Selective Empathy

Okay, so let’s be painfully honest for a second. It’s easier to have empathy for people when we’ve been through what they are going through. It is easier to have empathy when we understand their perspective. One of, or possibly THE biggest issue for me is guys and their hormones and women-using, hedonistic crap. I have absolutely no empathy for any of that. It is just wrong.

But let’s think about that for a second. Guys are children, just like me, and then they hit puberty, and they have all these hormones. I never had those particular hormones. I know the girl’s perspective, and I know it is wrong for a guy to think girls are interchangeable and to want to just use girls for sex. But seriously, how would they know that? Who would tell them that? How would they figure that out for themselves when they are flooded with those hormones? The hormones drown everything else out, so I’ve been led to believe. What could happen in a guy’s life to snap him out of it and realize that women are people, too, and they should not be used? That they should want an actual RELATIONSHIP, a BEST FRIEND, a CONNECTION with a girl? I don’t think a guy can go to his parents with every erotic thought he has in order to be talked out of it and shown how to have a healthier view of women. That all makes me very upset but I’m TRYING to have some empathy for it and just understand how things would turn out that way for them.

But then I’m confused. I know guys who are not that screwed up. I’ve known guys to truly love and cherish a woman, and to want a meaningful relationship with a woman, even at a younger age. So what am I missing here? I’m trying to take a good, long and honest look at this species called “males” and figure out what would be a valid expectation here. I seriously think I need a guy with mommy issues. I think those types are looking to be loved and accepted by a woman to reflect their longing for love from their own mother. Otherwise, men probably feel like any woman will pamper and spoil him, just like his mother. That’s expected and is interchangeable. Is that really what it comes down to? I just want someone broken in the right ways… is that the difference between the kind of relationship I want and the kind that I don’t?

Back to the main point. I’m trying to have some empathy for men. I’m trying to see that, truly, the hormones and expectations on them have caused them to be crappy for periods of their life. But again, what could I expect to happen in their lives that would make them wake up and grow up? Just wait until they are 30 and their testosterone starts to diminish? But I wanted someone who was never that screwed up… what is the least screwed up that could be understandable? So many questions I am asking myself right now. And I’m not focusing on these questions, these are just things in the back of my mind as I go through my life. I’m in no rush to figure this one out. This is a huge issue for me and it will not be resolved quickly. I honestly don’t expect it to be even remotely resolved for another year or two. But I’m working on putting a dent in it. Empathy. Hormones. Needs from their own broken past. I’m trying to stop looking at them as evil and start truly taking a look at life through their eyes as much as possible so I can really figure out what makes a good man and what doesn’t. What can stay in the past and be forgiven, and what is just too much.

To be continued…