By Theresa Tyree
It’s my junior year of college, and I’m seeing an old friend. It’s not going well.
“How can Kingdom Hearts be your favorite video game? The main character is completely two-dimensional.” Will stares at me in disbelief, and I stare back, losing interest in the conversation by the second.
Will and I dated in high school. He was a sweet boy – clever, and just as into literature as I was. But our high school pulled a cruel joke on us during our senior year: they scheduled AP Biology and AP Literature at the same time.
Will had always been torn between science and literature as his two loves, but when the school made us choose, he took biology.
I took literature.
The biggest fight of our relationship was when the biology class and literature class had a joint discussion about Frankenstein. I kicked his ass with an argument about how the point of the story had more to do with morality of parenthood than any scientific morality, and he couldn’t let it go. He took it off the battlefield of the classroom and into our personal time that evening.
What stood out to me about this argument was that it seemed like he couldn’t let it go until I admitted he was right. And I wouldn’t.
“You’re not studying literature anymore,” I told him, hoping this would be enough to make him realize that I probably had more authority on this than he did. I never challenged him when it came to biology. I wasn’t studying it. I didn’t care as much as he did or spend as much time and effort on it as he did. Why would I think that I knew more than he? To me, this seemed like the way to end the argument.
Instead, he said, “Yeah, but I still read!” and continued harping on the book until I told him I didn’t want to talk about it anymore.
Now, here we were, years later, just friends, he still pursuing science and I still pursuing stories, having the same argument.
“Sora’s not two-dimensional,” I tell him.
He chuckles, amused, acting like he’s enjoying this. “Yes he is. How can you not see that?”
He starts listing reason upon reason as to why the main character is two-dimensional, when actually he’s showing that Sora hasn’t had a lot of character development yet. He doesn’t even know the difference between a two-dimensional character and character development, and he’s talking down to me.
I tell him the words for what he means. He doesn’t listen. I tell him I’ve been studying this for three years now and he should listen to me. He doesn’t listen. I tell him he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He doesn’t listen. Finally I tell him to stop talking to me about it because he’s just making me angry.
He doesn’t listen.
I cross my arms and stop listening too.
This is a common occurrence. And not just in the realm of stories or in the realm of Will. This is a problem I see in all of my partnerships with men: I am not allowed to be better than them, or it makes them feel emasculated.
In particular, it’s in areas that each man thinks he’s skilled in. Will saw himself as a scholar, and didn’t understand that I knew more about literature than he did. He didn’t have the chance to get mad about it, because he simply didn’t ever think it possible. Dan saw himself as a fighter, and became increasingly frustrated in our relationship as I won match after match against him due to my previous eight years of training in Taekwondo and mixed Eastern weaponry. Addison saw himself as a psychiatrist, and learned the hard way that his degree didn’t trump years of self-discovery spent in therapy when I left him.
But everyone has their achievements, right? It’s not just men who do this, is it?
Maybe so. But I certainly never dated a woman who wouldn’t listen to me or consider me her equal in something if she had cause to. And it certainly never messed with her own sense of self-worth if I made better brownies than she.
In each of these situations, it was not a matter of my actual ability. It was how my level of ability was higher than the men I partnered with, and how that upset them. They either pretended it wasn’t so, were frustrated by it, or insisted so hard that I was wrong that it drove me away.
Will finally talks himself out, and I politely tell him that it’s gotten rather late for me, and that I should be heading home. He seems surprised by this, reminiscing about what a night owl I used to be.
I smile and say, “I guess things change.”
Partnering with men has become difficult for me, and will continue to be difficult for me until it’s actually a partnership between equals. Until then, I’m inclined to admire them from the sidelines and date people whose sense of self-worth doesn’t come from being better than me, and who will allow me to be better than them at some things.
Theresa Tyree is a graduate student studying book publishing at Portland State University. She is currently pursuing her focus of manga publishing by studying in Japan.