Purple is a friend I’ve been in circles with. Green is a teacher of his that he’s taken to following recently. I only know Green from a couple quotes Purple posted, and he seems to be a David Deida clone, but with even less nuance.

Now, this is bad enough. I’ve done over 20 years’ worth of growth by showing up, being vulnerable, feeling my own feelings, with honor and dignity. Working with emotions is one of my core competencies, and it works incredibly well, regardless of gender. So this guy clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about. So I’m struggling to find an example where I can meet him at these words, and the best I can come up with is something like an emo kid who dumps on whoever’s around — and even so, that’s a compensation, perhaps from trauma. While it’s not the best look in the world, I don’t think I’d use the term “defile” in that context.

Oh, right, that’s because femininity is by default a trait of a 2nd class citizen. My apologies, I thought this was 2020. Now I’m concerned this guy might be a pipeline to i.e. nationalist groups that get off on intimidating disabled people. I can’t confirm it, but I can’t rule it out either.

…and then this comes next.
Now we have a situation where he’s calling for action coming from core truth. At this point I can’t be silent any longer.

What was new about this experience is that while I was writing, my rage was there supporting me. When I turned my focus to something else, it receded. Normally when something like this comes up, it takes over my whole day, sometimes for a couple days. But not this time.

And I let it fly, core truth, unfiltered. At the time, I didn’t know the quotee was actually on the thread, and that’s on me for not having read more carefully. Even so, he asked for core truth; there it is. I was livid.

And then he tries to patronize me, completely whiffing on the core truth that he called for. Missed it completely.

And here we are. I was clear to myself that I wasn’t going to make his case for him, and I wanted to see if he could find the nuance. My goal was to use the same countertrolling tactics I’d learned before to skewer him into accountability with his own words, and to make sure he couldn’t accuse me of not being masculine enough. I was not attached to whether or not he got my message; I was simply there to deliver it.

Green doesn’t respond to anything of substance. It’s as though he can’t conceive of a frame where he’s done anything wrong. Instead: blame, gaslight, isolate, and… threats! That didn’t take long.

Rhetorical question, what’s up with this “on notice” thing, anyway? He seems to repeat these themes of "emasculation” and “defilation” ad nauseam. It’s like he’s still nursing a core wound or something. This does not make me confident in his ability as a teacher.

I also find it interesting that Purple is willing to throw New Age under the bus while they embrace it in their culture. I tend to agree that New Age has a lot of problems, it’s also the originator of phrases like, “I feel seen,” which Green says in another part of the thread. So it’s not like he’s paying a lot of attention to consistency or integrity… if that wasn’t clear already.

At this point, I might be laying it on a little thick. I’ve decided I’m okay with that, given how unwilling or incapable he seems to be to meet me where I am. Someday I’ll write a book, “The Art of Trolling Just Enough.” I’m not there yet…

While writing this is when I hit on my central message - that vilifying femininity makes it impossible to honor it later on, either in yourself or in a mate. And that’s when I came up with the idea for a meme. I bounced it off some friends and that started it on its journey to what it is now.

Anyway after I wrote this I took a break for a couple days, to process some of my own emotions that were coming up around this. One of my worst fears for a long time has been getting beaten or worse for speaking my truth. I’d just spoken my truth, and this guy was getting hot about it.

Partway through my time off I checked in, and these had shown up. So now he’s at least threatening to get the police involved., if he hasn’t called them already. Is he actually scared, or is he using this as leverage? I can’t tell. The “I’m scared” narrative doesn’t fit his ‘tough guy’ call-to-action-from-core-truth persona. At this point he just seems to be shoveling shit at me.

It had been three days, and the police hadn’t shown up, so either it was bluster or the police decided not to act. I don’t know. But nightmares of being locked in a cage and getting beaten for speaking up, existing, or acting ‘outside the box’ were back, and it was time to work on them.

One thing is clear: if one cannot handle playing fast and loose with other people’s truth, one definitely shouldn’t go around calling for it, particularly after treating others like 2nd class citizens.

After finding a deep, deep healing inside myself - one which had probably been buried for lifetimes, and one I’m still integrating - I felt I desired to wrap this up. It obviously wasn’t going anywhere, and leaving it to linger wasn’t doing me any good. Time for some closure - on my own terms.

Lessons Learned:

• I stood up to someone who thought they were the shit and survived.

• avoid that which can be misconstrued as a death threat. It gives them too much reason to not focus on what’s important.

• Intense emotions can be limited to the crisis at hand and don’t have to take over for days at a time. When they do, there’s likely underlying issues to work on.

• There are contexts where layers over core truth are useful, valuable, and generally appreciated.