I laughed in ways I haven’t laughed in years. We were talking about Manny Montana, from the show “Good Girls,” and my friend expressed that she couldn’t figure out why everyone thought he was so hot. I laughed and said, “He’s not hot he’s pretty and there’s a difference.”
That’s when she busted out the “He’s a walking red flag,” comment and I laughed so hard I cried, I’m still smiling as I write this. It made me laugh because she was and is 100% correct. He *is* a walking red flag, and he’s a walking red flag by design.
Everything about him is manufactured to make women – and gay men, love him, or hate him. As a character actor, he does his job incredibly well.
As a human, I have no idea who he is, other than to say his public image is reminiscent of the men I grew up with, and often thought I would end up with.
In Good Girls, the ladies of the cast learn that although his character is beautiful, he’s also incredibly dangerous, and willing to put that danger to the test, time and time again just to prove a point. Yup! Exactly like the men I grew up with.
Men who have no soul are not easy to spot. They come across as charming, gentle, and kind, but they have the kind of cruelty inside of them that is ice fucking cold, and they give zero fucks how you will feel when they are done with you, because it’s not about you.
The same friend found out recently that men are scum. And I say this because I’m the one that fucking told her. She’s younger than me, and I thought it was important to implore to her, that I understand a thing or two about men that she doesn’t, and so we began talking, and I told her parts of my story that I haven’t told you.
Deeper far more dangerous for her to know parts, but parts that I think helped her understand that the average guy doesn’t – and is not – trained to think about how to treat a woman like a lady.
There was a shift between men and women about one hundred years ago, when women gained the right to vote.
As soon as that happened women looked around and said “What else can we get?” Because of course, what’s the purpose of having the right to vote, if you don’t use it to impress upon the government that you want a better life for yourself and those you love?!
Then women got the right to own land, and credit cards, banks accounts, and autonomy over their bodies, but they weren’t done there. They went for education, they went for land rights, they went for as much as they could get, and men stood around for almost a century trying to figure out how they lost control.
Whining about how they lost control for almost a century is how men got where they are today. Now we’re seeing a resurgence of men who have read up on the old days and think that this is how life is supposed to be.
They’ve already taken away a woman’s right to choose abortion whether she needs one or wants one, in the USA. They’re trying to do the same thing here in Canada.
Everyone’s so focused on American politics – and the genocide of the Palestinian, Lebanese, and Middle Eastern people, (as they should be), that they aren’t noticing that here at home our government is growing more and more tyrannical with every passing day.
Men are fighting back. They want the old world back. The world where they can get away with burning women at the stake or ripping her lips off her face, or her teeth out of her mouth. They want to “Sacrifice” us at the “Alter of Vice,” they want to destroy our lives in as many horrible, awful, cruel, ways as possible.
AND YES I FUCKING KNOW IT’S NOT ALL MEN, IT’S NOT ALL WHITE PEOPLE, AND IT’S NOT ALL WHITE WOMEN, HOWEVER…
It’s enough men, it’s enough racist white people, and it’s enough white women, that I am genuinely terrified of ever partnering with a white person.
I didn’t used to be. Ten years ago I would have sworn my future partner was a white man, I would have deliberately chosen a white man because I believed I was different, that I was safe with white men.
And then I got raped again, by a large group of mostly but not exclusively white men, and I realized…it’s too many of y’all.
There are too many of y’all willing to rape a woman, who was raped as a child for decades, just to be a part of a club, just to be seen as “Strong,” because y’all have never been taught what true strength is.
I could have gone the British Colombian way, made deals, gotten violent, and let the blood flow across the entire province. But instead, I decided to do it in a way where I knew – nothing was really going to happen, and I went to the cops.
Purely so I COULD be seen as a rat so that those men would either kill me or stay the fuck away, I guess I got lucky because my name is shit in Surrey, but at least I haven’t been groped, touched, or otherwise sexually abused in the last seven years.
If I have to be seen as a rat by men who think that it’s okay to rape kids, then fine, fuck you because you’re a goof or a goof protector, and I am uninterested in your opinion.
The problem is that y’all don’t wear “Goof” on your t-shirts because you know people would hate you, so you hide, so it’s hard to tell often until it’s too late, whether or not a man is an abuser.
So instead I smile at the pretty Walking Red Flags, and carry on, because I’d rather be alone for the rest of my life, than ever risk being with someone who might turn around and do to me, what AH did to me…purely because he was mad I told his girlfriend to leave him.
I just sort of feel like if you don’t want to be seen as an abuser, or as a possible abuser…you maybe don’t want to spend time defending men who raped kids.
Yes, Manny Montana is a walking red flag, but that’s not a sign that you should push forward. No, you can’t change him, no he’s not your type, he’s your lesson.
Take a look at all the guys you’ve ever dated – men specifically. Now look at the men, specifically, that you as a woman are attracted to, and you’ll start to see patterns.
You may want one thing, but if you’re only looking for half the piece, then obviously you aren’t going to find what you’re searching for.
When it comes to me and my friend, we both have brain damage, from a variety of reasons but especially abuse. Each of us struggles to see the red flags until it’s too late, but it’s easier to spot when it comes to Hollywood because the spotlight is bigger.
Because the magnifying glass that is Hollywood opens us up to thinking that more money equals better behavior. Truth is and I know this from experience, more money just means better hidden secrets.
Don’t be like me and my friend. Don’t choose the walking red flag, or the good guy, choose yourself.
Sometimes we are the fucking problem, not because we allow ourselves to be abused, but because we choose patterns that aren’t healthy for us, purely because they are comfortable. When you break the pattern everything changes. From your dating life to your mental health.
I LOVE being alone right now. And I’m not for the record, in a hurry to change that, because for the first time in my life I’m healing and everything about my life is 100% better than it was where I was living before. It’s exactly the change I needed, even though it hurt like Hell, getting here.
I’m not saying you have to be alone forever, but I am saying when you ARE alone so much, you learn who YOU are, outside of everyone else, and honestly, the company isn’t that bad. I read, I work, I dance, I sing, I don’t draw or paint anymore, but that’s just because I am lazy.
I do things for me, with me, and my friends sometimes too. The one thing that is a huge boundary with me though, is people suggesting I “Need a Man.” Specifically.
I’ve ended friendships because the people in my life couldn’t understand that I am an a-sexual person, who doesn’t and isn’t given my experience, interested in having sex with anyone, let alone a man who might inadvertently trigger me. Or worse, get off on triggering me.
I don’t trust y’all and if you’re angry about that, blame the rapists and pedophiles who hurt me and hundreds of other kids as a child…blame the cops who protected them, and the government who kept it quiet. Don’t blame the victim. I don’t have the strength to carry the weight of your bullshit.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall, The Loud Mouth Brown Girl
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 