My boyfriends have all been as stoical as queen’s guards. They’d been patient, committed, and dispassionate, and I’d had to really debase myself to extract any emotion, either grin or grimace, from them.
My demeanor isn’t that of a woman enraged. To see me slumped, glassy-eyed, holding a sandwich someone has cut for me into four “manageable” pieces, a person might tell you I look much more like a woman subdued.
I’m trying to figure out precisely which character flaw might be responsible for my latest life failure.
There’s a limit to my patience with anything that smacks of metaphysics. I squirm at the mention of “mind expansion” or “warm healing energy.” I don’t like drum circles, public nudity or strangers touching my feet.
Violet remembered that slap; later her mother had called it a “love tap,” as if to further confuse love with pain.
I once heard someone say that the concept of moderation seems a little extreme, and tonight…I agree.
But in college, we can wear our alcohol abuse as proudly as our university sweatshirts; the two concepts are virtually synonymous.
It’s meant I will act like less of an asshole, but feel much more like one.
I do think anger is so difficult for women. Girls think it undermines their femininity it’s not very ladylike.
I think what I learned in research is that as Americans, we’re very distrustful of anger. We’re not sure if we should repress it. The idea that anger is supposed to be controlled is American, and we try to keep it out of our homes.
I think, for one, we have to really accept that anger is a normal human emotion that can be a positive force for change.