You don’t fool me, Ms. Woodward Pu. While you seem to anticipate a bevy of congratulations upon your recent accomplishment of putting a man in his place—a bombastic, outrageously chauvinistic, and insecure one, so says you—I could only cringe. That reaction seemed common enough across social media channels and viral news sites, but for me, it was more personal. In your post, I was revisited by the ghosts of my own overly-aired grievances past and the lessons I had to learn the hard way from them. So, although you seem rather ill-equipped to receive constructive criticism, I’m giving it anyway, woman-to-woman (at least I scored a point there), in the hopes that it will benefit someone, anyone in this brave new world.
Like you, I am a writer. As you hinted at, fully-formed sentences will sometimes arise as if delivered by the Divine, which is especially useful when faced with a deadline, less so when it involves lashing out at another person. There are few things so smugly satisfying as a well-crafted retort, but also few instances when one is actually necessary. Having the last word in a text conversation or a blog post doesn’t make us the Austen-esque heroines of our own stories. Funnily enough, it only serves to prove what you tried desperately to deny: We cared more. Since it’s not really fair for me to continue to chide you without owning up to my aforementioned mistakes, here goes. It is beyond the scope of this post to regale you with each and every instance I acted in a way which I now regret. Suffice it to say that for reasons I will keep between my therapist and myself, anytime I felt even the slightest sting of rejection, impending or actual, I unleashed such trenchant, well-structured, and grammatically-correct fury as the world has never seen. Mainly because I didn’t post screen shots of and brag about it. And then the greatest thing that could have happened to me in those circumstances, a much-needed catalyst for self-growth, landed in my lap with an alert from my phone. This time, I found myself on the receiving end of a scathing email, sent in response to one in which I had politely declined any further interaction, based purely on difference in age and interests. This, mind you, was after exactly zero dates. Christ, I thought, so this is what that feels like. A few of his insults found their mark, particularly the insinuation that if I had converted to Islam for my ex, perhaps I would not still be single. Overall, however, I joined the ranks of my previous victims and your recent one in thinking I had dodged a bullet. Hardly the last impression most of us are going for in our dating lives.I hope it doesn’t take the same dose of karmic medicine for you or anyone else guilty of vitriolic texting to stop. Just… stop. Telling someone off has no real payoff. In fact, while I’m at it, there is a bigger lesson to drive home here. Real success isn’t what you acquire (a condo), or what you achieve (two books). Real satisfaction doesn’t come from momentary victories of the ego. Both take a lot of self-examination to determine exactly what you want and what you stand for, and even more discipline to carry those standards out. Know thyself and all that. Because if you are secure in what you have to offer, then no rejection can shake that. And whether you share two dates or two months or two years with a person, walking away knowing you conducted yourself in the best way possible is more satisfying than any last word could ever be. Someday, you will meet the right person, and if you have already established a pattern of checking yourself before you verbally wreck yourself, you are stacking the odds in favor of long-term relationship success. A filter, you see, is not something for weak little girls. It is a tool that allows our best selves to come through.
