I’m A Woman — But You Can’t Categorize Me

You took her out to dinner. She wasn’t your type. She spoke loudly and had this weird hyena-like cackle, so you decided to break it off, even though you thought she was cute.

She thought things were going great, so she texted you the next day. There was no answer.

She got nervous when she didn’t hear from you, and called you three days later. Still, no answer.

You told her you would call, but never did. So she sent you a final text, asking that you please give her the courtesy of providing an explanation.

She wanted to know where things left off, but you were silent. Instead, you told your friends how annoying women are. They laughed.

I’m a woman, but I’m not annoying.

Months of non-committal exchanges went by. She eventually got a hold of you, but only enough to just barely feel satisfied.

As far as she was concerned, you cared for her, and she wasn’t sure of anything else.

She kept telling you she loved you, and you would say it back. But something was missing.

You broke it off. She was devastated.

She wrote you a million messages begging you to take her back.

You kept telling her you loved her, but couldn’t deal with her emotional outbursts anymore.

She cried herself to sleep every night.

You texted her saying how badly you missed her, then you started dating someone new.

She never heard from you again.

Your new girl asked if everything was okay. You said, “I’m fine. Some women are just crazy.”

I’m a woman, but I’m not crazy.

She asked you what was crazy about her. She asked what went wrong. You didn’t want to talk about it.

“She was just too much,” you said.

A few months went by. You ended every half relationship you had. Your family checked in to see how you were doing. You didn’t want to talk.

You got drunk. You got in a fight with your ex’s new boyfriend.

You blamed it on her.

“Why do you like to cause problems?” You asked. “Why can’t you just stay away from me?”

“Women are so dramatic,” you thought.

I’m a woman, but I’m not dramatic.

A year went by. You met someone new. She was beautiful, smart, and funny.

She wasn’t too loud. She was always agreeable. She never asked you about your past, because she didn’t care.

“It doesn’t matter how you felt about anyone else. As long as I know how you feel about me,” she said.

You didn’t really know how you felt. And yet you showered her with gifts and constantly praised her.

You waited to see if she would slip up. You waited for the crazy to come out.

It never did.

One day you asked her to marry you. You said she was the only woman for you, and that you would be lucky to have her as a wife.

She agreed.

You felt pretty lucky. You thought she was lucky too.

Later on you found out your friend was having problems with his girlfriend. He started to complain about her all the time.

She nags him. She constantly tells him what he does wrong. She’s never happy.

“Yeah. Women are never happy,” you tell him.

He leaves her. He tries to find someone better. He wants things to be easier.

She’s devastated. She feels crazy, annoying, confused, dramatic, delirious.

She’s not happy.

She thought she should be with him and wanted to be his source of strength, but she felt weak.

She asked me, “Why is a friend’s opinion more important than the woman who stood by her man during hard times? A friend who went through women like a deck of cards, while I tried to challenge him?”

I said, “It’s because men like that don’t want to be challenged. They want to stick to the games they’re good at, and everything else just stands in their way and agitates them.”

When they see a woman they see a prop. They look for something tangible, so they can manipulate it until it fits into their strategy to win.

It’s like a game of blackjack. These guys can flip through the entire deck, and card after card after card they only see one thing because they are simply playing with the hand they were dealt. They have one goal, each card serving them a purpose, until they hit 21.

They hit and stand, and stand and hit. And every guy hopes for the Ace and the Queen right off the bat, so he can walk away feeling accomplished, even though he just got lucky.

But you’re a woman. You’re not a pawn. You’re not a stereotype, and you’re not here for someone else’s personal gain.

You’re not annoying, because you called.

You’re not crazy, because you cried.

You’re not dramatic, or a distraction, or hard to please.

You’re a woman, not a category.