"I Live In A World of Facts, Not Lollipop Land", or Fragile Masculinity Invades Yoga Space

Poor Landsdowne Herakles is missing his penis.

So I had an interaction today at yoga today that isn't terribly unusual in my day-to-day experience with men who aren't my (awesome) husband but until now has been (blessedly) atypical within my yoga class.

(Though I've had some unusual interactions in yoga for sure, like the woman who informed me she had a gun in her purse and a license to carry it. Okay, that's fine. Carrying a gun to yoga seems...anti-zen? But you do you, babe.)

Anyway, today I came in early like I always do and I was a bit discombobulated. There were two people already there. I was familiar/friendly with one of them, a young woman we'll call Jay. There was a young man there, too, and I'd never seen him before in our class. He was very handsome, very fit, and had an accent. My initial impression was HOT DAYUM. Alas, that fell apart once he started talking. But now I'm jumping ahead. Let's call him Seb for the sake of this story.

In my discombobulated state, I told my pal Jay about  how Starbucks messed up my order and I'd probably end up getting a migraine now because they'd put milk in my coffee instead of soy milk. I followed it all up by saying, "And my husband will say, 'You weren't supposed to go to Starbucks anyway because we're trying to save money.'" 

We all laughed. 

Then Seb said, "Can I ask you a question? For the sake of my future relationships? Is it not okay for your husband to say that? About how you were not supposed to go to Starbucks because you are supposed to be saving money?"

I said, "Of course he can say that. And I can say, 'I know! Mistakes were made! And I'm being punished for my mistake by getting a migraine from the milk.'" I laughed again.

He said, "Ah, I see. Okay."

He then started helping Jay with a headstand, supporting her once she was up. It all started out okay, but eventually he started scolding her and accusing her of slacking when she decided to come down. She explained that she'd done the hard work of getting up, but he scolded her more, again saying she was slacking, and telling her the hard work of a headstand comes from maintaining it, not getting up. 

Jay said, "Thanks, Seb. I get it."

But he didn't let it go. 

Jay then said, "I understand what you're saying, but I don't really appreciate your lack of positivity, Seb, about what I accomplished."

So he started to scold her more about how she needed to do the work to maintain the pose even if she's being supported. She said, "I get it. I understand. Let's try it again"

But the dude would not let it go.

So I butted in. "Seb, you know how earlier you asked me about what you should and shouldn't say to women for the sake of future relationships? Well, when a woman says something like Jay's just said to you, the right response is 'Okay.'"

Welp, that broke his fragile masculinity into tiny pieces apparently, because he went right into the basic script of most men who feel their masculinity is threatened. I mean, it's basically a checklist.

1) The accusation of oppression or reverse discrimination:

He said, "I see how it is with you. You want one of the sexes to be submissive to the other. You don't want to listen to men's voices. Only one sex gets a voice."

I replied reasonably by saying, "No, I'm saying that she heard what you said, she understood, and now's a good time to let it go."

Fragile masculinity can't handle that, though, and so....

2) GASLIGHTING, aka accusations of the woman's lack of reasoning abilities (also known as, 'you're being silly' or 'that's not what happened' or 'you're overreacting') :

He said, and I quote, "Sorry, but I live in a world of facts not lollipop land."

Which, huh? How did that even address what I said or what had happened? But whatever. At that point, I knew what I needed to know about him. I checked out and Jay encouraged him to focus on helping her with her headstand. 

Side effect of unconvering a man's fragile masculinity, though? He went from being DAYUM HOT to UGH GROSS in the span of five minutes. And this is why so many men are really unattractive to me even if they're physically pretty. It takes more than a pretty face and body to get my respect and admiration.

I'm a little bummed that fragile masculinity and its resulting misogyny was present in my yoga class today. As I worked through the class, I realized that a) it's his problem, b) it's sadly symptomatic of too many men in this world. I feel sorry for him and his defensiveness, his fragile masculinity, his assumptions about women, and how ready he was to jump to accusations of 'lollipop land'. 

How sad to not be able to simply say, "I hear you," to a woman. How sad to not be able to step away from his need to be in control and in power to say, "So you understand what I meant? Great. I know next time you'll do even better." How sad to be ready and eager to dismiss what a woman says as being from lollipop land.

Oh well.

The troubles of the world invade even the best yoga classes, I suppose.