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Stalking the Average Man

-Ahhh, | she exhaled as if she had received another delivery. -The information is difficult
for you to accept because, while it agrees with your views about mankind‘s malevolence, it
subverts your certainty of its whereabouts. That threatens your sense of security which, by the
way, is entirely based on your prejudices. |
-My prejudices might be more earned than learned than most people. |
Bonnie immediately took me to task on the sidebar point: -Yes or no, per capita gays,
aboriginals, and Asians of all nationalities are more prevalent in Vancouver than anywhere else
in Canada? |
-Probably. |
-How many friends do you have in these groups? No—how many friends have you ever
had in any of these groups? |
-I grew up in a middle class wasp area long before it was fashionable for gays to come out,
and in an era when political intrigue was about who was screwing who on the school board.
When I moved to Little Israel, in north Toronto, I hung out with Jews; when I lived in Little
Italy, I hung out with falling and fallen Mics. When I began travelling, everyone in Canada
dropped away except Ed, and he was born in Germany. |
-You haven't mentioned any women from any time or background. |
-There haven‘t been any who could keep up. |
-One of your secret needs is to feel superior, so you can't have any women friends who
aren't sexual conquests. But when you think you've bested them, you throw them away as
unworthy opponents; this is another of your prejudices. |
-Does it make sense that anyone who has seen destruction on the scale that I've seen it
because of prejudice, would fall into the same trap? |
-You comprehend why you should embrace noble ideas, but your interpretation of world
events has impressed you with a different set of facts. These are that white, heterosexual, secular,
apolitical males are more trustworthy, or somehow less scary than any other group. | She touched
my arm, possibly to keep me from swinging it. -Your experiences have sabotaged your most
treasured beliefs, and thinking you know better is camouflaging that from you like it did from
me. |
Unsure of whether to laugh or utter an obscenity, I did something I had never done in my
life. I harrumphed. Funny how it sounds just like the word, I thought as it filled that critical half
second before Bonnie noted the event with a fleeting smile.
-The affront you‘re struggling to contain is not directed at my ability to intend to know,
because that's a part of the way things are between us now. Instead, I'm trespassing on the
monopoly on danger you assume is yours from having paid so dearly to develop what you
consider a philosophy. |
-You don‘t think it is, after all I have explained? |
-Your views are the remains of repetitive assaults on your self- image, the importance of
which you have elevated by virtue of their survival. You assume other people couldn't possibly
have acquired similar understand ings from different circumstances, because you have been
honing your defenses ever since you… ever since. How you came to your understandings is
certainly personal, but what you came to understand is not exclusive information. Like it or not, I
understand the depth of mankind's malevolence better than you, because I didn't have the
freedom to avoid it, or to leave when the adrenaline rush passed. | She inched back. -Neither do
hundreds of millions of women live in ignorance of the ways of the world, just because their