If you’re getting notified about this, FYI, this post is old.
Picking up from yesterday –
Stories of good friendship:
Some people got it so right – which is how I know it can be done. So, here are some stories of my friends who got it right
- 1) Stand firm in your position. For me, I was making a billion excuses for my rapist all the time. “Maybe he didn’t mean to.” (Even after he point-blank told me he meant it, I still questioned that!) “But everyone says he’s such a good guy,” etc.So, when I would sort of re-litigate all that with my friends, it was the ones who stood really firm in their position that “it was sexual assault, he overstepped your clear boundaries” who were the most helpful.Now, that’s a tough thing to do, right? Stand really firm in your position while also listening to your friend.
They never shut me down. They never were like, “stop thinking this or that, or saying this or that! That’s dumb!” No. They’d usually soften it with some kind of joke. [*super sarcastically*] Oh sure, the man who just completely ignores you when you’re crying and climbs on top of you when you ask not to be touched, and laughs at you when you say you’re uncomfortable, and tells you that you’re obviously not uncomfortable (when the words just came out of your mouth) [etc. etc.] that definitely sounds like a super normal sexual experience to me.
That exact thing must’ve happened to you a million times before, since that’s what normal sex is, right? Everybody cries during sex, right? Just like he says?” (I mean, I don’t think I do that sarcasm bit as well as my friends did. But it was the one example of sarcasm (which I so often hate) that I always welcomed haha.)
I love the friends who wanted to listen to me, wanted to hear me out, wanted to give me space of being able to explore “huh, maybe he didn’t really understand.” Of course it’s sweet to have listeners. But you cannot go on that journey with me. You can watch me do it, but you have to stay FIRM on your own ground, no matter what journey I’m going on. I’m already undercutting myself all the time. So, I need you to not help me in hurting myself – to not jump on any little piece I pick out of “but he seemed like a good guy!”
Sure, yes. He seemed like one. But it’s not our job to take a tiny kernel of niceness and extrapolate it to cover up all the bad things he did. And I need you to stand firm.
[Random side note: It was usually (not always, but usually) my male friends who were the super-stand-firmers and my female friends who’d go down the “weeeeeeeeell, maybe he’s not bad. Maybe he was just confused” rabbit hole with me. I have no idea what that means. Just a weird observation.]
And this is where I’ll pick up tomorrow!