No, not Magnetic Resonance Angiography. I’ve actually had an MRI, done a few years ago when I collapsed in my bathroom and thought I may have sustained a concussion. It was a pretty uneventful experience, if not entirely peaceful.

I’m talking about a Men’s Rights Activist.

I know they’re out there. It’s well-known that they’re out there. I think they’re all quite covert, they reserve their loathing for online forums, and they probably attend secret underground meetings where they hold axe-throwing contests with the bullseye being pictures of single women. A pretty succinct definition of what this is all about can be found here.

In sum, MRAs are misogynists who feel oppressed, marginalized, victimized, believe feminism is out to get them, and loathe any sort of progress or advances women make in society. They regard their patriarchal privilege as being under threat, and they make their home on the internet.

The most pathetic MRA creatures are incels. If you don’t know what that is, it is short for involuntarily celibate; basically, they can’t get laid for the life of them. That cliche you might think of with the fat, pop-guzzling, porn-addicted, internet-obsessed guy who is very catch-as-catch-can about bathing and writes some of the most breathtakingly violent sentiments towards women on anonymous sites? Cliches are true for a reason: all cliches are true, including that one (I might go back and edit this sentence, but I might not). The header pic is a great example.

This guy is their absolute master, role model, and feudal lord. He’s an extreme type, a heinous representative of MRAs, but he’s still one of them. In every group or community there are always cultish, fundamentalist breakaways, and the incels are definitely of that ilk. The MRA that I recently had the misfortune of dealing with (or at least, having his true nature revealed to me) was nothing that I could have been prepared for, and had to shut it right down before it got out of hand.

Let’s call him Sean. I went to high school with Sean. He was a tall, good-looking guy, and like every one of my pals in the early 90s, had adopted a very counterculture persona, rebellious and punk and enchanting in every way. I secretly had a crush on him back then–I was not experienced enough to just be flat-out assertive, and my adolescent insecurity rendered me woefully afraid of rejection–until I met my first true love, a hot-tamale piece of perfection called Duncan who made every single other male in the universe tumble into a black hole of irrelevancy.

As we know, I really tried with Facebook this year. I did my best. The inanity of the site, the nonsensical notifications of posts I couldn’t care less about, the censoring of my very own content…no thanks. So my account is still sitting there, smelling up the internet, because once The House of Zuck has you in its grasp, there is no letting you go. That aside, it was rather nice to reconnect with some folks I hadn’t spoken to in ages (or should I say “messaged with”, and it had really only been six years), one of them being Sean. We hadn’t been Facebook friends back when I had my original account for ten years, and I have since learned that this is because he had developed a raging heroin addiction and was homeless for a long while. Shocking information considering the vibrant young man I once knew, but nobody wakes up in the morning and decides to become an addict. I think.

Once we connected on Facebook, he would send me semi-regular messages asking how I was doing (“Good, I guess”), about how I looked fantastic (“Thanks!”), that he thought I was amazing (“You don’t really know me now, Sean, but thanks all the same”), and so forth. Harmless stuff, and it was rather odd to be connecting with a guy I hadn’t seen in literally 30 years, but sure. My memories of him were of a tall, imposing, long-haired, sweet, funny vegetarian who was straight-edge until he unfortunately discovered LSD at the age of 21, and absolutely nothing beyond that. I had plunged head-first into my relationship with Delicious Duncan, moved to the east side of Vancouver, and that–as they say–was that.

In the last month or two, Sean started messaging me more, and I sort of went with it. What was the harm? I brought him up to speed on where I’m at and what I’ve experienced; he did the same. He had spent years on junk, sleeping in parks and shelters, until he painfully turned it all around for himself.

I do love a beautiful comeback. He was now a site supervisor at a major construction company, had a condo in our old hometown, and had been with a woman for many years who was dealing with meth addiction. He was a single dad, one of those kids (a teenage son) being a child he had with this woman, and the other one (a 21-year old girl) being someone he hadn’t fathered, but had taken on as his own since the mother was a mess somewhere, and the biological father was also a mess somewhere. Hence, his retaining custody of these youngsters.

Uncomfortable stuff, but I’m not going to judge addiction unless you’re a violent criminal. We talked about rehabs and detoxes and such; it was refreshing to actually discuss these experiences without feeling the pummeling smugness of people who cast severe judgement, who ridicule and mock you and feel superior because you happened to be one of the random cases who became addicted to, well, an addictive substance. I dealt with that to extreme levels with my ex, but I’d rather be able to point at something tangible and say “That’s my problem” than be hounded by demons and disorders and permanent inauthenticity, as in his case.

Sean and I never actually talked on the phone, that being a scary thing nowadays, but he messaged and texted me quite frequently. I had no idea where this was going, and I wasn’t terribly interested or available for anything romantic, although I think some of our conversations got a bit racy (okay, I don’t think they did, I absolutely know they did, and it was my fault, and since I kept remembering 20-year old Sean from 1993, that’s who I thought I was lasciviously typing to). He did send me a couple of pictures, and he is now a somewhat grey-haired, short-haired man who looks like any middle-aged guy I’d see in the suburbs. I refused to accept this, as Sean had always been the most activist-minded, anti-establishment comrade of my teenage days, and I just knew he was still lurking in there somewhere.

He didn’t like talking about those early days, perhaps because they reminded him of the lead-up to his severe drug addiction. I’ve done a zillion things since I was a young lady, but it’s still fun to wander down memory lane.

“I’ve had a pretty interesting life, and I like to mine it for material and then write about it,” I told him.

“That’s actually really cool,” he had replied. Well, as a writer, I think so. As a writer, it’s kind of unavoidable. And as a writer, it’s tough to get a sense of someone when you’re just texting with each other, especially if the person you’re “talking” with only types in simple sentences. Unlike yours truly–who is an agonizing open book whether it comes to facial expressions, emotions, or words–Sean and most other people just write basic things, sometimes punctuated with the odd curse word or emoji (hey, at 48, I do use them myself), but otherwise no personality bleeds through. At least he wasn’t cold, sterile, and aloof: I’ve had quite enough of those sorts of men, thanks.

I told him that my best pal Charles was worried about my safety in downtown Vancouver, especially thanks to a recent, terrifying attack that occurred during morning rush-hour. As a result, he’d purchased me some self-protective devices and dog-repellant pepper spray from an army surplus store in New Westminster. In general, it would be good to have these things as a woman in the city, and I haven’t been able to get to MMA classes for a while.

“Make sure to carry the pepper spray in your pocket, not your backpack,” Sean said.

We did talk at length about his not-officially-adopted daughter, and apparently she had some severe issues of her own (well, let’s see: mom is a strung-out mess, dad is a strung-out mess, and she’s being raised by a man who isn’t her biological father alongside a half-brother who Sean seems to favour above and beyond fairness). I’ll call the girl Jen, and the boy Jonah. Why? They’re the first names that jumped to mind. Why Jonah, specifically? I’ve got my reasons.

“She had a psychotic breakdown from smoking tons of weed, I’m seeing if we can get her on disability,” he wrote.

“I wouldn’t touch the stuff that passes for THC these days,” I replied. “But shouldn’t she just get a job?”

“She can’t hold down a job. And she needs to pay rent here.”

“This isn’t going to set her up for the long term,” I said. “If she starts living off the state now, this is how she’s going to live, and it’ll set a lifelong pattern of living off the state. She’s too young for that, and it’ll have a depressing outcome.”

“I agree.” Okay.

“She clearly needs counselling,” I continued. “I mean, everyone does, but she sounds like she does. There’s a lot of stuff to unpack there.”

“She won’t see a counsellor.”

What kind of parenting was this?

Look. I know, I know: I don’t have kids. This decision was completely intentional. If I hadn’t had an abortion in 1997, I would be the mother to a howlingly dysfunctional 27-year old. Three-quarters of the people I know with kids should never have had them. However, I definitely know that an obstinate, distraught 21-year old girl living at home and wanting to do nothing is, well, a code-red issue.

“Also,” he added, “her medication keeps her really sleepy and sluggish, so she’s in bed a lot of the time. She’s on like seven meds.”

This was getting worse.

“I know a bit about medication, through personal experience and researching them. Is she on Seroquel?”

“Seroquel is one of them.”

Seroquel will turn the most hyperactive, gleeful, sugar-fueled tyke into a drooling, stooped-over, east-side junkie. It is very, very strong antipsychotic medication. She was taking several others on top of this?

“What else is she taking?”

“She won’t tell me.”

But she’s your kid, right? This girl you agreed to take custody of, with drug-addicted parents, is in your charge, correct?

“You don’t know what else she’s taking? Maybe you should consult with her doctor?”

“Her doctor won’t come forth with anything. And she’s 21, so she’s an adult.”

I was starting to get irritated, understanding that parenthood isn’t an easy task, but wondering why he took custody of this young woman.

“It sounds like she needs rehab, or to go to a facility for a while. Just a neutral place with people she can relate to, and get some therapy and really regroup herself. This would probably be best for her: just a therapeutic environment.”

“Yeah, maybe,” he said. “I dunno.”

I dropped the subject, because this wasn’t sitting well with me. I also noticed that Sean praised Jonah to the heavens, saying how he had such a “strong moral compass,” that he had saved “about twenty-five grand for Jonah’s education,” that he wanted to go on father-son camping excursions in the mountains.

What about Jen? Y’know, Jen, apparently dosed up on seven types of medication and sleeping all day and unable to work and unwilling to get therapy and without anyone to talk to. What about her?

A day rolled around that changed things quite a bit for me. In fact, it changed things permanently. We were, once again, talking about his kids.

All right, honesty time: there’s only so much a voluntarily childless woman can handle when it comes to other people’s offspring. I have no point of reference, no experience of what surely must be unconditional parental adoration, and so it gets increasingly dull. I can’t relate, can’t share my own decisions as a mother, and thus there’s only so much I can take. I don’t pine for children; I don’t listen to these stories with a wistful ear, wondering how magical it must be to have kids and watch them Do Things. It’s just not there. Listening to Sean, therefore, spend fifteen minutes boastfully extolling the benevolence of Jonah inviting the severely autistic child from school to his birthday party wore thin. This is the truth. And so is the fact that it seems roughly 95% of young people are autistic nowadays, so I’m not sure what’s going on with that.

I blame diet.

He began talking about the importance of fathers in the lives of children, which I do agree with entirely, but then he said:

“Look at all the single moms here and in the US. Without a father, most of those kids become violent and hopeless.”

What?

I tried something.

“Right…right. I mean, since we live in a man’s world, it’s good that kids know how to navigate their way around and through it. Both boys and girls.”

He replied:

“A man’s world…LOL.”

Now, if you know me, you know that I tend to have, well, a bit of a temper. It doesn’t take much for the mercury to shoot to stratospheric levels, particularly if I’m dealing with idiocy, ignorance, or the judgment that I mentioned above somewhere. Here’s what we exchanged:

“It most certainly is a man’s world!”

“It most certainly is not.”

“Okay, then this is where I tap out, Sean.”

“It may be a man’s world for 1% of men.”

“Then I’m not sure what planet you are living on. A few crazy women do not change the fact that this is still very much a patriarchy paying pathetic lip service to women.”

“#1 in incarceration, #1 in addiction, #1 in homelessness, #1 in suicide…”

Whose fault is that? Women’s fault? The matriarchy?

“Then that’s because you guys don’t know what you’re doing with all your power. You have all the power. I’m not going here with you. Not at all. Good night.”

“And less life expectancy. Facts don’t care about your feelings, Nadya.”

You can well imagine how I was close to having my head absolutely explode, Scanners-style.

“Poor men!” I raged in type. “Oh, you poor, poor men! Let me bust out my violin…sorry, I mean my pepper spray! No, I mean my telescopic baton!”

“This is how the first world works. It is not a man’s world at all. Maybe in other countries, but not here. This is a woman’s world.” It was like suicide by text.

“You, Sean? You don’t know what you’re talking about. Have a good night and I hope your poor, discriminated, disadvantaged, oppressed, totally subjugated sex can overcome the adversity you have historically lived with. I will cry for you tonight.”

It didn’t go well after that. In fact, it didn’t really work at all. He said he wasn’t down with my “negativity.” I said that, as a feminist, there is absolutely no way we could communicate about anything substantial. Oh, and further to that, his very, very troubled daughter lived with a self-defined victim who favoured his son and couldn’t even care to do anything to help her, apart from getting her disability so she could pay him rent.

I’m glad it didn’t go beyond that. It would have gotten very, very ugly. Uglier, to be sure.

So after weeks of communicating, of potentially-burgeoning friendship, of thinking Sean was that same old pal of mine from decades ago, I learned that people really can change, and not in the way we want: he resembled and sounded nothing like the young man I knew. While his words could have been far more offensive–and they would have been–there is no way I can carry on a dialogue with a man like this.

I suppose I can grudgingly credit him with being honest about his alleged male victimhood. I’ve known several men who pretended to be on the side of women (back in the 90s, we called them SNAGs: Sensitive New-Age Guys) who took Women’s Studies classes to get laid and attempted conversations about the evil patriarchy while gawking at my breasts. It is a man’s world, folks, and if you don’t believe it, please take a look at your dick, and then please take a look at all the high-rises where you live, and get back to me.