smile now, get angry later

it’s never too late for female rage

I was sitting on a park bench when the memory hit me. Exposed to sunlight and overstimulated by the sudden winter-to-spring shift in weather, I couldn’t grasp if it was the unexpectedly warm air or the newfound realization that was making me nauseous. “Okay, wait. That was fucked up, actually. That was really, really mean.”

Last year, I was seeing a very dangerous guy. Let’s call him John. The danger? John’s mean streak. He wasn’t the in-your-face-asshole type: he was the exquisite kind, the one that gets under your skin half a pinch at a time — one joke falls after another like domino, and before you know it, you’re doubting every part of yourself and feel stupid for having to beg someone to be a little kinder to you. Throughout the entire whatevership, I felt more like the ant with a bindle than myself. John would say quite terrible things that were either immediately written off as “Babe I’m just kidding” (naturally, he was the only one laughing) or concealed as personality quirks. Yet every word left a barely palpable bitter aftertaste. You feel like you don’t have the right to get upset; and if you do, well, aren’t you a crazy, crazy girl? Why are you overreacting? Am I not allowed to say anything? I typically don’t speak of my exes poorly because many of them have been nothing but sexy and wonderful, but not this one; my only regret with John is embarking on a quest to work around his ‘complicated personality’ instead of dumping him upon the first attempt at veiled humiliation.

I remember one evening particularly vividly. Sharing a few plates and a bottle of wine over dinner, we were having what started as a pleasant conversation about the internet and online culture. We resorted to the elephant in the room, which is my online presence (for anyone who doesn’t know me, I have a meme page with over 500k). Suddenly, he goes: “Social media is a crazy place. Some people work so hard to get their work out there or talk about important things, and then there’s accounts like yours that get all the followers,” John lets out a big sigh “It’s fascinating. The internet never fails to amaze me.”

The condescending eye roll paired with the emphasis on “yours” told me everything I needed to know about his true feelings for me. The ugly undertone of contempt never to be revealed openly. My heart sank; I was upset for the rest of the night. John was older, smart, and British, with the kind of job and education I wish I had, so I truly valued what he thought of me. I didn’t at the time understand why it got to me and couldn’t conceptualize why his words stung — because he didn’t insult me directly, right? — so I didn’t say anything. I smiled and continued sipping on wine, dying just a little bit on the inside. I didn’t jump to my defense; I didn’t know I had anything to be defensive about. And today, almost four months later, I got so randomly angry about that incident I nearly pulled a teenage boy testosterone wall punch. A 4-month anger delay is honestly so on brand for me… I know for a fact that John’s attraction to me could largely be attributed to my inability to get angry with him. Or, better yet, my inability to realize I had the right to be angry in the first place.

Retroactive anger is a thing. How often have you processed a situation outside the appropriate reactionary time frame? Realizations that require immediate action only visit me in the comfort of my chambers weeks or months overdue. If I had a dollar for every time an “I should’ve gotten angry!” moment came upon me just a tiny bit too late, I wouldn’t be able to buy much (inflation), but I’d certainly be able to afford a few Sunday brunches. Delayed emotional processing is nothing new — but if grief, shame, guilt, lust, and other emotions can be unpacked at any point in time, things get trickier with anger due to its immediate nature that comes with an expiration date.

Sometimes I fantasize about splashing a drink in someone’s face. I’ve imagined myself going Patrick Bateman on an ex situationship. I think about confronting my former boss all the time. I want to write my middle school teacher a letter about that one day in 2010 she was particularly horrible to me. Hell, my notes app is full of poetry that reads like a prosecution notice. I even dabble in fantasies of getting into physical fights with people: blood gushing, broken teeth and all. Never been in one and feel like I’m missing out. And sometimes, well, I just want to scream. This isn’t a post about resentment — resentment implies the accumulation of negative experiences over time. When one genuinely has no idea something had upset them until a certain out-of-the-blue moment, what’s that called? Slow motion temper tantrum. Rage limbo. Hysteria on snooze. Or maybe my brain is just a 2010 MacBook, sturdy but a little slower every day.

Anger is the one emotion I’m yet to unlock, forever a mystery in the periphery of my psyche. My anger is not a friend nor a distant relative; it’s an upstairs neighbor whom I’ve never met — as in, I’m privy to its presence, I know it exists, but I’ve never faced it directly. I know it loves to play music around dinner time, vacuum on the weekends, and move things around in the AM, and I hear it very clearly when I’m home alone, but it’s never knocked on my door and I don’t know its name. And I’m not sure I can trust it with my keys or my package delivery. I once proudly told my mom I don’t get angry, I simply remove people from my life. Expecting a pat on the back for such a mature stance on life, I was appalled when she laughed at me instead. “You’re just suppressing it, silly. Not something to be proud of. Everybody gets angry.”

Another fatal flaw of mine exacerbates the problem further: I believe people are innately good. When they offend me, I find every loophole imaginable to blame myself, the stars, or circumstances — anything but the person standing in front of me. I release people from the shackles of accountability without them even having to ask. It’s less painful for me to believe people fuck up by accident than to accept the fact they know exactly what they’re doing and what they’re saying, they just don’t care. Falling victim to the benefit of the doubt, there’s nothing I won’t do to make sure you’re comfortable even as you’re insulting me. Plus, I never want to cause drama. Calm & collected is de rigueur, dramatic & crazy is not. I used to think that my delayed reactions were just part of my M.O. — a sort of developmental flaw I’m stuck with. But lately, I’m realizing more and more that I simply see my anger as an inconvenience. I’d rather die than make a scene and risk being perceived as messy, bitchy, or over the top. So I shut it down before it has the slightest chance to surface.

Then there’s all sorts of programming around anger within the context of womanhood. Kill them with kindness. Getting angry is uncool. Don’t be crazy. Crazy doesn’t get you respect. Don’t overreact. Your power lies in calculated reaction. Do we agree with the sentiment? I hope not. Do we admit this is what the majority believes, consciously or not? Yeah. Your anger is an open invitation for people to invalidate your experience, so be ready to have it weaponized against you.

I’m jealous of people, especially women, who live in tune with their emotions and give themselves full permission to get angry loudly and proudly. This goes against everything we’ve been taught: anger is intrinsically tameless, unfeminine, raw. There’s something frisky and arousing about watching women go batshit, letting their most primal feelings take the wheel no matter the potential risks. This is why female rage is so fascinating and why we’re drawn to it. I crave female rage on TV, in literature, and in real life — because I, for one, have never allowed myself to have a bite. It’s voyeuristic and ravenous pleasure, like seeing someone enjoy a slice of triple chocolate cake while you’re stuck with your safe foods-only list. Whenever a girlfriend of mine is disrespected by a man, she sends him a long text that makes perfect sense but rests on the edge of insanity, and I’m inspired. When my manager calls people out directly by name, I’m amazed. When my mom makes a scene in public, (something she does more often than I’d like to admit) I’m embarrassed, but only because it’s a side of me I so viciously suppress.

I want to befriend my anger. I want to get closer to it. I hate that we exist in the same body yet feel so estranged. I hate that it knows me so well, but I don’t know it at all. I’d like to believe it has good intentions and wants to be seen, heard, hugged, and understood. I also know that people are only as angry as you hurt them; only as reactive as what your actions set them up for. Anger rarely comes from nothing, and the idea that one just happens to be a natural-born drama queen is not only misogynistic but kind of lazy writing, don’t you think? It’s time we abandon the whole “calm and collected” shtick because I have a suspicion it’s serving us as much as a pyramid scheme would. When has it ever paid off in any meaningful way? Our aversion to causing a scene continues to put us in situations we have no business being in. I’m sick of grace and beauty. I want to yell, throw things, wreak havoc.

If you too happen to be reticent, I encourage you to assert yourself and let your anger flow free even if it comes with the risk of being seen as crazy and dramatic. Because saying “fuck you, fuck your mom, and fuck England” to John in a crowded restaurant would’ve been a more satisfying experience than writing about him from my desk months later.

Just kidding. I love England.

with un-reticence,

Valerie