I was talking to someone the other day and he brought it up in fact. He said something like, and as a woman you’re probably constantly just scanning men for tone and content to keep continuously checking their vibe is okay.

It was the first time I’d had a man acknowledge that that’s happening. I’d seen videos online of prominent men who make videos about gender that have said similar. But not an actual man standing in front of me. And it felt surprising. And also really comforting to know that there is this shift in men being more aware that women’s nervous systems are just constantly on alert at all times.

I feel like I exhaust myself from constantly processing things like word usage, tone, intonation, body language, intention, facial expressions, the meaning behind their words to constantly keep asking … is this person safe, does this person make me feel comfortable. And I feel like things can shift quite easily. A person might ‘feel okay’ initially and then tell on himself as our interactions go on.

This is something that I feel like I’m still learning and while I lean heavily on my intuition, I don’t think that I always get things right. It’s a constant process and one in which I keep learning things about.