s new relationship, confess his undying love for him and run off into the night with their yapping Chihuahua. He told me one day I’d be madly in love with someone like this- someone who'd make my knees weak and my heart pound in my ears - and that I should never settle for less. Another coworker told me I didn’t realize how beautiful I was. She said in my adult life, I was sure to make men go crazy, leave a trail of broken hearts behind me, cause waves of hysteria in my admirers who’d foam at the mouth over my body and worship me for my mind (she didn’t say it exactly like this, but that’s what I imagined) - but that I’d need to be careful. She passed down a word of caution I’d heard my whole life- men are not to be trusted. She was 10 years my senior, and like a phantom from the future, spun a cautionary tale of what could come. She was jaded by men, talked badly of them, disliked, distrusted and was frustrated by them. She admitted she was only with her current partner who didn’t make her feel anything because he showed her some basic level of decency unlike the majority of the men in her life. As much as I respected her, I silently vowed to never end up like her. Instead, I promised myself I’d remain starry eyed and in pursuit of glittering romance. You see, I love men. I love my male friendships. I love hanging out with and talking to men. I love their boldness and their sense of play and adventure. Admittedly, I love men’s bodies, I love men’s faces and I love men’s attention. Despite my best efforts to convince myself otherwise, I remain undoubtedly attracted to men. But to remain unjaded is proving to be much more difficult than I once assumed. Not because of my lack of expectation - but by being conditioned to expect- the distance, the disrespect and disappointment. Every time. The first time someone confessed his impassioned interest in me only to silently revoke it, I was pretty butt hurt. I guess I’m too much, I figured. I’ll tone it down. The second assumed our unspoken agreement of informality gave him permission to quietly quit after a few months of hanging out. Fine, I’ll tone it down more. When I met the third, I knew the night wouldn’t disappoint when I locked eyes with him from across the bar. The disappointment came later when he never responded to my text after a few hookups. I didn’t think I could make my detachment more clear. And then the fourth didn’t seem to mind losing a month’s worth of connecting over shared dreams and desires when he decided not to answer one day. “You’re such a sweet person, every time we talk you say something that makes my day ! 😊,” said the fifth right before the radio silence.  And so the list goes on, and with each dismissal, my own deflation. The retreat from connection, be it subtle or overt, be it behind a screen or in person, at a bar or in the bedroom has pervaded nearly every romantic interaction I’ve had in the last few years after a stint of a more long-term relationship just out of high school. Ghosting- Having made contact but not connection, these men retreat into the shadows just when you start to make out their form. They had no intention of really being seen. Even after their disappearance, they often let their presence be known, cold and unfeeling, observant, perhaps lingering underneath the IG stories, but never engaging. Haunting proximity but never closeness. Always eventually disappearing. I’d like to extend this definition beyond the screen into men’s widespread withdrawal from any tangible connection on the physical plane. I’m talking about the men who engage in a relationship with only half their spirit. Being there, but not really. Emotionally avoidant and hollow from what makes them human. This is not how I’d like to be encountered. I don’t delude myself with the expectation of sincere connection in every interaction, nor do I pride myself on somehow being able to soar above rejection. But this is different from rejection. The way in which these men retreat, coldly, avoidantly - and often silently- makes this pattern particularly cruel. The bipolarity of the experience, the hard and fast attention measured against an equally prompt exit, is disarmingly disorienting. With no explanation, the void is filled by my worst assumptions, usually about myself. As much as it becomes hard to trust other people, the worst symptom of abandonment is the build up of distrust for my own judgement. What did I do wrong? What didn’t I see? Why am I not good enough? “It’s my fault,” I’d hauntingly carry around with me. I pride myself on my self awareness, and I apologize when I know I’ve done wrong or even when I haven’t. I’ve sent long, embarrassing apologies, maybe late, but always delivered, and honestly too self effacing. I’ve always expressed my disinterest politely and respectfully when the occasion calls for it, or on the off chance I don’t respond, it’s because he’s crossed a line and I’ve felt unsafe. I don’t relate to the lack of care that pervades these interactions. So without any point of commonality, I turn it against myself. It’s my fault. No actually, it’s not. And it’s not just me. It’s. every. one. of my single, straight friends. More broadly, the infamous Man of The Year trend even has Lorde shaking her head while “decentering men” has been made a mantra all over the Internet. In academic circles, sexuality scholar Asa Seresin nailed the sentiment when she coined “heterofatalism” to describe the hopelessness of the straight experience. Among many articles, [this viral New York Times piece](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/20/style/modern-love-men-where-have-you-gone-please-come-back.html?unlocked_article_code=1.WE8.fyOx.V5VoJgaFqe9N&smid=url-share) validates exactly what I’ve been seeing and feeling.  Men’s retreat from connection and responsibility is a raging epidemic This isn’t to say women aren’t capable of hurt or irresponsibility or are somehow immune to the effects of our flattened dating culture. Across the board, we're no longer conditioned to value people beyond their profiles. To each other, we are disposable. From both sides, our Tinder dates are mostly an apathetic attempt at a cheap thrill, as transactional as the game of it implies. But I do think there’s a major correlation behind men’s general emotional avoidance and being able to act on it so freely. I’m not afraid to call men out on this behaviour. If I receive an apology, let alone a response, it usually has something to do with their professed emotional unavailability. But their confession is more deflection than admission, passing off their immaturity to a higher force outside of their control- destiny or biology- that prophetically makes them emotionally unpracticed and unsure. We both know there’s no force compelling you to treat others ungraciously. In this patriarchal society, you surely inherit some heavy baggage, but what you choose to do with it is your own. I’ve seen the connection you’re capable of when you decide to turn it on, but your emotional avoidance has been witnessed, it’s been felt and it will be spoken out loud. Look, I’m not searching for a life partner. I’m not looking for undying commitment or wrought iron vows. I’m just looking for fun. Fun with dignity and respect. But this isn’t fun anymore. This isn’t respectful. This isn’t healthy. And it shouldn’t be this hard. I cannot possibly shrink myself anymore than I already have to fit into the confines you impose on me. I cannot play any more cold and distant to casually brush off your level of detachment. I cannot withdraw any more from what you’ve refused to give. I cannot do this anymore. I’ll be very honest. I no longer want to download the apps at all. I no longer want to casually date, let alone date, period. I no longer want men to look at me or approach me at bars, and I certainly don't approach them anymore. Quite frankly and pitifully… I don’t really want to have sex with them right now either, not out of the fear, but out of the *expectation* of inevitable disappointment and disrespect. I’m mad at myself. I’m one of the lucky ones. I shouldn’t feel this calloused. I haven’t been through anything *that* bad. But being gradually compressed into the smallest, most apathetic version of myself is everything a romantic connection shouldn’t do. I didn’t grant you access to my most intimate spaces- my heart, my mind, my bedroom... for you to make a mess of them in this way. I will quietly let my own trust wither and callous under a protective layer as it has over the last few years. If it weren’t for the friendships I have with some great, straight, men, I probably would unhelpfully become skeptical of their existence at all. (God bless you all. Thank you. Keep being you.) But when I see the light go out behind the eyes of women all around me - dearest friends of blinding beauty both in brain and body, who make the earth shatter every time they laugh and live life in a whirling torrent of fullness - the claws will come out. My friend recently told me the last story I could possibly bear before feeling compelled to write over 4000 words on the subject: She spent the last sunset before her birthday on a romantic second date. After collaging in a park, he led her back to her place. He came unequipped for the intimacy he initiated. She offered to grab protection from a gas station. He said he doesn’t like walking at night. She said she’d go anyway. He said he'd keep the bed warm. She ran through the streets at 2 am while he scrolled like a bum in her sheets for 45 minutes. She returned. Pleased, he cuddled her all night and left cheerfully in the morning. On her birthday, he texted a picture of her cartwheeling in the grass from the evening before. Then never responded again. To the double or triple text. We laugh hysterically. What else are we supposed to do? But it’s not that funny, is it? This is getting absurd. I have my own stories, I have many more of my friends’ stories and the ones I can’t seem to escape on the Internet. While I don’t really know what’s happening, I have my theories. All I can say is this: In your avoidance, Your lack of emotional capacity- the care which you refuse to extend to yourself, your family, friends and community-  is showing. Your confusion about your place in this world and where you belong is showing. Your apathy and isolation is showing. Your hurt and your harm is showing. Your casualness is causing casualties. You’re draining the life out of these women. In your disappearance, you’re making a ghost of her. It’s not only the explicit assault that does damage. Your dismissiveness does too. Maybe you’ll take less pride in your body count knowing your nonchalance and complacency has wracked up a trail of haunted souls behind you. I cannot take, or see my friends take, one more unanswered text, one more unexplained disappearance or pathetic resignation that will inevitably drag us down the emotional drain again. I’m exhausted by constantly feigning nonchalance to match the level of casualness in which you departed, of feeling shamed over my indulgence for what I had mistakenly taken as a sincere connection, or of somehow being convinced it was a mutual agreement that all of this was meaningless from the beginning. It’s so easy to fall into it. We only talked for a few weeks. It was only a couple of dates. It was only a night. It was nothing. Well actually, it’s not. Your simple acts of dismissal have implications that run wide and deep. Let me explain. At the best of times, women’s relationship to relationships is complicated. We’ve been raised on the female hero's journey which looks different from yours. Male protagonists have the honour of embarking on a multitude of odysseys, sailing around the world, bending the arc of his character. Women's stories, on the other hand, are stationary. Instead, we wait, longing for a love that will prophetically fulfill us. While his romance is of added intrigue and companionship, maybe one step up from a dog, hers is of complete consummation. Now comes the contention- the breed of feminism that bans companionship all together. To protect from these flat fantasies, but also from the very real realities of men’s domesticative forces over their partners, feminism often pits romance directly against a woman’s independence and freedom. Somehow, a woman must untangle herself from the message that a man will both complete and destroy her. While heeding these warnings, it’s no small feat to admit that yes, among lots of other things, I actually do want a really great romance in my life. Of this romance I so desire, there have only been glimpses. One that comes to mind is a man- an older man who was honestly much too old for me at the time but was a good man nonetheless - I met at a lodge we both worked at high in the hills on my gap year after high school.  At the end of our short time together, secluded in the mountains with not one phone ever between us, he broke down crying, arms outstretched as I waved goodbye from the bus that would take me back down into civilization, never to see him again. These are the kinds of stories I was raised on, of yearning, heartbreak and passion. I thought my life would be filled with moments like these, but they’re few and far between. My narrative has been a slow, sludging erosion from singing optimism to crusted defeat- from secretly wanting a soul mate with the prospect of true love’s kiss, to an exhilarating connection, to a loving partner, okay maybe just a decent boyfriend. Fine, enough of a situationship would do it. Really? Not even a great one night stand? Ugh, just a reply would be nice for once. The undercurrent is the seeming impossibility of connection with men. *In Communion: The Female Search for Love,* bell hooks addresses the problem when emotion- which is the bread and butter of any solid relationship- is relegated to only one of the sexes. The feminization of emotion, and its inherent demotion when gendered this way, prevents men from even aspiring to deep connection and from being worthwhile partners. But let it be known: Emotion isn’t gendered. It’s human. Gentlemen, either by choice or chosen for you, you’re limiting your range of existence by not being emotionally mature. In your avoidance, you’re withholding the fullness of life that’s available to you. For whatever privilege you may possess, I would wager that at some point, you’ve coveted the realm of womanhood and of having true, loving connection in your life. You may think you have thick skin, but I see through you transparently. I recognize the deep discomfort you may have by living in a society that’s quick to villainize you, that would rather dispose of you altogether than to sit patiently beside you. You may be uncomfortable admitting you’ve done wrong when you’re already high on your haunches in defense. Perhaps you’ve been careful, paranoidally so, to watch how you tread around your female counterparts. Maybe you’ve witnessed acquaintances, friends or family members transgress, be carted off swiftly, unflinchingly, in social ostracization after sexual assault or harrassment. Maybe you feel guilty you stayed silent when you shouldn’t have. Maybe when you look at a panel of an accusation, where a woman looks to the victim and says, “Oh God, I hope that’s never me,” you look at the perpetrator and think the same thing. For better or for worse, we don’t live in a forgiving culture, but inadvertently that means problems ultimately go unsolved. It becomes easy, too easy, for you to retreat into the abyss with no accountability, never risking closure for the fear of never being forgiven. That would imply responsibility, change, maybe even progress. I have sincere qualms with the way women approach our anger, often priding ourselves on men’s exclusion from the important conversations and at times, our blinded inability to distinguish between men who are trying from those who are not. My wish is to see the world simultaneously lighten up on the men who care and crack down on those who don’t. But every time you disrespect the women in your life, you further entrench yourself in these deep-seated problems. My sympathy only goes so far. What gives me hope is the resurgence of the Ojibwe coming of age traditions I recently learned about. For a young woman, the Berry Fast is centred around her first period. She goes into isolation and receives mentorship from older women on how to honour her body, find self love and connect to her power. Women on their moon aren’t permitted to attend other communal ceremonies because in these traditions, women who are menstruating are too spiritually charged- a direct channel to Spirit- and need the sacred space to reflect and receive dreams or visions. (Now backed by Western scientific research, it’s been proven women do go into a more self reflective, contemplative headspace when on their period). On the other hand, the boys’ Vision Quest is centered on learning how to honour women as a foundational aspect to becoming a man. This society recognizes respecting women is the cornerstone to building a healthy world. I’m convinced no simpler solution exists to assuage the world’s deepest problems of domination, greed and anger. It’s a cruel world, but despite what it may lead you to believe, we women still want you. We actually need you. We need you to care and we need you to keep trying. This is as much a plea for help as it is for accountability. The world is fracturing along political fault lines, splitting right down the gendered middle. We are disconnected. We are breaking. As the premise of Margaret Atwood’s foreboding Handmaid’s Tale warns, the first signs of a totalitarian regime are the restrictions of women's rights. It only took three years after the 2022 overturning of Roe v Wade for the States to unmistakably dismantle into fascism. What will start as women’s problems will soon swallow you up too, but *illegitimi non carborundum*. Don’t let the bastards grind you down. We need your power and we need your protest. Do you know what we’re up against? Jeff Bezos sending Katy Perry to space and Sydney Sweeney selling her bath water under some twisted guise of feminism. Despite all of it, through trial and tribulation, fire and flood, women will always have each other. What do men have? Joe Rogan? Jordan Peterson?? Yikes. While Peterson dedicates his life to combatting the very serious threat of “overly empathetic woke women,” taking over the world, go find yourself another role model - someone who has respect, care and integrity at the seat of his values. These belligerent men won’t tell you this, but I will: I promise there’s still a place for you in this world, one that will celebrate your earnestness and emotionality, not only in your relationships but in the spheres where you mistakenly think aggression will get you to the top. I’ll give you an example near and dear to my heart, only because it illustrates my point exactly. Out of all the early grads, to junior lawyers, to practiced partners, do you know what my dad credits for his consistent rise in the corporate ranks to spearhead one of the biggest deals in Canadian history? Emotional Intelligence. “Your dad is the nicest man I’ve ever met,” says many family acquaintances. Raised by a single mother, two loving sisters and a gay dad, I don’t think this is a coincidence. Now he’s raising two daughters he’d do anything to see their dreams come true, including seeing them find amazing, loving partnerships. So to circle back, let me put this clearly. The women in your life are sacred. Treat them as such. They’ve given life to you and to everyone you’ve ever loved. They will bear your children. They will regreen this dying earth and make deserted streams run fresh again. They will even pour love into your iny weeny teeny weeny shriveled little heart. But you must meet them in the middle. Your emotional development is not requested out of desire or fantasy.  It’s out of necessity. You must raise the next generation of boys to be better than our own. You must raise boys who will never amplify the hatred spewing from evil, corrupted, far-gone men like Andrew Tate. You must raise boys who will never be addicted to violent, horrific porn and you must raise boys who will never tolerate witnessing their friends mistreat women. So let’s start with the most basic interactions, on Tinder, on Hinge, in the DMs, on iMessage, on Snapchat or wherever suits your fancy. On your own end, pick up a journal for God's sake. It’s high time you initiate your emotional apprenticeship. If you learn how to express yourself, recognize how you feel and how others feel around you, ask questions, be curious, gain clarity on the ways you move through this world and live with steadfast empathy, I promise you will be rewarded abundantly for it. Do not waste your time with women who have no hope for you. There are many, millions even, who are dying to be fully encountered by you, who want your allyship, your friendship, and absolutely- your romance. I think you’ll find the landing from an apology much softer than you fear. You can do better and you will do better. You will rise to the occasion and you will show others how it's done. You will become the role model you wish you had all along. You will be taken to heights you can’t even dream of in your partnerships and in your life more broadly because of it. In the meantime, I will wait, not in despair or desperation, but with patience. I will wait for however long it takes, for whomever it takes, to crawl out of the woodwork with his integrity still intact and with a chivalrous bone still miraculously preserved in his body-  to re-heal my trust. That is my call to action. This time, I expect an answer. - OJ