Drawing a general conclusion from a specific case is unreliable at best. However, based on experience and reflection I now believe that the positive thinking/visualisation tenet of 'say or believe something enough and it will become true' is fundamentally, bunk.
I met my first girlfriend believing I would forever live up to the ideals I instinctively projected onto myself. These ideals included possession of sound ethical judgement. And consistency of purpose. And the ability to love. Very important that last one.
All good so far. And clearly good enough to attract one particular young woman. Within a few days of starting University we were together, and stayed together for over four years. Precisely how to write about this relationship, and how it fits into a 'feminist' life in progress is the tricky bit.
My fundamental message is that all the words and beliefs in the world make no odds if the underlying psychological reality is unhealthy. That psychological reality can be personal or it can be shared. In the case of this relationship, I would attend the University Women's Group (as the only man present) and then return home, still unable to communicate my feelings to my girlfriend. As a result I would retreat physically away from her and continue the negative spiral.
I wouldn't call this hypocrisy (although to some it may have appeared that way) but rather, a lack of experience and self-awareness that couldn't easily be overcome by reading 'The Second Sex.'
I don't wish overplay the sense of tragedy, or the idea I did anything like beat my girlfriend or cheat on her. I did not. The process was more like a gradual dimming of optimism and hope, the strangling of anything positive in our lives together.
Some perspective is also helpful here. To me a credible feminism means acknowledging that responsibility should be shared if the truth of the situation dictates. In retrospect I understand that I took the lazy and egocentric way out by sinking into a degree of self-hatred when I realised the relationship was not going well. Which of course escalated the problems within the relationship and therefore my self-hatred. Etc. Etc. Etc.
In summary and from the vantage point of many years later, I can see three things pertinent here to a feminist life.
The first is that positive intentions and the desire to 'do good' can cause a lot of pain without a con-committant honesty and ability to make decisions. In this case I (and we) let the relationship live beyond it's natural life for a complex set of reasons. One of which, in my case, being the desire not to hurt my girlfriend. However, I was actually hurting her more by letting the relationship drag on and on.
Second, and related, is that liberal guilt is corrosive and out of it's appropriate context, destructive. The reasons for liberal guilt are outside the scope of this post but may be revisited in more detail sometime.
My final conclusion is that a liberal instinct to do good, and be good, doesn't change the underlying psychology and projections extant in any relationship. True self-awareness takes time, and comes only after much reflection and experience. A further outcome arising from this process of learning is the discernment to see where 'I' end and the other person begins. An awareness of the individuality intrinsic to every person gives us a chance to overcome the projections that screw with our most intimate relationships.
This post is longer than usual, and possibly one of the more difficult passages I will write here. But I hope it has been useful to unpack is difficult subject matter in this, the last of my 'introductory' posts.
During the next week or so I'll start exploring specific subjects, perhaps at random, but consistently addressing the fundamental concern of this blog. Which is to relate the pleasures, pitfalls and perspectives of a male feminist.
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