An Open Letter To Men Inspired By All The Other (Hateful) Open Letters To Men I’ve Read On Blogs Lately.

Dear Men,

Thank you.

Thank you for being my brother, my father, my ex-boyfriend(s), my ex-husband, my boyfriend, my nephew, my cousins, my uncles, my grandfather, my best friend(s) and my future son.

Thanks for being different. Thanks for the late night talks where you provide a clarity I can’t find in myself. Thanks for trying to understand what you most likely can’t, what can’t really be understood to begin with. Thanks for being a shoulder, and thanks for the rare times you want to cry on mine. It doesn't make me think you're a pussy.

Thanks for being the same. Thanks for the look in your eyes when we both realize that’s the truth. Why do we pretend we’re so different? We aren’t, are we? Our society is sick with the insanity of believing we aren't alike, that you are impossible to understand. You men feel the same things, right? Lonesome and united, happy then sad. So anything we think was all your fault, wasn’t. Women need to look in the mirror a lot more often, and that starts with me.

On that personal note, thanks to the dudes I’ve dated. You were, and I’m sure remain, a good kisser. Maybe we didn’t make each other happy, but thanks on behalf of the girl you will. I’m not mad at you. People fuck up and we hurt each other. If you’re mad at me, I understand and I probably deserve it. Thanks for the heartbreak, the rejection, the euphoria. One of the few truths in this world is that we make what we want of what happens to us. I hope you’ve made something good of me because I’ve made something good of you. I realize now that if you didn’t like me its probably because I didn’t like myself.

Besides, its easier to make art from you, from us, from what we became, if we aren't together anymore.

Thanks for calling when you say you will. And thanks for not calling when you say you will, because let’s be real - women do that, too. What we teach each other by being dishonest is, usually, a lot more valuable than what we could have learned together. If I’m obsessively checking my phone in hopes you’ve texted me back what I need to be checking is my self-worth.

Ultimately, thanks for the experiences we’ve shared, good or bad. The love and loss, tangled together, are the most defining moments my life. Thanks for defining all the other ladies, too, and thanks for letting us define you.

Thanks for being so fucking funny and smart. Thanks for telling me about cool music I didn’t know about before. Thanks for walking me to a cab or the streetcar late at night. Thanks for making the house feel safer when you’re in it. Thanks for loving my Mom, my sister, my friends - even if things didn’t work out. Thanks for the challenges. Thank you to gay dudes...well, to gay people in general. Your contributions to society make life more worth living for me, for my children, for my children’s children.

To the men who create, thanks for the songs you write about us. They're my favourites. Thanks for Daisy in The Great Gatsby, thanks for Annie Hall, thanks for (the t.v. version of) Carrie Bradshaw, and thanks for Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Men created all those women and in them I've seen the truest reflections of myself.

To the dudes who are having a hard time with us right now - I don’t know why we like the assholes. We should like you. Take solace in knowing that you are someone’s asshole, that someone who you can’t love could’ve loved you, if only you’d been willing. We all play foolish games and we’re all reckless with each other’s hearts. For better or for worse, know nothing is permanent.

To men in general, thanks for letting me think about you so much. Thanks for collared shirts. Thanks for how boss you look in a suit. Thanks for your blue jeans and Converse shoes. Thanks for the way you look at us. Thanks for nice things you say about our bodies, and thanks for how those nice things make us feel. Thanks for hollering at me on the street. The psychology of that is a little fucked up, but from here on out, I’m assuming that you are doing it with the most human intentions, that you just want to tell me the world is a little better with me in it. Thanks. The world is better when people are kind enough to remind me.

To the brave men that ask us out on dates, thank you. I can’t even imagine how terrifying that must be. It shouldn’t be all on you but it is. I’m really sorry. Thank you for the leap of faith. Trust me when I say that you’re doing good.

To all these notes to you on blogs - give me a fucking break. Like women have any idea what works and what doesn’t, like we all aren’t just running in circles. These women who are writing to you are missing the point. You aren’t doing anything wrong. The thing is, we’re all doing shit wrong, all the time, but that’s not what really matters. The right one for you, like the right one for us, isn’t going to care, not about anything at all, other than seeing in you what isn’t visible to most people. Writing judgmental open letters to you comes from feeling bad about ourselves. I'm guilty of all this blame but that was about my shit. Never yours.

Thanks for putting up with all those commercials on T.V. where you look retarded, and where the wife/Mom looks hugely superior to you. Thanks for putting up with it when women say “Eugh, men!” or talk other shit about you.

You aren’t all defined by you’re gender. You’re like us. We aren’t all any one thing. You aren’t all stupid, or frustrating, or mean. It’s lame when we pretend you are. Being a dick has nothing to do with having a dick. And, ps. thanks for dicks. And sorry for books like, “He’s Just Not That Into You.” The world, and peoples actions in it, are infinitely more complicated than we want to think and cannot be explained in a six-word catch phrase.

Thanks for living in a fucked up time in society for men. It was probably a lot easier when there were rules for being a man, when everyone’s parent’s didn’t split up, when cowboys were little boy’s sole role-models. I’m sorry. But I think we’re moving in the right direction, that everyday we’re a little closer to understanding each other.

Thanks to old men. There is nothing funnier than your jokes.

Thanks for marrying us. Thanks for fathering our children. Thanks for staying the night even when it doesn't work out. Thanks to those men I don’t know yet because I’m really looking forward to the time we'll spend together.

Men, you don’t know how lovely you are because we don’t tell you enough.

Katie