One of the things I love about my relationship with Alan (and there are increasingly many, and most of them are disgustingly soppy things like "his cute widdle nose") is that he has never once tried to justify or explain anything--sex, cooking, personal habits, apartment cleanliness, sports watching, politics--based on gender. I don't think he's ever said "well, of course I'm messy, I'm a guy;" he admits that he's a messy slob, and... that's pretty cool.
Moreso when it comes to sex. I've had a lot of people tell me I'm horny for a girl; Alan only ever says I'm horny. I guess it's a small and maybe even accidental semantic thing but it matters to me. That instead of being a representative of the archetype "girl" which is clean and bored by football and likes cute things and a little reluctant about sex, I'm just Holly. There are no preformed expectations of what a Holly does, and when a Holly drinks strong unfruity things or fixes her own car or wrestles a boy into bed, it's not a deviation from a norm. I'm not a weird girl, I'm a perfectly normal Holly.
(Really, I'm not that unfeminine--I do like cute things and clean floors and I don't understand football--but that's beside the point; I don't want to be a man, I want to be whatever damn person I am and not be subject to arbitrary standards even when I fit them.)
I don't know if it's even intentional; he's never flat out said "I don't judge you as a girl" and I haven't really discussed it with him. He's just never, ever told me how I'm girly and ungirly (or how he's manly/unmanly), and he's the only guy I've been close to who hasn't.
Alan is cool.
So much the better; not stating it explicitly suggests that it's that innate and/or internalized - not something he has to be conscious of to do.
ReplyDeleteI, too, was never very good at being a Girl (upper-case intentional). I'm better at being a Woman, but I'm still a somewhat weird one - the more that gender is defined by roles and behavior, the more I identify my gender as "geek". But, yup, I'm a perfectly normal Sunflower, who happens to be a (lower-case) woman.
Sunflower
Nice. :)
ReplyDeleteI agree. Brandon does sound pretty cool :)
ReplyDeleteMy boyfriend doesn't justify or make excuses for his behaviour (whether it's in regards to cleaning up after himself, personal habits, gas, sex...) either. And I love it.
ReplyDeleteThough the first time I farted in his presence (mind you, I waited a good, long eight months to do it, thank you very much) he gave me this look like "oh my GOD, you can do that!" and I just shrugged and said, "girls do it too, ya know" and that was that. He does still give me a surprised look when I do it (which is not often)...
Anyways, I know what you mean. Erik babbles incessantly sometimes about cars or computers and I just sit there and listen, not because I don't care or understand, but because I love him (he could talk about why Pluto isn't technically a planet for DAYS and I wouldn't want him to stop).
Now if only I could get him off the x-box and onto his resume...