Dear
Sir,
I dislike you.
How difficult that is to say
aloud! Our culture doesn’t permit this sort
of communication. We’re supposed to be
polite and kind, at least in our words.
To say this type of thing, we’re forced to rely on other methods of
communication. You, however, seem to be
oblivious to those methods. When you are
standing too close to me, you don’t notice when I step back, when my body
angles away from you as if longing to spring into the air. You don’t see the exasperation and discomfort
in my expression while you’re laughing at your own joke, the same one you’ve
been telling all day (and all yesterday, too).
You don’t hear the hesitations before I speak, and you don’t understand
what my pauses mean. My carefully worded
answers to your questions are works of art, so much energy and thought goes
into every word and inflection as I try to express my true thoughts in a
non-antagonistic way. What a waste! I might as well be talking through a gag.
Let me make it clear that your
liking for me does not change my dislike of you. In fact, it makes matters worse. I see the way you treat my friends, have been
standing next to them as you shout and roar for no reason at all. That you later apologize to me, claiming your
anger was not directed at me, does not make it better. It was there, that senseless cruelty that
demands the lowering of others, and I saw it, felt it on my skin. I know it is in you, and your honey-sweetness
to me sticks in my throat. I would
rather you shouted at me, too, so I might be justified in shouting back.
I recognize that your need for
control is a desperate response to the lack of it. Perhaps you do not like the way your life has
gone, and for that I am sorry, but it does not give you the right to tell
everyone that their way is wrong. Allow
me to inform you that I was here long before you arrived, and I was good at
this before you came to tell me how I have been mistaken. I hate especially that your logic makes sense
when you first spill it at me, in that kindly, reasonable tone that makes my
skin crawl, but it is a carefully constructed kind of sense that more often
than not comes crashing down at a single question. I have placed those questions before you once
or twice, punching a hole in your perfect plans, and I could see so clearly the
closed expression on your face, the irrefutable denial in your eyes as you
pleasantly demanded that I do it your way nevertheless. “Humor me,” you say. Well, sir, my humor has long since expired.
I would like you to know
that you have changed a warm, open environment into a place that makes my
stomach sink whenever I arrive. You have
used your power to place yourself on a pedestal, but let me warn you that you
will not stay over my head long. I stop
short at implying that you will be dragged down—God knows that many men worse
than you have remained all their lives in a place they do not deserve. No, what I am telling you is that your power
over me is far more limited than you know.
I am more than you see in me, oh so very much more, and fear will not
hold me in your shadow. I will walk out
into that cold world rather than become as small as you think I am or want me
to be. Do not think of my discretion as weakness. You, sir, will be very much surprised.
Sincerely,
A
woman whose power was not given to her by someone else
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