Problems Personal

EVERY SO OFTEN something funny happens to me when I'm talking with men. I've always spoken a lot in classes, and liked having discussions with men after sections. But if we talk a long time, or if we've talked some before in that situation, I start to feel strange-I guess I get scared that he won't see me as a real person, but only a mind. So all of a sudden I find myself changing the subject entirely, to talk about something personal or emotional, or I start being very conscious of my expression, wondering if I look warm and intriguing. And then there are the opposite situations, when, say. I'm with a guy in his room and we've been feeling very close and warm and comfortable, and I start to think, my god, he won't understand that I can think, so I start off on some esoteric rap about philosophy or something. It always feels strange, because it never quite fits the situation . . . . I get really confused by my acting that way.

It was freshman year when someone said sleep with me and I did. Something happened in my mind. She came apart from her, and the one who did good work, smiled good morning at everyone, had come to, Radcliffe with a whole encyclopedia of brittle ideas, she was washed with darkness by the other one, in the pit. Gold, searing aches. But most of all (every Radcliffe girl is her father's daughter) wanting to ask. ashamed to ask, am I the same, do you still love me, am I the same.

Most of last year I felt like I was always being rejected by men-not just men I knew and liked, but by all men, however casual or even nonexistent my contact with them. I remember it made me feel terrible about myself when some guy I'd been watching in class didn't notice me and come talk to me, or, if he did, that he didn't seem to want to know me better. In retrospect it seems really weird-I guess I was going around offering myself up totally to any encounter I had with men, whatever the situation. Some people say that's really good, to be totally open in any encounter, but how can it be done when it comes from feeling that you don't exist, that you're worth nothing unless someone chooses you?

THE FEAR OF food and of weight gain is a peculiarly feminine phenomenon. The perpetual eater, whether overweight or not, trembles when she eats-indulges, feels guilty, punishes herself-or, in control, abstains, purifies. A brownie eaten for dessert can ruin an evening. You are ugly ! You are weak. No one will love you. You are fat, she tells the mirror. When will you learn? look at you! The scale measures neuroses as well as pounds.

Why am I always the one who is responsible for the state of any relationship I have with a man? If we disagree, or have a fight, he can always go on functioning, while I am reduced to worrying, waiting, wondering how I can make everything all right?

IN WOMEN'S LIBERATION, we have been discovering that things we always thought were our personal problems, our own hang-ups, are shared by other women. This feels really good, for we realize that, as our problems, are shared, we can give each other support in working on them. It also means that we can begin to understand where the problems came from-our families, the ways we were socialized, our expectations of the future-and begin to work on changing those together.