Parallel lines
What would you say were the odds that, raised up in a small southern European city, I would become a humanitarian worker? I dare to say low. Now, the odds that a childhood friend would end up working for the same fancy international organisation would be even lower.
As teenagers, he was popular and dated my friends while I appeared as a nerd. His cool friends would not look at me, so he offered well intended advice: “You should show more of your cleavage and shorten your skirt,” he pointed out the obvious of the young male perspective I could not see. I wanted to attract due to my wit, not just my looks; tough luck, I would not date his friends, — or anyone else for that matter — as being objectified was not part of my plan.
My friend studied engineering and continued dating my friends. I went to study economics and, still, I could not date anyone back home: living in a bigger city and speaking two languages apart from my mother tongue, if I seemed a bit of a nerd before, now my interests turned me into an alien in the eyes of our acquaintances.
All the while, I had a strong call to help people. Suffering attracted me like a magnet, and TV showed the starving children of countries I could not place in the map. So I went to rural India to volunteer in an NGO led by a former missionary and, full of white entitlement but with an honest heart, I stepped into the humanitarian world.
Several years later, my friend showed interest in my adventurous lifestyle. I had climbed up from volunteering and I currently worked for a prestigious institution. He had a good profile but felt reluctant to apply because he lacked experience. I encouraged him: “With your engineering degree and speaking enough languages? Piece of cake!” As I predicted, he got hired right away.
Our paths crossed ways, his first destination was the African country I had just left. I put him in contact with friends on the field to welcome him upon arrival. He left a girlfriend back home but his relationship did not survive. Later he dated someone else, also from back home, and took her to his next African destination. They had to endure an insurmountable challenge as he would go to work for days or weeks around the region and she would stay in the capital of the foreign country idle and out of place; she could not cope with the loneliness and the context, so when coming home to the capital exhausted from field missions he faced insane rebukes and recriminations. It turned into a nightmare for both that smashed their love.
From my perspective, as I did not see his struggles, it looked like he had it all. On my side, the picture was quite different; one lonely mission after another, I bitterly envied those men — and my friend — who left wives or girlfriends behind or who worked in family stations.
In those days, we would bump into each other briefly in our touristy hometown or communicate via the internal chat while based in opposite corners of the world. Then, in an unexpected twist, I encountered an abusive colleague who made my life hell: he pushed me to burnt out and sexually abused me. Eventually, lacking appropriate psychological support, the toll became too heavy and killed my career.
As a consequence, I had to start an alternative professional path from the ground up and felt lost. Emotionally, I found myself in square one back home, sensing the hourglass of unattainable motherhood corner me. One day, on a rare occasion in which we coincided in our native town, I showed up at my friend’s with a random tourist I had just met in a bar. “I like him for your boyfriend,” he said cheerfully in a moment of privacy back in the kitchen, “I like him too, but we literally met three hours ago”, I grinned back. We chuckled and went back to the terrace loaded with food and complicity.
We both sensed a good vibe in my casual flirt, and time proved us right about the boyfriend potential in this guy. A year later I had moved to a Northern European country, and I partook in a crazy family setting: the tourist, eleven years older than me, had a child and step children from previous relationships and, to my utter joy, now we expected a baby.
My friend kept working on tough settings: remote and war torn. He struggled, like I did at the time, with the demands of the job and the lack of support; he broke, like I did, and he healed, like I did. We both changed a lot with what we saw and went through, and we both found healing in resting and writing.
My son is now five and my friend informs me he has news: “I have written a book and I am going to become a father.” He is ecstatic and, although truly delighted for him, I cannot stop feeling a twinge of jealousy. I have recently agreed with my partner that we will not have more children, because, as a couple, we feel too old. My friend, with his younger partner, will not face this dilemma, he has at least ten years ahead of him to have as many children as he pleases.
We discuss in a café on a sunny day during a visit to my parents and we chat about our experiences working abroad. I feel that in the face of injustice, whenever I wielded rights and argued straightforwardly, inevitably, I was doomed to failure and labeled as problematic. I try to explain that having all male models, it took me a long time to adapt my behaviour to my inescapable condition of womanhood and, not adapting fast enough, paid poorly in my professional appraisals. He disagrees — he maintains that the system demands for strong submissiveness from everyone — and I accept we will have to disagree on this. I see we all downplay the privileges we enjoy, I know I have done the same with the racism that surrounded me: I saw sexism but took me longer to see racism.
As I read his memoirs, little stories opening his heart to the world, I revisit my own. Again, jealousy pricks me as he seems so bold and self confident in his storytelling, as if he knows he has the right to talk because the world will listen. Why do I feel so insecure about my voice compared to him? Appearances can trick me, but I perceive that society puts him in the spotlight to shine while I come out in the spotlight for scrutiny. It has always felt that way.
I reflect about us, who went to the same school, had similar extrovert personalities and felt the need to dare beyond the borders of our island. I learned to lower my voice, measure my words and humble down as the system crashed me whenever I followed the example of a man. Unlike me, he still enters a room filling the space, with broad shoulders and loud laughter, seemingly owning the world, like an unbroken Indiana Jones. Maybe then, in contrast with my experience, behaving like a man, when you are a man, boasts your confidence and pays well.
Do not mistake me, I see his pain and his struggle. I have understood that even for strong men like him, it becomes tiring to be manly all the time and only with female tools like tears and introspection he is finding a certain peace and balance.
At the end, we both discovered the hard way that non-stop bravery and unlimited energy in a twenty-four-seven job destroys the strongest soul.
No regrets. Would my path have been smoother had I known earlier that the equality my parents preached was under construction? Probably not. It would be victim blaming to think that a younger me could have prevented the sexual harassments and abuses I suffered, had I known better.
All my life I wanted what men with my strong character received from society: popularity, safety in front of unwanted sexual attention, parenthood without relinquishing a job or professional recognition; I always felt a certain resentment. Until now, it might sound hackneyed that adversity makes you stronger but I firmly believe that the grievances I fought, gave me a perspective I would hardly have gained without facing them. In honesty, I just perceive women as wiser than men and it might be because it is required for survival. We do not choose to be born pawns or queens — society sets the rules — but you can improve your game and, remember, pawns can turn into queens.
