Women Are Not Trophies
The biggest difference between men and boys is how they talk about women. Boys treat women as though they are trophies. They count how many they "scored." How many they slept with. How well they flirted with them. How many had fallen for them. These are the hallmark traits of boys. I call them boys because they haven't grown up yet. The maturity is simply absent.
Women aren't trophies. They are not medals you collect for accomplishments. They are people. Sure, some of them aren't good, but most of them are. They have their own personalities, their own interior lives. Just because some of them treated you badly doesn't grant you the right to ruin the life of every woman you encounter.
They are human, which means they too yearn for the same things: love, warmth, connection. They too carry their insecurities. Fears that stop them from taking a leap. Nightmares that keep them awake. Wounds they can never speak about. They are silly, which makes them endearing. They want to care for someone deeply, and in return, want someone to care about them with equal passion.
I am not positioning myself as a feminist. Just a man with some common sense. I have contempt for men who flaunt the women they slept with as if they were in some competition. What the fuck do they expect? My respect? No fucking way.
Every woman I ever encountered in my life mattered to me. They gave me their heart, their time, their stories, their insecurities, and in return they heard mine. They fucking mattered to me. It's alright if things fell apart. It's alright to make mistakes, but there's no way I would disrespect them by reducing their existence to a trophy. They loved me with everything they had. And the most honorable thing I can do as a man is to acknowledge that.
I don't want to be the most admired man in the room. I want to be the man with some semblance of honor. I have flirted unashamedly. I have been vulgar. I have done all sorts of things you can imagine. It's foolish to pretend I didn't want those things as a man. And neither did they resist them. The consent was there. So I have been shameless. But in the end, it was between me and them. That's where it ended. That's where it will remain forever.
I will never respect the boys who don't know how to fucking treat the women in their life. I am not asking you to bend the knee, but be a decent fucking man.