An insecure man stammered his way into my life last week.
Like all insecure men, this one hid behind his computer screen and cell phone because he was too much of a coward to face a real person let alone anyone from my household. I use such a generalization because this particular individual has tried to antagonize me before. Some of you might recall the peculiar incident involving a man on Facebook losing his mind with me over Starbucks and their Christmas cups. For those of you who don’t, this little fella tossed around some word salad on a mutual friend’s Facebook page over how ignorant and horrible I was for not worrying about War on Christmas and the weapon of mass destruction known as the Starbucks Christmas cup.
It was quite the angry and mostly incoherent rampage which resulted in our ecclesiastical leader forcing asking him to apologize. Recognizing he was a weak person, and perhaps in some sort of duress at the time he posted his deranged Facebook attacks, I told him I appreciated his apology. I did not accept it, however.
This is all neither here nor there, however. I hardly remember this individual as he is of no consequence to me, nor are his drive-by insults of me on other people’s Facebook pages. But I do believe that even his insecurity hit the rockiest of bottoms last week.
Last week, he went after my son.
Again, in his typical cowardly fashion, he sat behind his computer or cell phone, and tried to insult my son on a mutual connection’s Facebook page. Not only this, but he tried to use my son’s love and loyalty to me against him by insulting me and impugning my character in this public way and in an avenue where my child would read it. It did not work. First, the mutual connection deleted it before my son even had a chance to read it. And second, after my son was asked if he had seen it or was aware of what was written about me or him, he laughed, saying, “If that guy can’t say it to our faces than his opinion isn’t worth anything.”
My son has endured far too much in his personal life in the last year alone to even pause for a second and be concerned over what an adult man thinks about him or his mother. Why? Because my son has more courage, strength of character, and respect for others than this man will ever have.
Cowards go after the children of the people they despise, and I don’t care how old those children are. And the worst cowards are those who do it online.
And I’ll be perfectly clear — and you know who you are — when you send text messages like these to my husband, you only confirm what a joke you are:
By the way, someone needs to explain to you what no contact orders and harassment charges are for and how the First Amendment works. (Free speech works both ways.) Full disclosure, this is the “ignorant idiotic comment on Facebook” my son made that “opened him up for that response”:
Totally ignorant and idiotic, right? Frankly, I am damn proud of my son for being articulate and well-informed. I’m also proud of him for having his own opinions and not simply agreeing with adults merely because they are adults. I’ve purposely raised him to ask questions and to think for himself, and to not accept answers if they don’t seem right. What I haven’t raised him to do? Call women “psychotic and delusional” because they happen to challenge his view of the world.
Petty and sexist men threaten women with accusations of mental instability. It’s like they all have the same playbook. This form of gaslighting is a way to preemptively strike against possible opposition by laying the groundwork for people to not believe what the woman might say. In this case, by saying I am psychotic and delusional, he is reinforcing the idea that I am “crazy” that way when he goes to the police for his supposed harassment charges, he can present his diagnosis of my delusions as a basis for those charges. Gaslighting is a way to erode reality and to make people second-guess their lived experiences.
Who thrives by gaslighting? Weak men do. Men who are so insecure in their own reality will gaslight others because they can’t stand the idea that women are strong and secure without them. These are the men who can’t stand the idea that other people, especially women, can have opinions different than theirs, can have careers on their own, be economically independent, and be intelligent with their own thought processes separate from a man’s reality. It threatens them until they project their own behaviors onto the other person. Why does this man attack my son on Facebook? Because supposedly my son’s ignorant and idiotic comment warranted such a response. Yet, my son’s comment wasn’t ignorant or idiotic so clearly this guy projected that response onto my son in order to justify the behavior.
There is no honor or strength in manipulation. There is nothing noble about hiding behind a screen, angrily tapping on keys, trying to force your viewpoints onto others. The irony of this man’s political ideology snidely calling others “social justice warriors” while he sits there waging a stupid and pointless battle on a 17 year old boy who didn’t even care enough to go back and read the notification of his response is hilarious to me. The only true warrior here is my son who quietly goes about his days trying to become a better person.
I don’t care about insecure men. They are not my problem. You are not my problem. Don’t bring me into your personal crisis management plan. And don’t think for a moment I care about being psychotic and delusional.
I haven’t ever let the words or actions of a weak man make me crumble, and I don’t plan on starting to now.
Published by ShadowTeamsNYC and represented by Lisa Hagen Books
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