Hi all,

I was on here earlier in the week asking about sign slogans for the pride parade this weekend. I've settled on two: Men just need our stories told and one side that says but where do I belong???. Kinda a bit more light-hearted... this is their celebration after all and I don't want to piss people off and ruin their day.

This week has brought quite a change for me, though. I've come on here and I was surprised to find myself sort of arguing in favour of feminism, of its good parts. I'm looking for coherent voices and really over at /menslib they have a lot of valid things to say. They are just completely blind to the notion that feminism might be contributing to the problem & they badly stereotype men, there's a tone of being superior to everyone else, all that. But in the end, some of it makes good sense.

I started my last thread with a lot of resentment and with some pretty aggressive slogans for my sign, but now I'm really feeling like I need to be more open to having more positive interactions with people in the community around me. I talk about people getting rid of baggage, but I'm feeling now how hard it really is to do.

This is going to sound kinda nerdy or something, but I watch a lot of Survivor and I love the strategy part. The harsh truth is that there are so many of them and they have far more power than I do, so the best thing I can do is to try to integrate with them and then do what I can from the inside, maybe cause some rifts. It's not impossible.

To find in myself a way to feel safe in those kinds of spaces, and co-operate... the onus is on me. I don't know what I'm doing. It felt at the beginning of the week like I was pretty resentful, but at this point I almost feel like I need to ask where I belong as a genuine question. Really, I need these people's help. I believe in Montreal, I really do, I love this city and I think it's possible for this to go well. There's definitely a lot of defiance there too, though.

It's really hard to try to honestly take in all the viewpoints and find a space in the middle. The political center is the only sensible place to be if you ask me, it's the only place that's in balance. /menslib is an echo-chamber, but this sub is too, really. This is the internet, in the end.