This post is longer than usual as I’ll be on holiday next week, but please enjoy and let me know your thoughts! If you’d like to consider becoming a paid subscriber it helps to fund this Substack and you’ll have my eternal gratitude.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a Substack piece examining my feelings around parties, and how they seemed to push my social anxiety to its limits. It was a fairly inoffensive, harmless piece and so I wasn’t expecting the email that landed into my inbox which was from a man named Paul, who yelled at me for writing about this. I read the email, and considering it was a short message, it was impressive how much there was to enrage me.
Pertinent gems include: I needed to take a ‘chill pill’ (the 90s called and want their vocabulary back, Paul), that he lied about not being a subscriber, and that he referenced my late husband’s death by saying ‘you of all people should understand life is too short’.
Aside from the fact that anyone who weaponises Rob’s death automatically earns themselves status in the scumbag bucket and I possess zero forgiveness or understanding around it, I realised that aged 43 years, this is it. This is the end point of me being shouted at by men and not shouting back. (Which I did, I told him to go away and get a life).
In fact, this is the end point for me, for a lot of things around men, specifically when they attempt to centre themselves or assume an unearned importance in my life.
I’ve encountered many Pauls in my life. When I started out in journalism, this kind of man – entitled, patronising, shouty, derogatory – first made themselves apparent by writing and sending letters to whatever newsroom I worked in. Then, when the era of digital journalism began, there would be comments under articles and on Twitter. I would try and engage with these people until I realised there is no winning, because they have no interest in actually saying anything of value, anything that might change or better the world. They just want to shave a few inches from you, so that they might solder it to the bottom of their feet to feel a little taller.
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