I have read as many books by men authors in the past 3 months as I have in the past 3 years. (Nine – or I’m in the middle of the ninth. Only 2 of which I would ever have picked up on my own.) Because of FOMO. I read them because I didn’t want to miss out on a book discussion with some online friends, or a book that I thought would be fun with my reading bestie.
I was, in fact, *not* missing out. They have mostly been what I expected. Men don’t generally write what I want to read. I am not their audience. But I have been reading anyway. And I have been having a lot of feelings about it. Shame and self judgment. I have been wondering if I am being disingenuous because I knew they were not books I would normally choose. I knew I probably wouldn’t like them or just wouldn’t care. I have some sort of personal expectation that I should not be wasting anyone’s time by not enjoying a book they are. Or by finishing a book I am not interested in. That I should be “matching energy.” Or that by not liking something beloved I am displaying that I am lacking something. Probably intelligence…(I know intellectually that I am not.)
When I was younger, I was very invested in reading books that would make me look highly educated, interesting and eclectic. And I happened to end up enjoying many of them. But that was a happy accident.
I love ideas. I love cleverness. And I have always been very proud of both my knowledge and my intelligence. But I mostly wanted to wow at parties. In my desire to LOOK smart, I made myself smart. (My vanity really has done so much for me in my life…)
Intellectual books are “boring.” And I don’t mean that as a judgement. More of a discernment. To really grasp the layout of a complex set of ideas, especially in a novel, the brain is going to need to slow down. It’s going to need to work through complicated things. And that often registers for me as boredom. A slog. Not unworthy. Just a bigger commitment. I cannot just zip through. But I was ALWAYS willing to do that when I needed to project “intellectual.” (It helps if you lean into the boring instead of judging it.)
For a long time, for me the only reason to read was to someday impress someone by the fact that I have read War and Peace, all of Shakespeare’s plays, all of Jane Austen’s novels, His Master’s Voice, The Master and Margarita, and Lolita. (Wow, that’s a lot of Slavs…)
Someone in a seminar I attended once said that if you think someone is not playing to win, you just don’t know the game they are playing.
That was enlightening. It meant that there was more than one game and I got to choose which one I wanted to play. And I think lately I have been forgetting that I decide what game I am playing with reading books, just as much as I get to decide what books I want to read and why.
Also, women authors write plenty of books that I hate. In fact, one of my favorite reasons to finish a book I hate is to read it with my reading bestie when she also hates it. We have renamed books for how slow they were. Like “A Land SO LONG.”
When we do that, the fun is not about the book. If it were I would DNF (Did Not Finish.) It isn’t even about what I can learn or project. It’s about the relationship with my friend. It’s about inside jokes and shared experiences. It’s about how hilarious we are with each other. It’s about knowing that she is the one person I will take a book rec from, no questions asked. It’s about her knowing that I have time and will always accommodate her busy schedule, and to catch up or slow down for her.
As I get older, less vain, less interested in the judgment of others (thank you perimenopause) I read more for the emotional aspects of storytelling. Because that is what moves *me* right now. For years in my early 40s I read mostly Young Adult novels (I still read plenty, just not a majority) because they hit the emotional spot, not necessarily the intellectual one. They were a chance to redo my own childhood for myself. For the past several years I was heavy into cozy books with low stakes and lots of feelings and interesting relationships. Because I needed to relax my body and my nervous system. Lately the novels I am reading are getting more political, more intense, more focused on the impact of culture on individuals. I may go back to cozy if I need to. I may slip a slightly boring, highly intellectual novel in there.
I am writing today to remind myself, the question is not how to win, it’s what’s the game?
Is the game to read a book I enjoy, or be in conversation with friends, or learn something new, or feel something? Because I can make very different decisions about any one book based on the game.
Getting my eating under control gave me the tools to recognize when I am doing something based on wanting to be perceived a certain way, and the understanding that masking some aspect of myself for the benefit of others, is not helping my life, it’s harming. Keeping my eating under control is a constant recalibration towards my most authentic self.
So the next time my friends want to read a book I don’t want to read, I don’t have to say yes. And I don’t have to say no. I don’t have to know now. When the time comes, I just have to choose the game.
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onceafatgirl 