“I know that it’s kind of your thing—you know, hashtags and all, but you really can’t call all men pigs, Tor, it just isn’t accurate.” She was referring to a vlog I was editing at the time—guess what I was going to title it?
“I’ll never understand how you can disagree with me after all the bad experiences that you and all the women who follow me have had. You know I’m right, that’s why I have such a following. I speak the truth.”
“I know no such thing, thank you very much. And I can disagree comfortably because, unlike my hater of a best friend, I’m not a bitter old lady with a dried-up vagina full of dead spiders.”
That’s what I’m talking about—Shoshana can say some crazy shit that’s somehow still pretty spot on. “Wow,” I said, “just. . . wow.”
“Well, in my head I was imagining your vag as either a desert or a frozen Siberian tundra—I just couldn’t decide which metaphor was more appropriate—so I went with spiders and cobwebs.”
“You realize that you just made my nether region into a B-horror movie troupe.”
“Of course I realize. If there’s one thing you know about me, Tor, it’s that I always realize, even if I pretend not to. But the metaphor makes sense. Your vag should be a bustling spring full of chirping birds and waterfalls. You’re young, hot, and more than a little bit famous—you should be putting yourself out there for all the eligible men who aren’t the kind of guys you vlog about.”
Here’s a classic example of where where me and Shoshana disagree on our basic outlook on Guyland—she thinks most guys are good, with the occasional bad apple mixed in, while I think almost all of them are bad apples—the mushy, bruised kind that has a worm inside when you bite into it.
“I appreciate that you put all this mental energy into the state of my vagina, Shosh. I really do, but you don’t have to worry about me. I don’t need some guy in my life to turn a desert into a spring.”
“In your opinion,” she joked.
“My vag, my opinion,” I joked back. “And there are better things to think about than my sex life.”
“That’s a contradiction in terms. How can I think of something that doesn’t exist?”
“Ouch.” She wasn’t wrong, though. Shoshana has a sense of humor that can make you laugh hysterically while simultaneously making you question every aspect of your existence. When she joked, sometimes you smiled because your diaphragm demanded contraction and your lungs just pushed out loud giggling sounds. But other times, like when she pointed out my non-existent dating life, you smiled because her accuracy frightened you. “Gotta say, that one stung a little.”
“I wasn’t trying to sting.” she said. “I just worry about you. I want you to get out there. I think about it all the time.”
What I never told Shosh—the truth that I worked my ass off to hide, was that I thought about it all the time too. It, in this case, being my relationships with guys. Or, as she put it, my non-existent relationships with guys. It’s almost like there are two of me—the feminist social media mogul who made her name spreading the word that all guys were all sex crazed pricks, and then the inner me—the one who still held onto a belief that maybe, just maybe, there was at least one good one out there—the perfect apple at the bottom of the barrel.
Usually the first version of myself won out, but that didn’t mean the other one wasn’t in there, somewhere deep inside, waiting for the prince to step out from behind all the frogs.
“Thanks, Shosh, but you don’t have to worry about me or my. . . area.”
“Did you just call it your area?” She started laughing hysterically.
“I might have. Just maybe.”
“Fine, we’ll move on, but it’s a hard thing to not think about. That hot guy over there is probably thinking about it right now.”
“There’s a thought—some random guy thinking of me like that.”
“You’re missing out, he’s a cutie and a half.” At that point she stopped looking at me entirely and just ogled the random dude, who apparently sat just over my should. “Hey,” she said. “I have an idea—what do you say I wave him over? Maybe he has spider-poison in his pants.”
“What? Listen to what you just said.”
“You know, I heard it as it was coming out, and just so you know, it sounded super clever in my head. Cause, you know, the vagina spiders?”
“I got it. They can’t all be home runs, you know?”
“Sadly, I do. But, still.” She went to put her hand up and I grabbed it without even thinking about it. “Don’t you dare wave at some strange guy.”
“Well, he wouldn’t exactly be strange if I waved him over and he introduced himself, would he? God, Tor, you’re the dumbest smart girl I know.”
“I don’t need some weirdo to chase away anything in my pants, thank you very much.”
“Your man-hating is going to leave you a bitter old lady one day. And as your best friend, I just can’t have that. You’re too awesome to end up that way.”
There was the line. The one I’d read a million times in a million comments on my videos. If it wasn’t there, it was some troll in the reviews of my podcast episodes. ‘Tori hates men.’ I heard it so often that it was like the same jab coming at my face again and again—I learned how to defend it instinctually without even thinking about it. “I don’t hate men. How many times do I have to tell you that?”
“I’m not sure—how about as many times as it takes to sound convincing. So, like, maybe a bazillion more or so. I’m not sure.”
“Look, you can’t be like those Insta trolls I had to block. I do not hate men, I just. . . have some strong opinions on them. And those opinions are based on some real experiences. You know what I’m talking about.”
“Of course I know what you’re talking about. I was there, remember?”
She was there. There for the most painful experience of my life—the one that almost broke me. “Of course I remember,” I told her. “How could I forget? But I wasn’t talking about him, just experiences with men, in general. Look, I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have a lot of experience to with guys, but that doesn’t mean I can’t speak with authority.”
“Actually, Tor, that’s exactly what that means.’
“ I mean, come on, Lord knows you have enough experience for the both of us. After some of the guys you’ve been with, you of all people should get how treacherous guys can be.”
She raised an eyebrow and put her drink down. “Wait, hold on, before we even get into your lack of experience, I’m pretty sure you just called me a slut. Am I off on that?”
I can’t help the smile that crossed my face. “I heard it as I was saying it. I didn’t think you’d catch it.”
“So I’m an oblivious slut, huh? Look, I may not have gotten a 1575 on my SAT’s and been accepted to four Ivy League schools like some people, but I’m hardly an idiot.”
I laughed so hard I almost spit out the drink I’d just stupidly taken a sip of. “You’re the furthest thing from an idiot. And it should have been five, by the way.”