loose threads

Did you know that men have respect tanks that need to be topped off, like your car’s fuel tank? I imagine men going about their days, periodically glancing down to check their respect gauge. I bet some of them will see their tank full to the brim, huff and grouse while they tap the gauge with their finger, claim the damn thing is broken because their tank is damn near empty, goddammit. It’s funny to think of men stopping at the respect station on their way home for a top-off to make sure their tank is always full and ready for action. A man with a full respect tank is a happy man, and isn’t that our collective goal?

Of course, this isn’t at all what they meant when they introduced the concept to our “singles” church group. We were learning those oh so critical interpersonal skills required to be a godly man or woman (ah, ah, there’s only two) in pursuit of another godly woman or man. Women, it seems, don’t have respect tanks. Our tanks run on something only a man can provide, some bullshit like mercy or affection; the fullness of our tanks depends on how well we fill the respect tanks of the men in our lives. 

“But what if he hasn’t earned or doesn’t deserve my respect?” is not a question they want you to ask but I’ve never been one to think these things through. 

Did you know that you respect men, period? You don’t bestow this honor of humanity based on your moral compass and beliefs, or how the person treats you and other people; apparently, men spring into being with respect turned on by default while women spring into being with a factory setting called “diminish” that can neither be modified or removed.

Time is weird, the way it moves forward and backward, upward and downward, in directions we haven’t discovered yet. All of these ripples and strands and networks of time work together to warp events, to give us thick wavering opaque eyes with which to view our injuries at the moment they were inflicted. How strange to sit back and see the rings around this planet of bullshit, to watch your younger self realize in real time that they would’ve marched you back into his arms at spiritual gunpoint.