you don’t deserve a thing

I was writing up a post on conventions in general but current events have taken precedence and I will release that post another day.  Over the weekend another in a seemingly endless series of mass murders took place in California.  A young man injured 13 people and killed 7 including himself in a vengeance rampage that seemed to be fueled by his lack of a love life.

I first heard about this on Monday and the online article that I read linked to his last YouTube video where he explained what he was going to do.  It was a 7 minute long self-pitying rant about how his love life was unsatisfactory and how he had done everything required of him to “get a girl” and how he literally blamed the entire world for what he was now going to do.  He apparently also wrote a 100+ page long manifesto that went into more detail but after hearing his video I felt I didn’t need to hear more.

One thing that struck me is the way he continued to use words like “deserve” or “fair”.  He said that for all his efforts he deserved love and that women were not being fair by denying him that love.  In his mind they were not people.  He in fact refers to them as animals.  To him they were merely prizes to be won if he put in the hard work and effort.  He really didn’t care about their happiness or what they wanted.  All he cared about was his own happiness.

This holds up an uncomfortable mirror up to all the male gender and how we relate to women around us.  Do we really see the women in our lives as equals?  Or do we instead see them at best as second-class citizens and at worst as inanimate objects to be used at our discretion?

What’s particularly troubling is this idea that there is a magic formula for “being loved” and that it’s all a merit based system.  The notion that if you persist enough and do all the right things that eventually you will wear down the woman of your dreams and make her your own, regardless of how she feels about it.  This turns the woman into an objective to be won and conquered and is pure misogyny plain and simple.

In this life you don’t deserve a thing.  You are not guaranteed to get the woman of your dreams, guys.  If you’re going to find that true love of your life then it has to be a two-way street and the attraction has to be mutual.  If it’s not there, then it’s not there and it’s time to move on and get on with your life.