A reader calling herself “BagLady” has what she describes as “baggage” that she’d like to unload. Trouble is, she hasn’t been able to figure out how and when to reveal this stuff to a dude without sending him into a LetMeHelpYouWithThat spiral of epically annoying proportions. How can she navigate this a little better? Let’s get some more detail and then manslate the crap out of this, shall we? Sweet.
Hi–long time lurker, first time manslation requester. More a manstrategy request.
No problem. Any pun involving the word “man” will suffice here. (There’s someone who thinks my next book should be called “Manstipations.” Which, er, might not happen.)
First, let’s get it out there. I HAVE BAGGAGE. I have a specific Bad Thing that happened to me. Not divorce (which I would argue can be a really good thing), but that other Bad Thing that happens mostly to women (okay, it was rape).
This is where you say you’re sorry–I know you are, thank you–thanks for being one of the good guys.
Yes, yes, indeed. This IS, in fact, the part where I say I’m sorry. Additionally, I’d like to see that man castrated. Well, maybe not SEE it, per se. But I sure wouldn’t mind reading about it on “The Smoking Gun” or something.
The Bad Thing is in the past (5+ years). I’ve had therapy. Clearly it would have been nice if it hadn’t happened, but I’m still a good person with a good life and a generally positive outlook. I’m Good with the Bad Thing.
Good for you for taking this thing head on. Now, let’s get your bad self off on the good foot, shall we?
But the men, not so much. I prefer to be open and straightforward, but when men hear about the Bad Thing they all assume that I’m a trembling mess who’s going to require industrial-strength Man Help with my baggage.
Yeah, I thought they might assume that. Sorry about that, too. A lot of men don’t like it when a.) something bad has happened, and b.) there is nothing they can do/build/smash/buy/fix to remedy it. In a lot of ways, we don’t really know how to interact with “trouble” other than to try (and, in this case, fail) to solve it.
The way I look at it is, it’s my bag. I didn’t pick it out, but I own what’s in it, and I’ll carry it, and I only mentioned it because, you know, sometimes you have to wait with me at the carousel because when we travel together, sometimes I have this extra bag.
As an aside, I LOVE the men who think they’re gonna find a woman with no baggage. If you date me, you are, in all likelihood, 40 or above (’cos I’m almost 40). You have two choices. You are dating starlets or women with baggage. Indeed, the odds are good that at 40 you’ve already dated women with this particular luggage set–the manufacturer made a lot of them.
So, what to do? Do I hide the luggage? “Me? No. I have this teeny tiny purse, just like Grace Kelly in Rear Window. See, it opens and weightless negligees explode out of it. Nothing substantial at all. I can carry it with one finger.” And then I can summon up a vapid giggle.
Do I say that I have baggage but refuse to tell what it is, leveraging some kind of mystery-vibe? If so, do I need to dress like Lauren Bacall or start smoking?
Or do I tell the men about the luggage and go back into therapy when their reactions are…well, really, they can be awful. And this is from the nice guys. Some have the script (”I’m sorry this happened it wasn’t your fault you’re awesome and he’s a bad, bad man”–imagine this read by a nervous third grader in a Christmas pageant.) Some are just all “whaaa?” But generally after the initial speech comes the horror and the disgust and the “why didn’t you just kick him in the nuts and run away?”
Ugh. Yeah, thanks for the hindsight there, Einstein. Gosh, don’t I just feel so foolish for not having thought of that brilliant plan in the moment? Ugh.
Look, honestly, I feel for them, I do, because there’s no perfect reaction and it sucks, and some of them seem to have some guilt about owning the same equipment as a rapist (dude, if you drove the same car as a drunk driver, would you feel guilty? would you worry that the car was going to kill your girlfriend?). But they live here on earth where this happens. To be frank, if I can survive it, they can survive the 9-word summary. I agree that it’s creepy, and I can see that they might need help dealing with it, but again, here on earth, people are not always all about the rainbows and lollipops. You live here, you date here. I’m just saying.
Yep, the price of admission is that some stuff just absolutely blows. Some folks never get used to that, and I really feel for them, too. I mean, half of life is always going to be lousier than the other half. (That’s called “math.”) Our options are:
- Get better at accepting and dealing with the bad stuff, OR
- Get better at avoiding most of your life so you don’t encounter as much stuff.
And you can usually tell which one somebody has picked within about 2 minutes of knowing them, you know?
My current strategy is to hide the baggage where no one but my good friends can see it and not date. Because I don’t want to date someone I can’t be honest with, and I’m tired of being the one-woman Bad Thing Education Band.
Can’t blame you, of course. But that sounds like something less than SuperHappyDelicious.
It’s not that I think it’s a winning strategy–it feels like a “some day my prince will come” dating strategy, which I would class a “non-winner.” But I can’t think of a better one. Can you? Can your readers? I know the good guys
are out there. Is there a way to make it easy for men to just get their space to freak out and figure out what they’re doing and then either be a jerk or be a good guy?
are out there. Is there a way to make it easy for men to just get their space to freak out and figure out what they’re doing and then either be a jerk or be a good guy?
Dear BagLady,
Well, first of all, I applaud you for approaching this question with such wide-open eyes. Seems like you’re really thinking at this thing from all directions, and that’s good. Let me give you one more direction to think from — HIS.
As I mentioned before, guys like to fix stuff. Well, to be more general, guys like to DO stuff. A lot of men feel very, very uncomfortable without a job to do. So my first piece of advice is to address that head on:
YOU’RE SETTING THE TONE
Virtually everybody you decide to tell about your past (male or female, I think) is going to have one thing in common — they’re going to be looking to YOU for guidance on how to deal with you on this. Where is she at with this? What does she want me to do? That’s going to be the big one for a lot of the guys you’re likely to meet. What can I DO? What is my job here?
Ok, before you even say it, don’t bother. I know. I know that you don’t need him to “do” anything or “fix” anything or…well, ANYthing anything. I know, I know. The thing is, he doesn’t know. For better or worse, men don’t understand that. From the perspective of a lot of men, our gut reaction is, “Well…why would she bother to tell me about this problem if she didn’t want my help solving it?” For a lot of guys, the only purpose of talking about a problem is what you’re going to DO about it.
So, what can you do? Let’s do this using a list of three D words. Why? Oh who knows why I do anything?
- DEFUSE: First thing you are going to need to do is to address his initial reaction by getting there ahead of him. “…and I’m ok, and everything. I don’t want you to feel like you have to XYZ about this,” and so on. He’s likely going to feel like whatever his reaction is, it’s not the right one.
- DIRECT: Give him a job to do. What, exactly, DO you want out of telling a man about this stuff? Because I can tell you two things about it. #1) He sure doesn’t know, and #2) the right guy, given that information, will DO it. Like, yesterday. Hell, even most of the wrong guys probably will. If you tell him what. As in, “Listen, I don’t need this to be fixed, it is what it is. I’m telling you this so that…” What? He’s looking for hints as to what you’re hoping he’ll do. Tell him directly, and he’ll do it. Really know why you’re telling him. Hey, maybe you’re not sure yourself. Well, you can only imagine how sure HE is, then.
- DECIDE: It might make some sense to really pay attention to WHO you tell once you know WHY you’re telling it. As in, maybe this isn’t a piece of information you tell a guy to find OUT if he’s the right guy. This is information to tell once you already believe he’s the right guy to hear it. Put another way, if you’re not sure he can handle this information, you’re under no obligation to tell.
THE DOWNSIDE TO HOLDING THIS INFO BACK
Hey look, there’s another D word. How…not very coincidental.
I was trying to think of a reason you should NOT withhold this information until you feel comfortable that the guy can handle it in a way that you need him to. I honestly can’t think of any. I’m not suggesting lying, or pretending to be someone you’re not. I’m talking about only feeling like you have to tell a guy something when it concerns him.
What you tell, when you tell, and who you tell are 100% your business. And I can’t imagine why a guy would have a problem with learning this WHENEVER you feel ok about telling him.
THE BAD NEWS
You say you don’t want to be the One-woman Bad Thing Education Band. Yeah…you might still have to be a little bit. But maybe not in the way you’re thinking. See, you don’t have to educate him about the Bad Thing, per se, not any more than you want to. What you have to educate him on is, what is HIS job now that you’re telling him whatever you’re telling him.
I know it sucks to have to do that, but I’ll tell you what — for most guys, if we know what you’re expecting (and not expecting) from us, we’re pretty good at giving it to you. And anybody who doesn’t do that even after he knows what you need? Well, that’s a pretty good douchebag litmus test right there.
Good luck, BL! Educate him on HIS role, and you’ve set the terms for the whole shebang.
What’s your advice ladies? Any good strategies? How about lousy ones to rule out?
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