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Fiction
by Tony Tulathimutte
Book Reviewed by:
The Feminist
If you ask him where he went to high school, he likes to boast that, actually, he went to an all-girls school. Which is sort of true—he was one of five males at a progressive private school that had gone co-ed just before he'd enrolled. People always reply: Ooh la la, lucky guy! You must've had your pick. Which irritates him, because it implies that women would only date him if they had few other options, and also because he hadn't dated anyone in high school. (In junior year a freshman girl had a crush on him, but he wasn't attracted to her curvaceous body type, so he felt justified in rejecting her, as he'd been rejected many times himself.)
Still, the school ingrained in him, if not feminist values per se, the value of feminist values. It had been cool, or at least normal, to identify as asexual. And though he didn't, he figured it was a better label than "virgin." His friends, mostly female, told him he was refreshingly attentive and trustworthy for a boy. Meanwhile he was grateful to learn that female is best used as an adjective, that sexism harms men too—though obviously nowhere near the extent it harms women—and that certain men pretend to be feminists just to get laid. When he graduated, he felt slightly sheepish about never having even kissed anyone. Everyone knew, though, that real dating started in college, where nobody would be aware of his track record.
But in college, he encounters the alien system of codes and manners that govern flirting, conveyed in subtextual cues no more perceptible to him than ultraviolet radiation. Learning in high school about body positivity and gender norms and the cultural construction of beauty had led him to believe that adults aren't obsessed with looks. This turns out to be untrue, even among his new female friends, who complain about how shallow men are. Now that he's self-conscious, he realizes he can't compete along conventional standards of height, weight, grip strength, whatever. How can he hope to attract anyone with his narrow shoulders?
The women he tries to date offer him friendship instead, so once again, most of his friends are women. This is fine: it's their prerogative, and anyway, lots of relationships begin platonically—especially for guys with narrow shoulders. But soon a pattern emerges. The first time, as he is leaving his friend's dorm room, he surprises himself by saying: Hey, this might be super random, and she can totally say no, but he's attracted to her, so did she want to go on a "date" date, sometime? In a casual and normal voice. And she says, "Oh," and filibusters—she had no idea he felt that way, and she doesn't want to risk spoiling the good thing they have by making it a thing, she thinks it'll be best if they just stay ... and he rushes to assure her that it's valid, no, totally valid, he knows friendship isn't a downgrade, sorry for being weird. Ugh!
Excerpted from REJECTION by Tony Tulathimutte. Copyright © 2024 by Tony Tulathimutte. Excerpted with permission of William Morrow, a division of HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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