But despite that… I’d feel bad doing it. He and I seem to be on good terms, but to be real with you, that’s only out of negative peace because I’m not the most overt tankie when I talk to this guy, and this shit just disturbs me.

Ultimately, I know what you’re all gonna say, but truthfully, I think I just need the validation to push myself to do this.

So, he’s a bit younger than me, and though that still makes him a grown ass man, I feel like he says things that are so ignorant that I’ve kind of been giving him “Hanlon’s razor” kind of passes for all of this shit, but it’s too much no matter how you slice it.

He says things that are just unequivocally sexist and objectifying of women. He denies that society is patriarchal, and basically, every time he comments on a woman, he feels like he needs to bring up how “hot” he finds her. He labeled himself as an “incel” one time, and I genuinely can’t tell if the dude was joking or not.

He says being a “Hamas apologist” is antisemitic, and he one time showed me this obviously fake video of this chud going to a supposed “pro-Palestine” protest, showing AI slop of a Trump supporter and a Hamas member, and he asked them, “Which one of these two do you think would be more likely to be in support of the LGBTQ community?” and the first “protestor” interviewed in the video literally pointed at the Hamas member pic and said, “That one because he’s brown!” It couldn’t be more obviously fake, but this MF actually thought it was a real video and validated the pinkwashing shit.

So why do I talk to someone who seems like such a chud?

Well, I got in contact with him over the fact that we are both Black vegans, and this is what confuses me: he can be very unapologetic and have a “there’s no middle ground” outlook when it comes to animal liberation (which I agree with myself), but he takes the whole “enlightened centrist” route for many human rights things, viewing disagreements on Zionism, feminism, TERFism, etc. as just “different opinions” and yes, he actually identifies as a centrist.

He started trying to rizz up this vegan woman who lives near him, but she’s very clearly and explicitly more of a leftist, feminist, and a total liberationist type. He hasn’t been totally transparent with her about disagreements he has, and I told him, “You definitely should tell her, especially since it seems you’re trying to be with her long-term,” and how he responded to this just kind of demonstrated his ignorance…

He said, “Yeah, you’re right, but I find that leftists are less likely to respect the idea of dating someone with different political views than right-wingers. I’m open to dating her if she is okay with dating me knowing my views.”

And it’s just like… so ignorant how this dude denies the existence of patriarchy alongside having other chuddy beliefs, and he thinks that it can really be an “agree to disagree” scenario with someone who clearly takes those things very seriously? What the fuck?

Here I am feeling like I’m enabling this ignorance because by continuing to talk to him and remain silent on this awful shit for the sake of “negative peace,” I’ve been feeling more and more like I’m validating his awful “agree to disagree” framing, though not intentionally.

He seems to “respect” me as a trans person, but there’s this other transfem he knows who is less feminine than me, and he seems to be okay with misgendering her, but it’s not the most “overt” misgendering I guess. He avoids she/her pronouns and only calls her by they/them pronouns, even though her pronouns are not listed as they/them at all.

I do vibe with him when we talk about veganism, but every other subject seems to be absolutely just blegh.

Like I said, I’m sure I know what you’ll all say, but that validation seems to be needed because of my awful people pleasing mind.

Also, I’m thinking of reaching out to the girl he’s trying to rizz up and giving somewhat of a warning.

UPDATE: I blocked!