“I admit it’s an oversimplified way of explaining it, but that’s basically the tropes adult women are forced into in the mass media, and there’s always wonderful exceptions that end up becoming the roles women love because they’re more realistic…” she admitted, slipping her hair behind her ears as it fell forward again. She probably should have brushed it better before heading out to… whatever this was. A date? He was a sweetheart, though, she thought. He had no idea what it meant to be a woman in society in general because no man ever could know. You were born into that shit, moulded by it. “Yup. A lot of men do, though thankfully less than in fiction. It tends to happen in families with a lot of men, less so in families being raised in matriarchies. Just my opinion, though, I don’t have any social science at hand to prove my point.”
Abi nodded softly along with him as he spoke, relieved and fired up at the same time. It had been a worry of hers, that he’d end up being another one of those to pigeon hole her, especially since their night together, but he was wiser than she’d expected. “There’s just so many nuances to people, to humans. Your upbringing, your wealth and privilege, your experiences. They tend to make you and break you in equal measure. I think that Proust thought that the years he suffered were the best of his life because he made discoveries about who he was, and that happiness was a waste because he didn’t learn anything. Kind of pessimistic way of looking at things if you ask me, but he knew the value of vulnerability, of making mistakes. Evolve, adapt, overcome. It’s okay to ask for help, or not, to need people or need isolation. You learn about yourself that way.”
She looked at him now, feeling all those nerves earlier having disappeared. Abi never got to speak about this stuff, about the shit that mattered to her. He had knowledge she didn’t and vice versa. Moreover, she wanted to learn from him, and hope he’d get something in return. He listened.
“Yeah but you were an established writer already; you could dump a manuscript on a table and it’d be out in print within a week. It’s harder to get a shot as a newbie, without a name or even a physical record of who you are. You can’t oversimplify something like that. God, even where I come from, female writers aren’t given half the shots men are.” She sighed a little, knowing her chances of getting a publishing deal within the time allotted past a door, getting it printed and selling the damn thing to maybe, maybe, seeing it become a success? Years. It felt a little futile, though all she could do was to try.