Sunday 4 October, 2009Stand Up and Be a Woman

I’ve always heard the phrase: “Stand up and be a man” but I’ve never heard anyone say: “Stand up and be a woman.” So I mentioned to a gay co-worker of mine recently as she told me of the antics that her girlfriend was pulling on her lately.

My co-worker snorted as her hands flew at her work. “Well, so she should. If she doesn’t want to be with me anymore, why not stand up and tell me? Be a real woman and don’t jerk me around.

I’m a big girl, I can take it.” Her voice got louder as she told me the story.

“I call her all the time but she doesn’t call me back half the time. I offer to pay for a hotel for us to spend the night or weekend together because she said she’s not comfortable staying at my apartment with my mother and kids there but she turns that down. I wait for her after we make plans and then she changes them at the last minute or she doesn’t show up at all. I’m always going to see her because she doesn’t like to travel on the train or take the bus, which is okay with me but even then, she’s somehow not available.  When I finally get her on the phone, I tell her that we should just break up because it’s obvious she doesn’t want to be with me and then she starts crying and telling me she’s just scared about getting hurt again. I told her that I’m not that other girl and that she needs to give me a chance, but she keeps pulling away.” Her face pulled down into a sad and confused smile. I carefully thought about my next words.

“That sounds pretty tough,” I said. “I think if I were in your position, I’d feel that somehow I wasn’t that important to her.”

“Exactly!” she exclaimed, looking over at me with relief on her face. “So you don’t think I’m crazy?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I think relationships are complicated and confusing..and when you have one partner who has much more fear than the other, things really get hurtful sometimes.”

“I’m not like her last girlfriend who treated her badly,” my coworker pointed out.

“No,” I responded, “and many times there are truly loving people such as yourself who suffer because someone else has done something harmful to the one you’re with now. It’s not fair, I know, but it seems to be very much a fact of life.”

“I know,” she sighed and was quiet for a moment. “But it hurts.” A few moments of silence and then: “I slept with my ex after my present girlfriend didn’t show up again last night. And,” she shrugged, “I feel justified in doing so.”  

I said: “I guess same sex relationships can be as difficult as heterosexual ones can be.”

“You have no idea,” she replied.

Ah, relationships.