My brain has always wanted rules. That’s how it survives. If I can boil the chaos of people down to patterns and categories, maybe I won’t drown in it. But those rules turn into prisons. They teach me lies. One of the worst was that women are all the same. That if I could just crack the code once, I’d have the script forever.
Black and white thinking did that to me. Autism did that to me. I walked into dating like it was a puzzle I could solve if I stared hard enough. But every time a woman didn’t fit the archetype in my head, I felt betrayed. I thought there was something wrong with her, or worse… something even more wrong with me.
The mindset killed my shot at connection before it could begin. It stripped her individuality staring me in the face. It made me blind to the real her(s).
Guess what happens when you operate with inaccurate data…
The scripts failed me and I crashed, overthought things, shut down… I started resenting the world for not bending to my rules.
I’ve sabotaged connections before they even had the chance to grow because I clung to the comfort of simplicity over the risk of reality.
And let’s not pretend the world makes this easier. Online, everything is war.
Men vs women, left vs right, trad vs modern.
Black and white thinking is rewarded, retweeted, echoed back a thousand times. But when I carried that into my own life, into dating, into real human connection, it poisons everything.
The truth is simple and brutal. Women aren’t a monolithic hive mind. They never were. They are individuals, messy, unique, irrational, passionate, human.
I do not believe in blank slate theory, there are gender differences. There are traits that show up more commonly than others, but individualism and variety of character, values, fears and quirks is stronger.
The moment you force them into a box, you lose the chance to know them for real, even if they enjoy the box.
I don’t want a domesticated, “perfect” woman. I’ve had that. It was boring and unfulfilling.
I need the full her, because if I can’t see your flaws, I can’t accurately assess you, I can’t trust you, and you’re a threat. This goes both ways.
If I can’t do the same and be the safe zone for her crazy, uncensored, wildest traits, then what’s the point? Where’s the spark?
I like my emotional bonds hot and my trust forged in bilateral adamantium. This combo never happened when I dated mental images of the person I was with. It happened when I dated the real them.
If you’ve lived like me, if you’ve lost yourself in the lie of a neat rulebook, you know the emptiness it leaves behind. But there’s a way out. It’s not easy. It means ripping away the comfort of rigid thought and standing in uncertainty. It means throwing away the scripts and facing people raw, without armour, without rules.
Embrace the chaos with good boundaries and ride the lightning. Lead when it’s time to lead. Play it cool and live moment to moment, but keep your needs, goals and dealbreakers front and centre.
Find someone whose weird matches yours. Sometimes, they were right in front of me but I never gave them the opportunity to be real.
This is all terrifying. But it’s also the only way I managed to connect for real.
And if we want a future where we can live as our real selves, we need to kill this myth once and for all. Stop swallowing lies. Stop forcing boxes. Stop letting black and white thinking steal your life.
We deserve connection. We deserve love. We deserve to live unmasked and unbroken.
The fight for our life is in ourself.
So fight for it.
Thanks for reading.
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