Some thoughts on spending Christmas alone, and watching a terrible romcom:
Spending Christmas alone has so far been a quite lovely experience. Yesterday morning, I walked 15km along the riverside to the next town & back on a bright & cold, sunny day where I stood to watch a hunting sparrowhawk quivering in a cerulean sky, then a small cloud of sparrows swooping & diving in chaotic unison. Walking, I saw a couple of cormorants as black slicks riding along the river’s rippled surface, and a number of ducks leapt with loud splashes into the water as I passed. Finally I heard my favourite sound – the surreal & comical squeak of four oystercatchers as they flapped black & white bodies low then high above a boisterous river barrelling determinedly towards the sea.
Arriving home, I prepared a vegan feast without having to check if anyone minded my culinary choices, and I ate three helpings without feeling judged.
The only glitch in an otherwise wonderful day, was the decision to put on a Netflix romcom or two – I didn’t want to watch anything challenging or that might provoke too much emotion. I was aiming for the giddy heights of the psychological equivalent of eating mashed potatoes, but I quickly felt really fucking annoyed at the repetition of harmful tropes that show a man and a woman who ‘don’t like each other’ in the beginning, eventually falling in love.
Perhaps this is triggering me right now because I’m struggling with a workplace bully of a man who’s unhealthy obsession with me is matched only by his ability to control the narrative, which means that when I make complaints and vociferously speak out about his obnoxious behaviour I’m not taken seriously. I feel that he (and those surrounding him) are using this ‘man and woman who hate, but secretly fancy, each other’ trope to minimise my distress at this escalating situation.
It reminds me of the schoolyard stories of little girls being upset when a boy targets her or pulls her hair only for the adults to say, 'take it as a compliment, it means he fancies you'. As if that makes it okay. As if she should be flattered that he's noticed her and just learn to internalise this bad behaviour instead of calling it out. But here’s the thing, I’m not a child in a playground (although this situation feels like being back at school), I’m a middle-aged woman with decades of experience and wisdom to bring to this situation. I know my own mind, and I will not allow these interactions with this man to go ignored. Additionally, the fact that I write explicit sex scenes in my novels doesn’t mean that ‘I’m secretly gagging for it’, in the same way that a woman wearing a short skirt is not asking to be raped.
I feel strongly that these romcom tropes have no place in a post #metoo world where women’s lived experiences at the hands of toxic men must no longer be minimised or made light of. We need more women writing stories for women, about ‘intentionally single’ women’s rich inner lives, and all the shadow-work that entails, in order to counter this harmful romcom drivel. To be honest I was getting bored of Netflix anyway.
#intentionallysingle #feminism #feminist #solo #introvert #alonenotlonely #romcom #tropes #workplace #bully
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