TLDR: 24 year old nice guy (TM), a child of an abusive mother, has woken up to the fact that the female classmate from college he once considered his 'best friend' was based on a lie. Don't be that guy (at least, that guy before he wakes up)

It is with absolutely brutal honesty that I so desperately wanted to hate you guys. The mainstream media, blogs, and various people have branded this subreddit as a hate group, misogynist, fascist, and whatever labels the politically correct elite like to throw at their rivals. Yet, as the allegory suggests, the more I dug deeper into this subreddit, the less I am able to do so, and the more my resentment gets redirected at the politically correct narrative. The rabbit hole just gets deeper and deeper.

To give an abridged version of my life: I grew up with a rather abusive mother and an extremely passive, nice father (who I won't talk too badly about, because he has been nothing but extremely supportive of me in many ways).

She would beat me if I did wrong, which was fair. Children are in need of discipline. When I ended up in my teens, the beatings got more frequent, worse, and for more trivial reasons. Whenever someone would try to stand up for me (my grandmother, or my father), she would have ways of ensuring my undying loyalty ("your grandmother doesn't care for you like I do" or "your father is a slovenly fool who has no idea how to treat children")

The story of my abusive mother is one for another time, and would take up another post. I would like to focus on my dealings with my so-called female friend.

To give a background, I grew up in a very liberal part of the country, where we were taught to respect women, to worship the ground they walked on, and to always give them the benefit of the doubt. This contradicted the horrible girls I've met in my life, one of them bullying me by kicking me and hitting me (yes, sad, I know), but I nevertheless held fast to those beliefs.

In college I met a sweet girl. She had similar tastes in music and games and whatnot. We hit it off pretty well (or so I thought, I had absolutely no idea how to talk to girls at the time). I was a trademark, USDA-certified, fedora-wearing Nice Guy (TM) at the time and thought things would progress naturally and we'd fall in love, just like in the movies.

She broke up with her boyfriend, but like a little bitch, I decided not to go for it; I did not want to rock the boat. I was fully convinced that she was completely above me and that I was unworthy of her hand.

Then she found another man a year later, when I was doing my Masters. She wanted me to host a party on NYE for her friends. As the only single person in the party, you could guess how that went.

She wasn't too happy about my drunken outburst and we ended up getting into a couple verbal skirmishes, but we managed to work through it. I felt, and still feel genuinely remorseful for what I did. That said, we squashed it...

... or so I thought.

One year later, she's been getting into the whole social media, Tumblr-powered slacktivist thing. She was extremely overzealous about getting this one PUA deported, and I openly challenged her, saying that there was nothing wrong with the guy.

Rather than debate this like adults, like we usually do, she savaged me, calling me misogynistic and flinging other ad hominem attacks at me. We don't talk for a month.

Still deeply disturbed by this, I decided to try to reason with her again. This friendship was worth saving, and we could perhaps work out our differences one more time.

Wrong.

She continued to fling more personal attacks on my character. Like the Nice Guy I still was, I tolerated it, until she played an extremely sour note. As someone close to me, she said something about my mother, alluding to the fact that perhaps, she was the victim and not me. That was when I put my foot down and blocked her from my social networks.

She somehow managed to be shocked and decided to hit me up on WhatsApp a couple months later, giving me a non-apology, saying that her remark might have been more sensitive but that my kicking her out of my life was unjustified. I calmly told her that we were done, but she responded that I was being an angry immature, victim complex bitch.

She's right. For the longest time, I have been angry, immature, and subject to a victim complex, the kind of victim complex that all neckbeard Nice Guys have. But no longer.

As of now, I haven't gotten much action, but at the very least I'm extremely careful about who I let into my circle of friends. If a girl suggests that we should just be friends, she's out. No ifs, ands, or buts. And I think it's done me a lot of good. I've been hitting the gym since that whole debacle, and I've been feeling much better. I've learned to treat women like the simple, mortal human beings they are (as opposed to the enshrined demi-goddesses I thought they were) It's a long road ahead, but I know that I will persevere.

She taught me something extremely valuable. Always respect yourself. Never bend over backwards for someone who is unwilling to do the same for you.

And for chrissakes! If there's a girl you like and she only wants to be your friend, don't settle for that. Be brutally honest with yourself and the people around. You won't win many friends that way, but you'll win the right ones.

Thanks guys. I know it's a little ranty, but from the bottom of my heart, thanks.