Shut Up & Talk to Me

I went to open my mouth the other day, about to express a thought — but I caught the words before they rolled out and swallowed them down, hard. I was going to respond to my boyfriend, who was explaining a pickup artist technique to me, but rather than inciting a dialogue between us — I made the conscious decision to keep my mouth firmly shut.

A blip of the first word had crept through my lips before I had a chance to close them, he noticed half a syllable hanging from the corner of my mouth.

My boyfriend looked at me exasperated I had half-thought to “challenge him” by responding. He stood up to get the door and let the cat back into the house. Although I had decided without instruction to shut my mouth, he came back into the living room to express his frustration with my tireless need to speak my mind.

What my boyfriend considered as me ‘challenging’ him, I thought was us having a two-way conversation — the kind with him on one end and myself on the other. The kind where two people, with two different minds, feel safe to express and respect one another’s ideas. But I knew that wasn’t what he would interpret it as. He considers my mind a continuous insufferable defiance.

“You don’t always have to challenge me,” he told me below a furrowed brow.

Albeit, I had kept my thoughts to myself and had only let a half word slip before thinking better of it, he seemed offended I even had the thought in the first place. There was a thick wad of sadness in my throat where my words used to be.

“I’m not trying to be challenging,” I said, “I was just going to express my own ideas. I’ll keep them to myself if it bothers you so much.” And as I closed my mouth, I swallowed the sad feeling too.

My boyfriend likes my mind on certain conditions. He likes my thoughts when they agree with his. He likes them when he is in the mood. He told me he likes to be challenged, but only sometimes. He implied that he feels worn down by, for lack of better words, my very nature.I never imagined I would be with someone who was made unhappy by my nature or by my mind.

However, as I’ve gotten older I’ve recognized that men don’t take kindly to women with opinions of their own. It’s encouraged that we teach women to develop inquisitive minds and dare to express their thoughts and feelings. Yet in my experience as a woman with an inquisitive mind who loves discussion — truthfully, it’s not a highly sought after quality.

To sit down, shut up and do as your told makes for a much easier existence as a member of the fairer sex.

I have to put a muzzle on my mind to make space for his ego. To save my boyfriend from feeling worn down, I need to learn the cues of when and where my opinion is wanted. When I feel the gears in my mind start turning on something he’s saying, I must go through a mental pop-up window:

Are you sure you want to express yourself?

Click Yes to share your thoughts.
 Click No if it’s not worth it.

Oftentimes, I’ve come to realize, it is not worth it to share my opinion. I had that very epiphany right as a choked fragment of a word was trying to make its way out of my mouth in the living room.

I swallowed down, I made the choice, I clicked No.

In my ideal version of finding the love of my life, it entailed finding someone who cherished the qualities in me I most cherish in myself. I wanted to be loved for my mind. I wanted to be loved because I dare to express my thoughts and feelings and have opinions all my own. I thought that was special — but now it seems like more of a burden than a blessing.

“We need to work on communication,” he’ll tell me while we’re lying in bed, but I know that ‘we’ is only courtesy. I need to work on communication. I’ve heard this from his mouth dozens of times.

I need to open my mouth when he requires it, and keep it closed if that is to his liking. He wants communication with certain conditions, when he is in the mood, when it’s good for him.

I have to think before I share, I have to think before I feel. I am going through the pop-up window.

Are you sure you want to express yourself?

Click No, it’s not worth it.