The one restraining order I took out, my ex’s parents bought his way out of by means of a fucking expensive lawyer. It’s not a case of not trying to protect myself, it’s that the system doesn’t function as it’s meant to (a lot of the time, the police brush off reports as “domestics”, it’s really hard to get charges…

Absolutely - if you’ve ever watched it, Adventure Time riffs a lot on the old cartoon “baddies” who would “steal” the female leads (for example, Teela being captured by Skeletor in He Man, or Dale Arden being forced to marry Ming the Merciless in Flash Gordon) with the Ice King wanting to collect all the princesses…

I will do, thank you!

Ah, now technically I would fall into red flag territory due to the how abusive the breeding pair of narcissists that I sprang forth from were (and I’m not far off 40, I have no idea how that happened!), however I have older friends who have said that they consider me as a daughter who I love dearly - do you reckon…

You don’t need to explain yourself to this person, their wording and accusatory tone makes me think that they’re entering the discussion with a mind to give women a hard time for having been abused.

I’d not heard of this lady before, but Jebus, she hits the nail on the head on so much when it comes to the emotional toll that comes from being the prey of guys like that.

You can safely bet a hefty amount that MRAs will claim that feminism has caused the wave of angry, murderous men, given their incapacity to introspect. It’s everyone else’s duty to not make them angry, as opposed to their duty to not stalk and murder people.

You’re absolutely right, it’s so common to have the responsibility for someone else’s behaviour foisted on a victim / survivor that we pre-empt negative or nasty responses and try to minimise the possibility that someone will choose to give us a hard time for not fitting their prescribed behaviour model.

Amen to that. Remove the “persistence drops panties” and “schlub wins girl” narrative devices and the whole rom-com industry would fold.

A lot of my social activities are arranged over FB or actually on it - I’m a cripple so if I didn’t socialise on there, I’d be a very lonely person. The kicker came when they removed the capacity to be searchable only by friends of friends and hide your profile picture. Then, they started enforcing the real name…

Unfortunately, it’s something all people run the risk of, at university or at home. It’s better that they get their education than putting their lives on hold in the fear of what might happen.

I’m sorry you’ve been burdened such a horrible thing with you for all this time.

That’s something I think I’ve seen - people dump someone to make them beg to be taken back, then can’t handle it when the object of their dumping quite happy accepts being dumped and moves on. That seems to be a chick thing, I think they’re trying to force a proposal or something (“yay, our relationship is on the…

I’m perplexed as to what makes someone think that an aggressive outburst would attract a partner too, but I think it comes from the same place of not entertaining the thought that a woman should have any choice in the matter. It’s the “the world owes me a girlfriend” mentality.

Sadly it sounds like you’ve got enough experience under your belt to have a good idea of the general temperature that women live in. With your experience, you’ve probably become wary of people, for example, and that wariness is background music to every social interaction you have. You look for a slight downturn on…

I feel like men don’t get to have these fucking fears?

It probably works well on women with what as refered to as “daddy issues” or women on a low ebb, where a compliment that makes them feel cared for and acceptably looking will open the possibility of getting laid for your average slime ball.

You do have a point, the guys who I’ve known to be abusive are all absolutely vile to their mothers (the ex that tried to kill me used to look like he was going to have an aneurysm every time he screamed at his mum, and if he wasn’t being the same with his dad, his dad would be encouraging him to belittled his…

Sounds like she’s in that Egyptian river, what’s it called? De-Nile.

Human rights laywer feels you have no right to be single.