'Let Me Be Your Soldier'

“Let me be your soldier,” he crooned in my face.

I fought to keep my face on straight.

Ten minutes before this moment, I was finishing my story of sexual violence and trauma.

Ten days after this moment, he was gathering his housemates for the house meeting in which he would summarily eject me from his house.

For now, he was singing Lionel Ritchie.

“Let me be your soldier,” he sang, all lower-middle-class white Jewish boy-man of him. Sure.

I’ve gotten used to a certain kind of man reacting a certain kind of way to me. He likes the idea of himself as a warrior. He likes the idea that he might embrace his own masculinity in a real way, might go to war on my behalf. He likes Ideas like honor, glory, and triumph. He likes the idea of himself as a hero.

This kind of man grew up on fairy tales. He grew up on the idea that because he was the handsome white boy, he would become the heroic white man. He was raised to think that becoming an adequate leader of men was as simple as having a pretty face and a clever way with words. He had both, so he assumed his destiny was sealed.

This kind of boy grew up to become a sorely disappointed kind of man.

Turns out leadership is harder than it looks. Turns out becoming a warrior is about more than just how hot you look in leather astride a horse. Turns out doing real things means really trying, and that got hard, so he stopped. Easier to watch from the sidelines while the real men did what he only talked about.

This kind of man knows deep down that his actions just are not worth much. He tells himself and others he “suffers from low self-esteem,” but that’s only because he has not done much to be proud of. He tries really hard at the few things he does do, which probably are feminized versions of masculine activities of old, things he convinces himself Really Matter in the world though he knows all too well they don’t.

This particular man worked in a garden. At the time, I thought it was sexy. He worked outdoors and smelled like soil and sweat. How manly, I thought.

Until I overheard him talk about how disappointed he was that the tomatoes were taking so long to ripen. Frustrating, he said, to put in all that effort, for so little reward.

There went all my grand illusions of a man who loved gardening for its own sake. Some people like to nurture for its own sake. Others are obsessed with whatever they can get from their efforts. I suppose I always knew which kind he was. I simply did not want to see it.

After all, he was so pretty. And he sang to me. Who wouldn’t fall for something like that?

I was vulnerable, tender with grief. I wanted to be understood and he talked about community, about growing things, about allyship. He said all the right things. I thought maybe he would hear me, when I spoke to him. For once, I thought someone would.

I was so sick of being talked at. Of being sung to. Of being treated like a pretty object, like the buried treasure at the end of a fairy tale journey. I wanted to be treated like an equal partner.

He did not want an equal partner. He wanted me to become one more biracial queer member of his biracial queer horde of lovers. He wanted to be a stallion with a herd, and he assumed we would all be fine with that.

I was not fine with that.

So I was summarily ejected from his house. I have a few regrets, but mostly, I’m glad to be gone. Whatever I’m looking for, it doesn’t exist in that man. Standing up for what’s right isn’t about what you say to a cute girl when she’s sad to make her want to sleep with you. It’s about what you do behind closed doors when no one’s looking.

Someday I’ll find what I’m looking for. With any luck, soldier boy and I will both get what we deserve.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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