Am I a shitty feminist if I’m waiting for a boy to text me back? Specifically a cis boy who I used to have a crush on, and I recently found out used to have a crush on me too. We’ve been flirting a bit, over the last few days, and I might like him more than I want to admit. I might like him so much that I seem to be waiting around for him to text me back right now… which makes me feel like a shitty feminist.
Content note for internalised misogyny.Â
I love Pink – I think so many of her songs can be sung as queer anthems. That’s definitely how I sing them – aloud, even though I’m in public – as I’ve been walking in the last few of days. I’m trying to have more fun at the moment: singing and dancing in public is part of that, and flirting with a cute cis boy is part of that. It doesn’t take away from all the shit is still there for me to deal with later, but it feels really good to have fun and make a fool of myself.
There’s one line in particular I can’t get out of my head:
Have you ever hated yourself for staring at the phone?
Glitter in the Air, Pink
This is me. Or at least, it was definitely me last night, when the cis boy I’m flirting with told me that he was heading to bed and thus wasn’t down to sext. I don’t know how to describe how I felt… or maybe I don’t want to. Maybe I don’t want to admit how awful and empty everything felt when I got that message. Maybe I don’t want to admit how much time I’d spent staring at our open message thread during the day, willing him to text me back. Maybe I don’t want to admit that – just for a second – life felt worthless if he wasn’t going to flirt with me.
I hate myself for staring at my phone, and I hate myself for how much his words hurt me. It felt like the bottom has dropped out of my world, because I had spent my whole day waiting and hoping and structuring my plans around him. I didn’t realise that I was doing that, not until he told me that he was too busy to flirt. I didn’t realise that I was doing that because I know that logically I shouldn’t expect his time or attention or his hard dick… but that didn’t mean that I didn’t want those things.
You can’t expect to be a priority to him, I told myself sternly. You’ve only just reconnected, and he has a life and a job and a thousand things that are more important to do than flirt with you. You can’t seriously have expected anything different.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve said some version of this to myself. It’s embarrassing to admit how easy it is for me to start thinking of my day as it relates to the next time my phone pings. I’m ashamed of how much I can care, and how fast I end up in a place where I define my self-worth by whether or not the person I’m into texts me back. I fall into love and lust and infatuation easily, and I want to be proud of that. I don’t think that my vulnerability or directness or inability not to wear my heart and horn on my sleeve are bad things.
But it feels un-feminist to care so much, so quickly, about a boy I barely know.
He’s perfectly my type – slightly cocky, cute as fuck, and better at me than maths. I definitely have a type when it comes to guys, and they blush adorably and use words that I have to google just so I can keep up with what they’re saying. I want to argue with them and I want to fuck them, and I understand those dynamics now so much better than I did last time I talked. So much better that I told him what I wanted, which makes it hurt more (somehow) when he is too busy. His rejection isn’t personal and logically I know that, but because I was upfront and explicit about what I wanted it feels personal. It hurts.
I haven’t checked my phone for the last hour. Ok, IÂ have, but it’s on silent and I’ve only checked my lock-screen to see if there’s a notification signalling he’s texted me back. from him. I haven’t unlocked my phone or looked at our message thread, though. I haven’t stared at that the words that tell me when he was last online, or the icon that tells me whether he has seen my messages or not. I wrote this blog post instead of obsessing over when he’ll text me back, in an attempt not to define myself by whether the boy I like likes me back or not.
I hate myself for staring at my phone, and I hate what staring at my phone means. Waiting for a boy to text me back doesn’t make me a shitty feminist, though. It means I care, and that I’m horny, and that flirting with an old friend can be really hot. It might also mean that I need to work on centring myself in my own life, so I don’t give a little piece of my heart away to people who can break it carelessly quit so easily. Human beings are social creatures, though, and I don’t need to pretend that I don’t enjoy feeling wanted for the sake of being a strong, independent not-woman.
So no, I’m not a shitty feminist if I’m waiting for a boy to text me – and nor are you.
Vulnerability is hard, y’all, and it would mean a lot if you could support my so I can keep blogging about why I feel like a shitty feminist? If you liked this post, please consider leaving me a tip so I can keep bringing you my confessions about how I fuck up when it comes to having feminist sex… or fuck up as a feminist before I even get to sex in this case, I suppose.Â
Quinn Rhodes (he/him) is a queer, trans, disabled sex writer with vaginismus. He’s a slut and a sex nerd who writes about his adventures in trying to fuck without fucking up. Quinn can usually be found wearing stomp-on-the-patriarchy boots while falling in love every time he fucks.
