If insanity is repetition, is love insane?

By: Magdalena Mihaylova

Nothing changes, but I keep dando vueltas, trying to figure it out.

In The Tragedy of Heterosexuality by Jane Ward, the author questions why women paradoxically express their disappointment or even disgust with men whilst simultaneously and repeatedly desiring or centering them in their lives. “If heterosexuality were a site of significant pleasure for women, this raises questions about why so many straight women appear to be miserable”, she writes. Indeed, for a phrase so often repeated in social media memes, between clinking beer glasses on a night out, or with girlfriends on languid summer strolls –I hate men– it seems to be in contradiction with the decisions and behavior of those who express it. 

In this, I include myself, of course. It’s not rare to hear me complaining about the men who make a stroll through the city or a pickup soccer game feel unwelcoming, and each one of my love interests over the past year have been unknowingly the subject of long, scathing rants to my friends. However, these critiques are more analytical than individual –think “none of us, neither women nor men, will ever escape the prison of patriarchy” and not a simple “he’s a piece of shit”– and therefore tedious and tiring. How do you fix something so structural? The solution isn’t finding a better man –although that seems to be the mantra of most of my women friends who like men– because it can’t be. A “better man” implies a compromise, a settling in the face of inequalities that are arbitrary and consequential. A “better man” just means fewer sacrifices, not pure justice. A “better man” suggests the emotional labor of mothers, sisters, or former girlfriends who have taught him the ways to be “good”. On a personal level, a better man is the best option. On a revolutionary one, it’s lukewarm and lazy.

There is a famous quote that states: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” The repetition of my laments is due, precisely, to the patterns in heterosexual dating that I personally have experienced. I have dated men in the U.S., men in Spain, men who are in their early twenties, and men in their thirties, and the same behaviors exist in all of them, albeit to different degrees. The same goes in the opposite direction: I get excited about someone, cautiously; my skepticism is validated, unsurprisingly; a bit of time passes, I keep trying. The cognitive dissonance that I and other women employ in their quotidian romantic or sexual encounters with men is, to use the words of the aforementioned quote, insane. We have smart, sharp conversations amongst ourselves about our boundaries and desires and how next time everything will be different, and yet we continue involving ourselves with men and putting ourselves in situations which leave us bruised and belittled, accepting postfeminist mantras of “each heartbreak is a learning experience” carefully constructed to ensure the very repetition of heterosexual misery. We read theory and present our findings in our universities, only to pick up the phone in between classes to reproduce the same behavior we were just so critical of; we debate with our boyfriends on these subjects as if they were isolated, neutral academic topics, not transversal and deeply personal. 

We do all of this disassociation seamlessly, crying one moment and laughing the next, because we have learned to survive this way. Because if not, what is left for us? The baggage of knowledge that weighs on you like a permanent backpack full of bricks? The inability to have a fun night out? The burden of being ostracized as a bitter woman? The internalized guilt for reproducing learned behaviors? I personally want to be able to go out, flirt, dance, do whatever, dress however, interact with whomever without having a constant Gender Alarm going off as I do said things. And yet, the thought persists, it lies in wait –it repeats.

In one of my recent nighttime strolls, I was musing on how to break this cycle, which at its worst takes the form of an extremely depressing lucidity in which I feel I will never truly be able to love a man, and at its best, is an amusing but also slightly annoying monotema. As I crossed the wide, empty avenue a few blocks from my apartment, the silence of a Sunday evening empowering me in my solitude, I wondered if that precise moment held the answer to my –and my compatriots’– predicament. That each day I live independently, deciding to walk around the park at 11p.m. or buy myself an ice cream or use the only available rowing machine at peak gym hours or withhold from asking a romantic interest why do you like me? are, in a small way, acts of revolution. That, considering how under our current social structure gendered norms are self-imposed –by this I mean that institutions such as the church, the educational system or the family no longer hold the same level of enforcement of values such as, for example, virginity; rather, under the guise of freedom, we view ourselves as the only ones responsible for our decisions and thus inhibit or exploit ourselves in the process– deciding to personally defy what is required by the gendered regiment is empowering, because in doing so, you don’t self-impose. And as I stated before, no single 25-year-old can or should bear the weight of unweaving hundreds of years of patriarchy. 

As I looked up at the gray clouds, almost like wisps of smoke against the inky blue of the night sky, I thought about all of the proposals I had heard before: sisterhood and solidarity, the critical thought of academia, political lesbianism, violence and revolution, parenthood and the next generation… I think about the power of class consciousness and wonder when a true gender consciousness will come about; when heterosexual women will realize that repeated failures indicate a systemic issue, and thus will never be resolved, even by choosing a “better man”. I recently saw a TikTok where users celebrated the “only successful straight relationship dynamic” –mind you, the original creator of the video was, according to her, a Gender Studies major with a Master’s in Human Sexuality Education– which is when the man is the more “patient, tolerant, and obsessed person in the relationship”. The comments section was full of women agreeing, adding comments such as “he should love you more than you love him” or “I’m a crash out king and he’s my quiet and patient king”. I get the idea: in an asymmetric schema, the aforementioned strategies can assure some level of happiness and control. But aside from playing directly into an outdated gendered script (the men/women-rational/emotional binary) is this what we are striving for in love? Control? Self-protection? Superiority?

I am aware my view is rather utopic and that, in a way, I am contradicting myself. I have cited deeply-rooted structural issues that cause profound emotional suffering, and also criticized survival tactics that try to subvert and redefine this symbolic violence. No one wants to think they are working class (everyone is middle class!) and no one wants to think that they are inferior to their boyfriend. They want to override that hierarchy; govern the relationship at a lack of power in the system. And yet, the pain persists –it repeats.

I suppose this would be an appropriate moment for a conclusionary statement; indeed, I have already made it to the third page and surely the pedantry has led many readers to click off by now. But how is one to end such an open-ended question, especially when it plays on a loop in your head each day you move through the world as (you guessed it) a heterosexual woman, sociologist, lover of love, a person who believes in justice. A tall task, a heavy load. So, the night walks continue, well-accompanied by the indigo sky and empty roads of the city, a proper backdrop for these repeated reflections.