Hello. This might be kinda lengthy, so sorry about that. I don't know who else to talk to about this, as it really wouldn't seem like that big a deal to most people. I recently switched school districts, and I have made one really good friend in particular. I will openly admit that I really like her a lot, and that upsets and confuses me because I never felt like this about a girl before, and now suddenly I feel like I'm finding myself attracted to more girls. I don't like it. I feel very uncomfortable and fairly dirty with the idea. I will openly admit that I have a newfound difficulty connecting with a lot of girls, but it's more of a me issue than anything. I have had a lot of girls who I've been very close to, and I find that I've been horribly mistreated by most of them. Honestly this kind of makes me have inherent mistrust with most girls and women at this point, which is something I really need to work on as I get very nervous around a lot of boys too and this leaves me with nearly nobody I'm comfortable around. This is an issue that has been with me for a while now, but today I feel like it showed itself in a fairly negtive manner. I have lunch with my new friend just after civics class, which we also have together. Again, I really like her and I have done a lot of stupid and awkward stuff around her as a result. What I said about having an inherent mistrust of girls doesn't really apply to her for whatever reason. I connected very quickly with her and she seems to understand and respect my boundaries more than any of my other friends. We talked about politics and junk in civics, but we actually talking about it at lunch. I won't specify what the conversation was about, as it was fairly harsh and I don't want to put anyone down for their political views, but I will just say that led to us discussing an issue I had recently involving sexual harrasment and stuff. I told her a lot about certain issues I had been dealing with prior to switching school districts, and she has been very respectful and nice to me about. I didn't really get any actual help with what was happening to me, and sometimes I can't help but feel it was partially because I was a boy and the person harrasing me was a girl. I'm particularly bitter about this because I can say without exaggeration that the majority of people I told about these problems legitimately thought they were funny. I don't think I have ever felt so small and helpless in my life, but most people didn't care. I get very emotional whenever this topic comes up, but I got fairly angry this time and I said something very mean. I actually said that I hate women. Like, to my friend. Who is a girl. It was dumb and I didn't mean it, but I was very upset. it makes me feel really bad too, because she was so nice about it. She didn't even acknowledge that I had said anything wrong. She is a really good friend and she actually listens when I talk about my feelings and legitimately tries to help me feel better. If it weren't for the fact that I like her so much in a less than platonic sense, I would almost liken her to a big sister. I really didn't mean what I said, though. I was horribly caught up in all of the things that happened to me, and I didn't think. Nearly everything that comes out of my mouth is unbelievably stupid, but this time it wasn't even sincere. I was just really angry and trying to get a point across. This makes me feel bad because in a way I was trying to compensate for me being wronged by generalizing every woman on the planet. My best friend is a girl. My mom is a woman. My therapist is a woman. Most of the help I received on this site during the worst period of my life was from females. I feel like it's human nature to generalize, but I couldn't really do it here if I wanted to. I have been hurt much more by girls and women than I have by men, but I have also been helped a lot by them. I don't really know what else to say, other than that I do feel like my default view of someone I have met for the first time is certainly different based on their gender, and hat does make me feel kind of bad. I don't hate women, but I do find I am rather intimidated by them and they make me very insecure and uncomfortable most of the time. I want to fix these feelings, but I don't know how. How can I make myself not feel like this anymore? ---------- Post added 1st Apr 2016 at 08:45 PM ---------- Sorry about the massive wall of text. I didn't realize how much I typed. I'm also sorry if this offends anyone, I really don't mean o be hurtful. I just need to get my feelings sorted out. I'm really more confused than anything right now. I'm also really tired. This was keeping me up and I felt I had to get it off my chest before I could sleep. Sorry if it's incoherent. Just really sleepy right now.
We all say stuff we regret when we're mad. Did you apologise? From the sounds of it she's not mad or upset, but it might help you forgive yourself if you were to apologise for it. After all, you know that you don't hate women, and I'm sure she does too. I hope you feel better soon
I don't think you're a bigot, dear. (*hug*) You've always seemed like a very nice person to me. We all say stupid things sometimes. And beating ourselves up for it doesn't do much good. As Max^ proposed, just talking to her to try and sort it out might be the best thing to do, eh? xoxo
Thank you guys a bunch for responding. I talked to her today and she said she thought it was funny that I was so upset over this. She is so, so nice. I have no idea why I was so worried about what she would think. I'm feelin a bit better about the whole thing now, but I still feel kinda bad. I suppose that the bigger issue I had with this reflects on myself. I feel like it was just a really hypocritical thing of me to say. I was upset because I felt like people were being passive about me being hurt in such a way because I was a boy, and as a result I was mad at all women or something? I don't know. I always really hated the mentality that any sort of prejudice is ever justified, especially over something as baseless as isolated personal experiences. Again, I'm sorry if this hurt anyone's feelings or anything. I try my best to love most people, so I suppose this just made feel a lot worse about myself and my sense of self control or something. I don't know what I'm doing, I'm just inda rambling now I guess. Again, I'm sorry for the long wall of text. Thank you so much to the people who responded here, you really did help me and I love you guys a ton. You have no idea how much less alone I feel sometimes because of this. I'm sorry if this didn't make any sense. I am really tired and my parents aren't home so I kinda started drinking just a little bit so I feel kinda funny. Yeh.
