Essay: Woman & the Manic Pixie Fuckbois
New band name?
It’s early summer and my musician boyfriend is sobbing in my arms. He’s crazy about me, he says, but he’s not sure we should be together because we have such different hobbies. I don’t know it yet, but he'll circle back in two months and read me long entries from his journal detailing the reasons for his avoidant attachment in an attempt to woo me back. But for now, he’s crying because I don’t love live music enough. The next day, my book becomes a national bestseller.
I write this essay with a great deal of both empathy and exhaustion in my heart for what I call the toxic sweeties, the therapized fuckbois, the manic pixie dream dudes who leak their trauma all over the world like oil from a bad Buick. The ones who pour their guts out to you at bars, in bed, over sushi. Who make love to you like they might actually love you but who refuse to do the true work of inner healing. The ones who can beautifully articulate their flaws but who won’t change their behavior.
I believe men desperately need and deserve women’s support and community. I believe they, too, are devastated by the impact of patriarchy. There’s a revolution to be had and I’ll rally by their side. I’m ready to ride to war for men, but I’m tired of finding their arrows in my own belly.
Look, I’m culpable here too. Musicians, emotionally unavailable divorcées, and men with addictive personalities seem to be a cocktail I can’t stop drinking. I love men and I love giving them second chances, sometimes a third. I often don’t advocate for my needs. I’m such a sucker for intellect and sweetness that, at times, I overlook obvious instability. I’m torn constantly between the generosity of trust and the necessity of hyper-vigilance. I do what I have watched women do all my life: pacify and appease. I repair, even when I haven’t caused the rupture. Somehow, I attract unhealed men who identify as feminists and yet repeatedly use their trauma to justify why their needs trump mine.
A few months ago, I came home to a man crying on my porch. Noah was begging me to give him a second chance. His life has been hard—he has ADHD, a precarious job, and a terrible family. I spend long hours listening. I hold his weeping face in my hands, and I tell him he’s good. I tell him to go to therapy and stop using women to fight his loneliness. Your behavior hurts me, I say. He cries harder. He’s finally ready, he says, to be a good man.
A week later, at a party, a woman confides in me that she’s been seeing him too. With the precision of forensic scientists, we compare dates to discover that the weekend prior, he must have left my house just in time to wipe his tears and drive directly to hers. My new friend and I sit weirdly with our wine glasses. I’m really fucking tired, she says. Me too. I say.
An acquaintance recently told me that when you sleep with unhealed men, their trauma gets stuck to your cervix like a virus. Well shit, I thought, I’m out here trying to avoid HPV and pregnancy and men with fucked up attachment styles and now you’re telling me I’ve got to also worry about their unhealed trauma getting suctioned to my uterus? My god. But some days, I worry it’s true—I’m constantly absorbing men’s pain like a drunk sponge.