Okay, hear me out. I'm going to share an embarrassing story, and I'm already tidying up my inbox to get a bunch of hateful messages from a bunch of hateful men. But I'm going to share anyway.

A few months ago, before I found FDS and embrace its tenants, I had recently broken up with my boyfriend of two years and was, let's say, feeling pretty shitty. About myself, about life. I wasn't looking for a "relationship" necessarily, but I wasn't not looking for that, either. I started talking to this guy on an app. He was exceptionally average. Not attractive, but not unattractive (and definitely not the "Chad" that incels constantly think we fawn over). Not interesting, but not uninteresting. Distinctly and forgettably average.

We didn't talk long before he mentioned feeling lonely and wanted to "cuddle". Having been out of my relationship for a couple months at this point and feeling decently lonely myself, I let him come over. Mind you, I didn't realize that "cuddle" was Man Language for "fuck" (Girls, this is ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS TRUE. MEN DON'T GIVE A FLYING FUCK ABOUT CUDDLING**). So I let him come over. Of course, several minutes into "cuddling", this fucking stranger started getting handsy and "omg I'm so sorry I didn't mean to you just turn me on" blah blah blah bullshit. We've all heard it. We could all write a fucking dissertation on the "uwu I didn't mean to" lies men tell.

So me, being the PickMe little bitch I was with no backbone and even less self-esteem, hooked up with him. It was dreadful, and a complete waste of my time. And guess what fucking happened! He left immediately after, saying he had "a family emergency" (lol), and then unmatched and blocked me within minutes of leaving my house. So not only did I feel used, I felt used and rejected and disgusting. It's embarrassing, but I doubt I'm the only one who has ever felt this way. The worst part was, I thought this might happen but my need for approval and my fear of rejection was more important than my emotional and physical wellbeing.

And that was a major turning point for me. I realized that most men are fucking opportunists. They may be "good" to their friends and family (even their female friends and family) but that does not mean he is good to the women he wants to take from. I'm sure this normal, average man was a great son and a good friend. But he's still fucking awful to women he doesn't care about. Behind every "good man" is a string of women he used and discarded when they didn't benefit him. Oh, a guy is being SOOO nice to you? How does he treat people (specifically women) he doesn't want something from? Is he a good person, or is he just horny?

We can't control what men do and how they are, but we can control how we let them treat us. We can say "no" and not play their little evil games. We can protect ourselves and protect our hearts and bodies from men who haven't earned them. We can grow into women who love our own company enough that we can say "no thanks" to low effort, stinky-balled, ratty-ass, porn sick sofa sloths. Block. Delete.

When men (and even other women) say our standards are too high, we should think to all those times when our standards were basically non-existent, and meditate on the gross, disgusting, used, discarded feeling we felt. And then we should laugh at them. Laugh at the people who say we're "picky" or "unrealistic". Laugh at the people who say we should "settle". Laugh until we're literally crying from laughing, and then mop our laughter-tears with our degrees and our money and our plane tickets to beautiful remote beaches with our girlfriends that we can afford because we didn't settle for losers. And nobody on those beaches will tell us to settle.

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** And don't even try and comment about how your boyfriend just LoOoOoOoVeSsSs cuddling. Cuddling in relationships =/= strangers. stfu.