women have been doing the heteropessimism/heterofatalism thing at me for actual decades ("ohhhhh i wish i was a lesbian! men are so awful but i'm straight so what can you do. i guess i can just live alone boo hoo" etc. etc.) & it has always annoyed me but at this point i'm about ready to pop off the next time it happens in person. not only is it weird & disingenuous to say to people you perceive as lesbians but imo it just exposes your absolute shit taste in dudes & lack of imagination

somebody at a zine show earlier this year spent several minutes expounding to me on her zine compiling all the horrible "types" of men she's been on dates with locally & i was like "wow yeah huh. that sucks. sorry that keeps happening to you." she did the straight woman song & dance, ohhh this is my cross to bear, guys are just awful why do i have to be attracted to them! & it was all i could do not to just ask her if she's ever actually tried anything else. not even "have you ever dated a woman" - have you ever been on a date with guy who isn't straight. what about a guy who isn't cis. do you only date guys of a particular age or cultural background? only guys you find in a very specific set of places? what are your criteria for going on a first date with a man, & is it possible that the choices you're making are in fact part of the equation of "all men [in my life] are awful"?

like...i am OBVIOUSLY not some fucking men's rights incel-apologist here, "why do women only want the bad ones, not all men are like that" lmfao nor am i going to argue that the system of patriarchy doesn't result in widespread extremely shitty behavior among a variety of men! possibly even a majority along certain other axes of identity/privilege! but at the same time i am more than a little concerned about how low many straight women's standards seem to be & also how, idk, weirdly attached most "heteropessimist" women still are to normative gender roles & their much-bemoaned status as heterosexual

i do actually think you could try dating women too. or non-binary people. or just different kinds of men! figure out what it actually is that you like - a kind of gender presentation? certain body types/parts? i don't even care i'm not trying to interrogate your preferences i'm just saying, you have probably not exhausted your options & every time you tell me i'm "so lucky" to be queer i am getting this much closer to responding "DON'T DIE WONDERING"

Ha, I just had this conversation at work where it is a woman-dominated field (of the 50 or so employees that work there, 4 are men [and that's including me as a trans man] and we also have 1 nonbinary worker) and the straight women at the reception desk were talking about how it sucks to date men and how the two bisexual women were soooooo lucky to be bi (even though one of them is literally engaged to a man??? She is literally still with a man, folks.)

And there was a lot of "men are stinky and don't take care of themselves unlike women" "men aren't emotionally mature and tend to be closed off" "men are dogs and only want sex" and I'm not saying this isn't true, because it is true that many especially cishet white men are really bottom of the barrel level partners... but I am frustrated that this happens because of a system that allows it. These dudes think the behavior is cute and continue to act this way because the world around them does not expect better of them, writing it off as just being how guys are and never once challenging them to be better than that.

While queer men and men of color have their own problems to be sure, I will say there is a reason we see overall less of these complaints in these men specifically because of cultural challenges to men who act like this and a lack of willingness to tolerate this sort of behavior from them. It's not that gay men are inherently better at taking care of themselves, at personal hygiene and emotional maturity, or at regulating sexual need with other forms of closeness in a relationship. It's that a lot of gay culture does not tolerate or write off the bottom of the barrel behaviors that are encouraged by the patriarchy itself, and thus it quickly becomes clear that this behavior is not cute and won't be allowed to continue.

And it also bothers me because never once do these women consider a third possibility to their choice of "become gay" vs "date guys they actually don't like at all" which is: consider queerplationic arrangements. Romantic friendships. Kitchen table poly FWB agreements. A roommate that you may in fact be totally nonsexual with but have a deep and profound soulmate-like bond to share. Or like. Date dudes of different races and sexualities and backgrounds and see if maybe part of your problem is the choosing pool you're in itself.

Literally the bi woman who is engaged to a man stated that actually she had these same problems ***while dating women*** and then knew that her future husband was The One after he handled the discussion of her bisexuality with far more grace than anyone else had ever before. She also stated that previously all of her relationships both man and women had been white, and the dude she's marrying is Vietnamese, and that slight adjustment for race seems to have fixed much of her problems because of, again, a cultural challenge to the behavior she didn't enjoy. AND she is not ignorant to the way her fiance's mother treats him as the specialist boy who has ever existed while being harshly critical of his female relatives- but neither is he, nor is *he* tolerant of that behavior either.

Yes, male privilege and male entitlement are both incredibly frustrating things to deal with as not only oppressive forces but also as an active problem with many women's dating lives. But also treating these as though they are inherent to the men displaying these behaviors rather than challenging those same men to be better is actively contributing to the problem, as it takes all responsibility and accountability away from the problematic men themselves and writes them off with yet more "boys will be boys" mentality.

I do not tolerate this behavior in my romantic partners nor in my friendships. Neither should you. Neither should anyone.