Sleeping with the enemy
Both of us were propped up on our elbows, facing each other, nestled between white sheets and fluffy pillows, like two angels frolicking in the clouds. The light emitting from his bedside table made everything feel warm despite the AC blasting cold air. Self-conscious I made sure to be under the covers, we just started seeing each other after all.
“How’s dating been for you?”, I asked him out of pure curiosity. I watched him as he laid back on his back, staring at the ceiling. I remember thinking he had the charm of a young soldier—the kind you see in movies, clean-cut and chiseled.
He paused for a second, maybe thinking it was a trick question before replying, “it’s been hard to be honest”, “how so?”, “the girls are just so angry”.
My initial reaction was well, angry, I could feel it creeping up on me. I was so close to word vomit all over him. Because how the hell is it difficult for you? However, I refused to prove him right in the moment even though I know for a fact we girls are in fact, very angry.
I don’t know why, but I was quite taken aback that he noticed. And yet, on further thought, how could they not feel it, when this sentiment has been brewing for ages? I’m not sure why I believed it was some sort of secret we kept from them—as if only we knew how deeply we hated them.
I instead took a breath and asked him to please elaborate. He had told me that it felt like many were on edge and that he felt like he had to walk on eggshells making it a bit tricky to court women.
Did I feel sympathy for him in the moment? Not really. Because there is good reason why it is we are on edge and why it is we do not tolerate much anymore. Women are not angry for no reason. We watched it happen to our mothers, heard it in our grandmothers’ stories, and lived it ourselves. What men experience as hostility is often just women finally refusing to tolerate what they were once expected to endure quietly. We are only trying to protect ourselves. “From what?”, you’d have to live under a rock to ask such question. I could pull out the figures and the testimonies but that would take ages to write down and I truly believe that those that deny that being with a man is easy, choose to close their eyes.
As a straight woman it almost feels impossible to be one these days. It feels like we’d get humiliated at any moment and seen as idiots for falling for a man. It is so humiliating to love loudly, to speak highly of someone just for them to pull some bullshit on a random Tuesday. It’s living in a state of anxiety just waiting for the day when you notice the shift in their demeanour because they have gotten bored of you and don’t have the guts to end things correctly. The idea of remaining single for the rest of my life or settling for some dickhead feels more plausible than a future where I’m married and happy.
And when I think back on all the hardships I went through, most of them had a man at the heart of it, from father figures and lovers to random men in the wild who believed it was okay to molest me from as young as eleven. This sudden realisation almost radicalised me, I have started to carry this disdain towards them and trusted none.
Yet, here I am sleeping with the enemy. Here I am still going out on dates and allowing myself to give it a chance over and over again. if I did not believe good men were out there, I would’ve stopped trying. I would’ve started only see them as solely sexual partners and use their bodies to satisfy my sexual needs.
For some miraculous reason there is something in me that somehow is brave enough to go for it, that despite being disappointed time and time again, I still want to love and be loved, peacefully and genuinely.
I’ve come to realise, however, that my hate for men is only pushing me further away from the reality that I desire and believe I deserve. That I have let it turn me into a bitter and negative person and that is just not who I want to be. Hating them is giving them too much power, enough power to turn me into something that I am not.
Refusing to be angry sometimes makes me feel like I am letting the girls down, that I’m letting my empathy and “softness” be used against me yet again. However, I’ve quickly understood that they can only be weaponised when I let them. Keeping my guard up at all times is unnecessary and possibly robbing me from something that could be beautiful, it takes a lot of energy to be paranoid and I am tired of being tired. I can feel safe when I trust myself to choose to involve myself only with those that reflect my standards, when I trust myself to know when it is time to walk away, trust myself not to let my self-worth be diminished by someone else’s actions. Pain is inevitable but I believe should never be the reason to isolate and be afraid.
I am angry because I have allowed myself become a victim of what others have done to me, taking it deeply personally, when I could have seen it simply as pain I experienced—not proof that I am powerless or less than. Not saying that being a victim is always a choice but I do believe that sometimes it can be. If only I understood that earlier, I would have saved a lot of time.
Something is in the air lately and even though men and women have always functioned differently, I believe that the divide between the two genders nowadays is particularly impressive.
It is hard for me to not point fingers and blame men for this to happen, however, I’m sure we as women play a role in this too. It saddens me that is has come to this, it saddens me that is has come to a point where just because you are a man, my first sentiment towards you is negative when I have barely even given you a chance. I am aware that this behaviour does not help the issues we face as women and only widens the divide. As hard as it is for me, I refuse to play a part in it. I refuse to be radical because of the actions of awful men.
Who knows if I’ll ever make it to the point where I am able to no longer put them all in the same boxes and see them as individuals.
Maybe I will no longer only sleep with the enemy but maybe one day I’ll even befriend them.
Vahine Blaise, Bedfordshire, United Kingdom, December 2025
