by Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl (retail) (epub)
Just visiting an old friend, I say.
I tell Chris how hard it is to talk to acquaintances lately.
If somebody asks what I’m working on, I don’t know what to say. Telling the truth borders on rude. But being vague also feels rude.
Why is it rude, he asks, to say what your book is about?
Because who wants to enter a conversation about sexual assault?
But isn’t that the point? Chris says. You’re writing this because people should be talking about it.
Sure. But am I supposed to describe the book to my hairstylist?
Why not?
It’s not rude?
No. Not at all.
. . .
HIM: That just—I understand how women can come to that frame of reasoning. But that kind of stuff drives me totally insane.
ME: This concern—even when I look back over the transcripts of our conversations, there are times I see myself being overly reassuring. I said things like, I hope you know I’m not mad at you. I hope this is helping you. And so on. I’ve probably already done it in this conversation. There is this desire to make men happy. Or to not upset men.
HIM: It’s just a social conditioning thing.
ME: Yeah.
HIM: Neither here nor there, but could the insanity that is incels happen at a more opportune time for the purposes of this project?
ME: What are your thoughts on that?
HIM: I don’t recognize these people. I don’t understand it at all. And I feel like I’m in a position to. But I don’t. I try not to do hatred—because it just doesn’t work for me. But the contempt these men have for all women—I just don’t, I don’t understand it.
ME: These guys—a lot of them are on Reddit. I’ve never used Reddit. Do you ever use those sites, the ones that these angry incel guys are ruining?
HIM: I was pretty active on Reddit for a number of years, but that was before, mostly before—this is going a little internet nerd, but Reddit circa 2004, 2005, was mostly disaffected grad students and college types. It was bro-y even then, but it wasn’t the right-wing troll factory that it is now. Which happened because at 4chan—which is where all those people used to post—there was some crackdown. There was drama with that website, and so there was this mass exodus from 4chan to Reddit, and within the space of maybe a month, the culture at Reddit completely changed.
ME: One of my students mentioned 4chan to me, and I didn’t know what he was talking about. I asked him what it was, and he claimed it’s really very nice.
HIM: It’s not. It was never. 4chan was the place where every troll-y right-wing meme originated, ever. It was just a place for people to be awful to each other, for fun. And also to share anime porn.
ME: So you don’t really use Reddit—
HIM: I haven’t really been an active Redditer in, I don’t know, two to three years. The last several years I had been on Reddit I was mostly answering questions in AskScience.
ME: I know there’s a cute animal section on Reddit—because friends will send me photos from that. That’s useful, actually. [We laugh.]
HIM: There are two or three good subreddits that are just cute animal pictures. And the rest is mostly awful.
ME: You mention incels and that whole movement, how it’s been in the news more. And then #MeToo is happening.
HIM: The intersection of the #MeToo movement being so public and then you contacting me—and then I read your book and felt horrible and—it was just like, for about a month, every time I would see a #MeToo story, it felt like it was about me personally. Which is reductive or whatever. It was probably healthy in shaping the reprocessing or reckoning with what had happened, in retrospect. So maybe that’s good.
ME: Do you and your brother ever discuss #MeToo?
HIM: We pretty much talk about NBA Twitter exclusively. And whatever ridiculous thing Trump is doing that day.
ME: I guess it’s NBA trade rumor time.
HIM: Yeah, we’re heading into free agency and the draft was yesterday. I follow the NBA pretty closely. I’m a serial obsessive. For two or three years, I’ll be fixated on one subject, and so between ’07 and 2010 or so, that was mostly the NBA.
ME: So you’re into sports.
HIM: I am exclusively into the NBA. And mostly I got really into NBA analytics—because of course I did, because I’m a huge nerd.
ME: So you and your brother haven’t discussed #MeToo. But your dad, has he talked about it?
HIM: Those aren’t conversations we’re really equipped to have. I get the general sense that he’s very supportive, but where he’s at in terms of his own personal reckoning, I couldn’t tell you. He is the most conscientiously ethical man I’ve ever met. It’s really important to him to do the right thing by people in every conceivable circumstance.
ME: How much do you think about—not to sound too academic, but ideas of masculinity—
HIM: And the curse that is toxic masculinity and so forth? I mean, I wouldn’t say I spend a great deal of time thinking about it, but more just when I—it occurs to me more when I meet other men, and I’m just like: Why? I was actually driving with my dad to Lowe’s or something to pick up God knows what. And we were sitting at the stoplight next to these forty-five-year-old biker guys in the big leather vests—[Server comes, checks in on us. I order another drink.]
ME: So you guys were at a light next to—
HIM: Yeah, just some biker guys in the Harleys with the loud exhaust, and I don’t know. I got viscerally angry, like: Why would you put on this whole costume and pretend to be a badass when you know you’re an accountant who does nothing? The whole fantasy I don’t understand.
ME: And thinking of toxic masculinity, I mean: How about Jake’s uncle’s house?
HIM: Sure, that’s completely fair.
HEREIN LIES THE TRAGEDY
I’m reviewing the transcripts in a gluten-free, vegan café in a trendy Baltimore neighborhood when a man comes in wearing an attitude shirt: GOT MANHOOD? He walks past my table and I turn and see the back of his shirt: Herein lies the tragedy of the age: not that men are wicked but that men know so little of men. —W. E. B. Du Bois.
I Google Herein lies the tragedy of the age and find the full quote (which wouldn’t have fit well on the back of a T-shirt): Herein lies the tragedy of the age: not that men are poor,—all men know something of poverty; not that men are wicked,—who is good? not that men are ignorant,—what is Truth? Nay, but that men know so little of men.
I think of Mark’s clichéd notion of toxic masculinity. The point of this project is to show what seemingly nice guys are capable of.
. . .
ME: Did the conversations that happened—
HIM: Jake’s uncle was a pig. He was all, Bitches this and women are the worst and this is why. He was the worst.
ME: And you and Jake—
HIM: We were barely friends when I was living with him. And a year or two of living with him was enough. I haven’t talked to him in probably—not quite as long as since I last saw you, but pretty close. At least a decade.
ME: You were pretty depressed while living there. And you were depressed in high school, certainly. How much do you think that factored into what happened?
HIM: Oh, that was definitely part of it. I was right at the cusp of a breaking point in general. And some of that ended up focusing on you. I think I said this a little bit earlier, but I always just assumed I would kill myself at some point. I think it wasn’t until my midtwenties when I decided, No, I think I’m going to stick around.
ME: I was thinking about how—
HIM: And—oh, go ahead.
ME: No. It’s okay.
HIM: I’m curious about what you’re—
ME: When I think back to that time, I was in a bad place as well.
HIM: Yeah, we were miserable together. [Server interrupts, checks on us.]
ME: We were both depressed, sure. But why do you think you acted in that way in your depression?
H
IM: I don’t think it had that much to do with you—other than you were in my line of fire, so to speak. But yeah, and especially at nineteen when you’re pumped full of hormones and not sleeping at night. I don’t know if I could construct a narrative where it makes sense that this happened, but I do feel like it was part and parcel of what happened.
ME: I’m trying to think of the worst act I’ve committed when depressed. Far more men than women commit sexual assault.
HIM: Sure.
ME: I guess what I’m—I don’t know what I’m asking.
HIM: Why did I convert angst into sexual assault?
ME: Yeah.
HIM: It’s a good question. Especially at that age, it was more important to me to—it used to really bother me as I got—when I was college-age—that I hadn’t been in a relationship, hadn’t had sex. That used to make me angrier than it does now. So that was probably part of it.
ME: Do you think if it hadn’t been me? If it had been someone else in the friend group. Amber, for example?
HIM: Do you mean: Can I envision a scenario where this happened, but it was Amber and not you?
ME: Or any other woman?
HIM: I think possibly other than—you remember earlier when I was talking about making embarrassing confessions? I’d already done that with Amber at one point. And it ended ugly.
ME: How did she handle it?
HIM: She shut me down pretty hard. Which is fine. But I don’t know that I took it particularly well. As I recall, I wrote her some ridiculously embarrassing email.
ME: Was it around that time?
HIM: No, this would have been at least a year or so before.
ME: It’s been so long that it’s hard to reconstruct, but the one thing that confuses me—
HIM: Okay—
ME: Why carry me into the basement? That’s the one thing—I don’t really remember the house that well.
HIM: If I’m being totally honest, this is a two-part answer. One, yes, I used to hang out with people in the basement. I had a computer down there and we’d watch movies. Two— [Server brings me another cocktail, takes away our plates.]
ME: So you were saying, one, you would go down there—
AND HE’S DOING THIS WILLINGLY?
Chris and I are drinking with friends on a back deck lit with string lights. The house belongs to a couple we’re just getting to know. Almost everybody here writes. One guy served in the air force and now works at a recycling plant.
This professional recycler, I worry, feels bored by our writerly discussions about the revision process. Also, he is the only guest without a significant other. So I ask him about recycling. How much should we clean our jars and bottles before dumping them into a recycling bin? And are the caps really okay to recycle? Why are some yogurt containers not recyclable? Or has this policy changed? Why do some companies allow for paper and plastic to mix? Chris and I and the guy who lives here listen to his explanations. The others, on the other side of the deck, discuss an editor who shut down his poetry press after multiple sexual assault allegations were made against him. One of the poets here, a friend, lost two books. Her second book was forthcoming from that press. Her first book, as a result of the press shutting down, will soon be out of print.
And he never apologized, she explains.
The guy who lives here, he’s also a poet. He asks me what I’m working on these days.
I look at Chris, and Chris says, It’s really interesting.
I hesitate, hedge, say, It comes out next year.
The poet and professional recycler are looking at me, expecting more.
I’m interviewing a guy, I explain, who sexually assaulted me fourteen years ago. We used to be friends, but obviously the friendship couldn’t survive.
And he’s doing this willingly? the poet asks. Talking to you?
Yeah, I was sort of surprised.
Wow, the recycler says.
That is interesting, the poet says. You know, my brother, he raped someone. This was years ago. It’s hard to talk about. I’m still upset about it.
Do you and your brother, I begin—but I don’t know how far I should take the question.
This poet and I haven’t spent much time together before this night. His openness surprises me.
He’s my brother, the poet says. I love my brother.
Knowing about the rape, I tell him, that must be really hard for you.
My dad, he beat him, the poet says. Really beat him after he found out. Violence with more violence. But I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t think about what he did. And you want to know the fucked-up thing? The other day, they all went golfing. My brother, the woman he raped, and my dad. I remember how after the rape, there was this whole boys will be boys attitude. And now it’s been years. So, this guy who assaulted you, he’s really open to your project?
Yeah, I tell the poet. He says it’s the least he can do.
I was a horny popular guy in high school, the poet says, but I never—I just can’t understand why a guy would assault a woman, especially when she’s drunk. I remember being drunk with a few buddies in college, and we went into a dorm where a woman was totally naked and passed out on a couch. One of the guys went over and started fingering her, and we all told him to cut it out. It’s stupid. It’s just so horrible and stupid.
That night, in bed, I wonder about the naked woman. Does she know that a stranger raped her while she was passed out?
I almost wish what Mark wished: that I’d been so drunk I’d forgotten.
. . .
HIM: But two, the more I think about it, the more I’m certain that some version of what happened was in my head.
ME: You thought that by suggesting—
HIM: That something might happen. I don’t think I thought, If I could just get her downstairs I could do this. I’m sure I thought downstairs was to my advantage.
ME: Before I came here, I was talking to my friend Leigh-Anne, a gender studies professor, and I was talking about how the basement really confuses me. There were other parts of the house. The basement stairs were pretty steep as I recall, or maybe not.
HIM: I think they were pretty normal stairs. They’re steep if you’re drunk.
ME: Being carried down the stairs, I told Leigh-Anne, I keep thinking about that. You’re not sure if you suggested the basement?
HIM: I don’t remember specifically, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
ME: That was the—
HIM: Yeah. I could see that sticking.
ME: Right. Because it’s the difference between—
HIM: It’s the pivotal—
ME: Right. How premeditated was it?
HIM: Which, I mean—I just—again, I don’t know if it’s the kind of thing that makes it better or worse, but it honestly wasn’t a premeditated decision. It wasn’t like I set out at the start of the day.
ME: I haven’t been in touch because I’ve been trying to understand how I feel about all this.
HIM: I mean, I know I said this before, but I kind of assumed we’d never ever talk to one another again—because this thing had happened.
ME: But even recently, I mean. Since the last time we talked. I’ve been out of touch because I’ve been trying to figure out my feelings. I went into the project thinking, This will be a fun intellectual exercise because I’m mostly over it.
HIM: Maybe not quite as over it as you thought.
ME: Yeah. I was recently swimming laps and I looked around the pool and no other swimmers were near me, so I went underwater and I screamed—because, you know, I can’t let anyone hear me get angry. But yeah, I’ve felt angry. And I’ve started remembering more. The night comes back to me at unexpected times. I was telling a friend about this project and she said, Yeah, it’s in the zeitgeist. And I wanted to say, That’s not why I’m doing it. But then I thought: Okay, that is why I’m doing it.
HIM: You can do something that’s topical and not have it be because it’s topical.
ME: Right. It
is something that’s been on my mind for a long time now. I told Chris that after Trump got elected I started having nightmares about you and about my newspaper advisor, and Chris told me, It’s not since Trump got elected. You’ve been having those nightmares for as long as we’ve been together. Every few months, you wake up and I ask you what’s wrong and you say, Mark. And I—
HIM: Jesus.
ME: I kind of blocked it. I’d think, Why am I so upset about this thing that wasn’t what it—
HIM: I’d rather you be upset with me—
ME: No, I know. [We laugh.]
HIM: Clear enough on that point?
ME: For so long I muddled the narrative, making excuses for you. How you were drunk and all. But then I think about how manipulative you were that night. You hushed me when I started crying, told me that it was just a dream. I recently went through a period where I felt really pissed off. And now, I don’t know, fourteen years later, hearing you say that you betrayed me, I feel grateful. And it’s so messed up—that I feel grateful to you for acknowledging your betrayal of me and agreeing to all this.
HIM: You can be, but you don’t have to be grateful to me.
ME: But that’s why I’m interested in the project. Because I can’t sort out my feelings. For so long I was afraid to contact you because I worried about your feelings. I didn’t want you to get depressed. Chris told me, You can’t let Mark’s feelings get in the way.
HIM: Chris is a smart guy, it sounds like.
ME: He is. And then I felt so stupid for such a grandiose thought—to think you’d hurt yourself based on this. [We laugh.]
HIM: I laugh because I do the same kind of stuff.
ME: I feel kind of narcissistic there, because why would you hurt yourself because of this? And part of me—what’s been helpful is I wanted to know that it affected you, that it wasn’t just—
HIM: Yeah, I could see that being useful, to know that remorse existed.
ME: Your apology doesn’t seem like an apology crafted by a publicist.
HIM: See, that’s what you don’t know. I have a team working on my statements. [We laugh.]
ME: The fact that you felt really bad about what happened, that was really helpful for me to know. Not that I wanted it to totally ruin your life.
