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Calling out toxic normalized behavior
[Note: I originally wrote this essay as an answer on Quora.] We swim, every day, in an environment made up of a toxic stew of unhealthy relationship ideas, many gifted to us from an age when women were literal property, seen as unfit for anything besides baby factories for male heirs. Social attitudes toward relationships teach us us so many, many things that are not only counterproductive, but actively destructive. And many of these toxic ideas serve no function except to make us miserable. Image: Danilo Alvesd Much as I’d love to list them all, I doubt there’s space here for that. I mean, where to start? How much time you got? If I were to hit the highlights, they might include: Mate-guarding behavior. This takes a lot of forms, but it’s always, always rooted in paralyzing insecurity. The headwaters from which mate-guarding flow look like “I am worthless. I am garbage. As soon as my partner wakes up and figures Read more…