Centering men in our narrative

I see a lot of posts that go like this:

Dear FDS,

[Ten paragraphs of justification about how great a man is]

There is just one problem [insert heinous, deal breaker issue].

What do I do?

I have been guilty of this for many years myself. The way we tell our stories reflects our self worth and our confidence in our own judgment, which for me were severely impaired by almost every facet of living in a world that hates women.

I would feel the need to analyze men, feel shame over what they'd done and make excuses, hold space by giving them the benefit of the doubt, and write paragraphs about it all.

When you trust your judgement and your own inherent worth, your narrative begins to change. You cut to the issue quickly: he did that. I didn't like that. Is it a deal breaker?

Yes or no. You don't waste time on why. Who cares? What matters is how someone's behaviour makes you feel.

You one day realize that how nice a man is to you, how much of a gentleman he is, especially in the initial states of dating, doesn't mean anything and doesn't warrant a special dispensation for red flag behaviours.

I still analyze men out of habit at times and I still catch myself centring them in my narrative but it's getting better. The more my own self regard improves, the more I realize that it was always a self-harming, self negating exercise to centre them in the first place. I don't blame myself or any woman for this - we are told by society that we are nothing compared to men. Deprogramming ourselves is hard work, but necessary and rewarding. There is a whole world out there and inside of us that is ours, that does not focus on men.