The Art Of Saying No Was A Numbing In Our Mouths. We Learned How To Form It Gently, To Swallow The Punch,

the art of saying no was a numbing in our mouths. we learned how to form it gently, to swallow the punch, to let down with gentlest hands. we learned how to fake a smile, to force a chuckle, to take disgust and turn it into polite denial, to take fear and weigh our options and submit. he said he needed sex because oh it hurt how we made him. he said we should have just smiled back at him. he said that we could have learned karate to fight them. he said that we couldn’t say no, he was our boyfriend.

how many girls are raised to feel guilty for no. we feel it must come with a reason. our no has to have qualifications. if our no isn’t enough, we are expected to cave in.

the battle of our inner strength and our outer bodies. how we calculate small injustice versus our personal safety. how we’d form no in small ways that made him feel like it was our fault. how we’d let him down in a way he wouldn’t follow us home. we’d say no without the words; lying about sudden appointments or phone calls, we’d invent husbands, we’d suddenly become best friends with the woman beside us. we always had someone waiting at home for us - usually big and angry - who would notice if we were missing. we enter in our phone numbers with the last two digits switched. we say we’re going to the bathroom we’ll be right back before we take off running.

and our no, those two letters, was never good enough. we either rejected him too harshly or not clearly. if we said no, we weren’t in love. the no was too forceful, the no was too gentle. the no meant ask nicely, the no meant keep persisting. the no was because we’re all catty and cruel and hate nice men. the no was because we’re all paranoid bitches. the no was wait long enough and it’s a yes. the no was playing hard to get.

and our life was learning. it amazes me sometimes when men tell me, “but she never said no” and i hear her story. how he was her boss and she would lose her job and it was her everything. how he said no but men aren’t allowed to refuse these things. i was thirteen the first time i had to spend a two hour train ride gently turning down a middle-aged man and someone else told me i should have just screamed or hit him or done something. how the girls i told all nodded solemnly because they know what it’s like to be thirteen and scared and to be eighteen and scared and how to be twenty-three and scared. because we’ve all said no and had it blow up in our faces. we’ve watched men turn from flirty to aggressive. we’ve seen what happens to our friends.

but in the end it’s our fault. don’t you know a man can’t take rejection.

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