Double Feature
Very eventful couple of weeks for my social life.
My 2:09 am question is:
“Do you think me blind to your self-centeredness?”
My 2:10 am question is:
“Do you know that Teddy compared male-centeredness to prostitution this week and that I found it profound?”
Loud and proud, I'm going to say it, texting me anything other than “I hope your show goes well, I'm sorry I couldn't make it” in the middle of my show is egregious. It's especially egregious if you RSVP’d. I can accept no text at all, I'll forgive it. However, blowing up my phone with a bunch of other shit during a show I am producing, acting in, and directing in is obscenely self-centered. It's happened to me a few times over the years and obviously it happened tonight which has me on the keyboard. I just really struggle to fathom existing in a mindset where I know someone is experiencing a major life event and I decide to fix my fingers to center myself in that moment. I don't think it's malicious, I just think it's fascinating. How do you get to that level of self-centeredness? What kind of environment breeds a lack of awareness outside of the self to that level? My first step in thinking about the behavior of others is to reflect on my own behavior. What have I done in similar situations? My friend Kat was on their first date in months a couple weeks ago and it was pretty monumental for them. I ended up getting dumped in the middle of their date. Kat is the friend I have the most emotional closeness to. I did not tell them until the date was over, I had talked to them about the date, prioritized their feelings and learning about them, then I shared my upset. I texted Mallory about it in the meantime, another very good friend for emotional connection. So, I would say I actually handled that without an ounce of self-centeredness. I'm going to check “no” on deciding if I am a hypocrite about this. So, now I'll scrutinize. Obviously, I cannot shrink the childhoods of every self-centered person I know, but I can shrink my own and see what made me who I am.
“Anyone paying that much attention to you or me is the real weirdo!” My mother rolled her eyes as I threw my Vera Bradley tote into the back seat.
I was so frustrated with her that a tear rolled down my cheek as I climbed into my booster seat.
“Are you crying?” My mom laughed at me. “For what? Be normal!”
I decided not to engage with her. Instead I looked out the window and did my best to not get more upset.
My mom didn't really have a lot of empathy for me, but she felt bad that I was crying, so she tried to muster up some faux softness to comfort me. “Baby, of all the things going on in anyone’s world, you are the most insignificant. She won't think twice about what I did and if she does, she needs to find something better to do with her time.”
I didn't understand what my mother was teaching me that day in the 6th grade while I sat in my booster seat that I had to use until the 8th grade because I was so short. It took me about a month to really understand what she meant and it informed my decision making for the rest of my life.
Anyone that spends their time having a parasocial feelings for me is fucking weirdo and I would be a weirdo too if I did that.
This understanding set me up to have a defined and unwavering sense of self. I am never making decisions based on what I believe others will think of me. A self-centered person is a deeply insecure person that believes everyone's actions have to do with them. They don't consider that other people have lives going on outside of them. They don't consider what another person might be thinking or feeling outside of wondering what that person is thinking or feeling about them. A lot of people misunderstand self-centeredness as only talking about yourself or maybe being selfish or egotistical, but they're wrong. Self-centered people are usually just insecure people with narcissistic habits.
That conversation with my mother could have turned me into a self-centered person if it went like this:
Me: Mom! You embarrassed me! Everyone is gonna laugh at me!
Mom: oh oh! I'm sorry! I don't want everyone to laugh at you! Here I'll give you a treat
Me: Mom!!! You're so embarrassing I hate you!
Mom: I'm sorry, you're right. It's okay if they laugh at you though! Don't let it hurt you.
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That conversation seems okay. Right? However, the idea that people care enough to think about the child has not been challenged. The mother apologizing for her child’s unreasonable response creates the idea that something is wrong. This is circumstantial of course parents should be accountable if they hurt their child, but in this instance, there is no real issue. The issue is the child is having a self-centered thought and it needs to be squashed. Also-coddling this response creates a desire for emotional victimhood because the child now associates it with comfort. The mother has created a self-centered chronic victim. Awesome.
Is it the child’s fault that their parents shepherded them poorly? No. They should recognize it and change though. I think especially if you're chilling with me, you have a clear example of better behavior. I know, I know that I have had a lot of privilege. I'm privileged to have parents that listen to NPR, I'm privileged to have grandparents that were well traveled and worldly, I'm privileged to have had so much access to competent psych professionals. I know, but I share! I share a lot! I write this blog for God's sake. If you're chilling with me and lack introspective thought at this point you have to be willfully ignorant. Or…if I'm allowing some kindness…you never learned how to think.
I really don't want it to be that these people don't know how to think. That would really put me in a bad way.
How do you get to your late twenties and not learn how to think? It's more likely that they don't know how to think.
My cousin and I chuckle a lot about how people don't know how to think. It's funny when we laugh about it, but right now it feels like a terrible cloud over my head to sit in the the idea that so many people around me lack the ability to think. I feel like Eeyore. Can it really be? That they are self-centered because they don't have any other thought skill. Because that's as far as their thoughts can go. OMFG 😭I'm sitting on a park bench in the East Village trying to scrape up some language to describe how I learned how to think. I'm reminded of last year’s ski trip when people were asking me to teach them to ski. I couldn't teach them because I learned so young. Skiing and thinking critically are as natural to me as walking or breathing. My world feels upended by the deduction that others are not naturally thinking critically.
I just looked up how to teach Critical Thought. I'm trying to remember when I learned it. What I can find is my mother saying to me
“Think about it before you ask.”
“Think twice, speak once.”
“Use context clues, don't ask.”
“Do it yourself”
“What do you need to do differently to yield a different result?”
“How can you fix it yourself?”
These are actually some of my earliest memories of my mother. She never created a space for me to be incompetent. It wasn't welcomed. If it wasn't taught, it must be nature. Right? Perhaps. The variable is that I'm autistic. Would I have been as capable if I were neurotypical? Is it perhaps hereditary? I think for me it was. I only ever experienced critical thinking. I'm a multigenerational thinker? Have I coined a new term? I'm a better thinker than my mother because my mother was a better thinker than her mother, but we're all better thinkers than most. Critical thought is often hereditary, but it can be taught.
I won't be teaching it for free.
Part 2: Teddy
There's something about pounding pavement in Flatiron on a Friday afternoon that makes me want to phone a friend. That something is a need to distract myself from the urge to buy everything I want. There's no funnier distraction than Teddy. My handsome, hilarious, high energy Teddy. Teddy is the only thing between poorly behaved Muslim men in New York City and The Wrath of Iman…
“I'm proud of you,girl! You didn't bitch him out, you asked him for consent, what else can you do? He didn't know who he was dealing with, he's scared, you don't have to beat him down anymore.” He tried to convince me to quell my vengeful nature.
I sneered. “He didn't know he was in the ring with a big dog.”
“Exactly! He didn't know and now he knows. Let him lick his wounds. He's not crazy though! Most girls would have let him do that. Especially these male-centered girls. They’ll beg for a man to stay. Clearly he didn't get to know you if he thought that was gonna happen, but he's a guy! He's just a guy!”
I groaned loudly and stomped my foot. “Don't get me started on male-centered women! Ugh they're driving me nuts. I don't get it! You don't even know that guy! Why is your life centered around him?”
Teddy laughed. “It's weird too when they're like that. Only a real psycho would want to be with a woman like that. Knowing that because you're giving her attention, everything else is out the window…I would never say this outwardly, but I think it's kind of similar to being a prostitute. Just having your entire existence centered around appealing to men.”
Strong analogy wow!
Is being male-centered like prostituting your sense of self?
First, let's talkabout what male-centeredness is!
“Because there's romance, like you're kind of romantic! I would say you care about having romance in your life, but you have zero tolerance for bullshit. No amount of liking a guy would make you be dumb. You like and care about the concept of romance. That's different. A lot of girls feel bad about being romantic because they're scared it makes them male-centered. Being male-centered… that's just being a bird brain.” Teddy explained.
The Prostitution of the Body vs. the Prostitution of the Mind
Prostitution is commonly understood as the exchange of sexual services for money or other compensation. However, there is a broader philosophical question for the culture: what happens when a woman begins treating not only her body, but also her mind, values, and judgment as things to be surrendered in exchange for male attention, approval, security, or affection?
A woman who prostitutes her body may exchange sexual access for material compensation. A male-centered woman may exchange something less visible but equally personal: her convictions, her discernment, her self-respect, and sometimes her solidarity with other women, in exchange for the possibility of being desired, chosen, or protected by a man.
The transaction is different, but the underlying question is similar…”What is a woman willing to surrender to receive something she believes a man can give her?”
Think about a woman who overlooks a man's dishonesty because she thinks he is attractive, wealthy, or desirable. She hears an explanation that she would immediately recognize as suspicious if it came from anyone else, yet she accepts it because believing him allows her to preserve the possibility of a relationship. Another woman warns her about his behavior, but she dismisses that woman as jealous, bitter, or vindictive. Instead of evaluating the evidence impartially, she protects the man's reputation because doing so protects her own hopes.
In this situation, the woman is not necessarily exchanging her body for money. She is compromising her intellectual independence to preserve access to a man. Her desire for his approval has become powerful enough to influence what she considers believable, what she considers acceptable, and whom she considers credible.
A sort of “prostitution of the mind”. The mind is supposed to evaluate evidence, recognize contradictions, establish boundaries, and distinguish what we want to believe from what is actually supported by reality. When a woman repeatedly suspends those functions to maintain a man's interest, she is effectively making her judgment conditional on the possibility of male reward.
The same pattern can appear in a woman's treatment of other women. She may excuse a man's infidelity while condemning the woman he cheated with. She may dismiss reports of his misconduct while accepting his denial without scrutiny. She may compete with women for male attention while treating the man whose attention they seek as some sort of prize. Her moral standards become flexible when applying them to men and unforgiving when applying them to women.
These are situations where male-centeredness can become a form of self-betrayal. The woman is not merely interested in men; she has allowed the pursuit of male approval to influence her relationship with truth itself.
However, the comparison has limits. Sex work is not inherently degrading, and someone who engages in it does not necessarily surrender her autonomy, values, or judgment. Conversely, a woman can be male-centered without exchanging sexual access for any tangible benefit. The relevant distinction is not whether a woman has sex with men, but whether she retains agency over her own decisions.
The strongest version of this argument is that a woman can exchange her intellectual independence for male validation just as she can exchange sexual services for compensation. In both cases, the important questions concern agency, incentives, boundaries, and what is being surrendered in the transaction.
A woman can choose to share her body without abandoning her principles. She can love a man without making him the authority on her worth. She can desire marriage without treating singlehood as failure. She can believe a man when the evidence supports his account and hold him accountable when it does not.
The problem is not the desire for men. The problem is making that desire so central that a woman's judgment becomes negotiable…🐣🐣🐣
Are You a Bird?
Answer Y (Yes) or N (No) to each question.
Do you spend a lot of time wondering whether men find you attractive?
Does male attention make you feel more valuable or desirable?
Do you change your appearance primarily to attract male attention?
Have you neglected friendships, hobbies, or personal goals for a man?
Have you tolerated disrespect because you wanted a man to like you?
Do you make excuses for men who consistently treat you poorly?
Do you prioritize a man's potential over his actual behavior?
Have you changed your personality, opinions, or boundaries to appeal to a man?
Do you feel less successful or fulfilled because you're single?
Do you compare yourself to other women based on how much male attention they receive?
Have you competed with another woman primarily for a man's affection or approval?
Do you believe being chosen by a desirable man validates your worth?
Do you prioritize finding a partner over building a life you enjoy independently?
Do you believe a woman's life is incomplete without a romantic partner?
Do you value men's opinions more than women's opinions, even when women have more relevant knowledge?
Do you believe a man's excuse even when his behavior contradicts his story?
Do you accept explanations from men that you would consider suspicious if a friend told you the same story?
Do you dismiss your intuition because you want to believe a man's explanation?
Have you ignored obvious red flags because you didn't want to believe a man was lying?
Do you rationalize a man's shady behavior instead of holding him accountable?
Do you give men the benefit of the doubt more readily than you give women?
Have you blamed another woman for a man's questionable behavior instead of holding him responsible?
Do you dismiss women's warnings about a man because you assume they're jealous, bitter, or vindictive?
Do you automatically believe a man's version of events over a woman's without sufficient evidence?
Do you accept secrecy, inconsistent communication, or unexplained absences because a man says he's busy?
Do you interpret minimal effort as proof that a man genuinely cares about you?
Do you defend a man's questionable behavior because admitting the truth would mean accepting that he may not want you?
Do you make exceptions to your moral standards when a man you're attracted to violates them?
Do you judge a man's character more by what he says about himself than by his consistent actions?
Do you prioritize protecting your perception of a man over acknowledging evidence that contradicts it?
Scoring
Count your Y answers.
0–6 Y: Mostly self-directed
7–13 Y: Some male-centered tendencies
14–21 Y: Noticeably male-centered tendencies
22–30 Y: Strong male-centered tendencies
If you scored above 13 on this quiz, I'd like to help you find a qualified professional to break you free of this affliction. Please reach out ❤️
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