Toxic Dating Culture and Single Badassery: An Interview with Shani Silver
Critic of toxic dating culture and unapologetically happy single person, Shani Silver joined us for season two of the Tell Me How You’re Mighty podcast.
Shani is the author of a Single Revolution, a podcaster at A Single Serving, and TikTok creator where she lampoons dating apps, stupid things people say to single people, and other outrages.
” I help singles reframe singlehood to see its value and validity, for as long as we happen to be single. I’m not an advocate for singlehood, I’m an advocate for people being happy while single, and there is a difference.”
Shani Silver
Stop the single shame.
Sarah (another happy single person) and I talked with Shani about shedding the societal shame around being uncoupled. An important gain-a-life message for anyone who’s ever dumped a cheater and feared life on the other side.
Given the overlap of our communities, I think Shani and I are fighting a common Bogeyman — the You’re Damaged Goods Without a Partner hobgoblin. The fear that keeps people shackled to FWs, putting up with way more nonsense than they should, all to win some prize not worth having.
I love this TikTok of Shani’s (speaking of of dumping jerks…)
@shanisilver It’s a beautiful day to end the wrong relationship. #asinglerevolution ♬ original sound – Shani Silver
All that is wrong with toxic dating culture
While Shani’s work prides itself on not offering women dating tips, we did enjoy discussing the insanity of others that do. To wit, He’s Just Not That Into You (aka If He Wanted to, He Would’ve.) Apparently, you should’ve received a decoder ring for a FW’s mixed messages. Why, Shani, rightly points out, isn’t the onus on jerks to not lead women on?
@shanisilver Switch it around. #asinglerevolution
♬ original sound – Shani Silver
And speaking of toxic dating culture, we also tear apart the FW of the Week — a story courtesy of CN member Luzianna who received a Venmo request from a man she broke up with the year previously, asking for his Christmas gift back.
I know it’s rough out there. So be choosey. You’re better than a FW. And there isn’t a damn thing wrong being single.
****
I was recently a guest on Shani’s podcast, which is exclusively on Patreon for her subscribers. I’ll let you know when it comes out later this month.
Tune in next week, when Sarah and I discuss The 10 Questions to Ask Your Unfaithful Partner. Trial tested results! Spoiler: We did not get honest answers.
The gaping hole in my soul left by Traitor Ex and his secret sexual double life cohorts who soul raped me and hurt my daughter needs to be healed by learning to love (verb) myself. I see now more than ever that my self-esteem was destroyed in my MIRAGE (it was not a marriage) and the person who needs to repair it and maintain it is ME. I believe if I had truly loved myself, I would not have stayed as long as I did. Top of my list these days is learning to love myself. Actions, behavior. Feelings follow actions.
I have been orbiting boys and men since I was twelve years old. I was happily single when I met Traitor Ex and I am happily single, have not dated, and am still healing now, six years out. Healing my daughter and myself is my primary focus. I have more than enough work to do which is healing, designing and building my life, and teaching my daughter to leave the nest and confidently fly off.
If there is a romantic partner in my future, it will be someone I meet organically in the process of living that life. They will be an ornament on my Christmas tree, not the Christmas tree.
I was not into personal ads before smartphones and the internet, and I will not be using dating apps, the modern version of those.
Reference the Christmas tree analogy.
Yes. I value my Faith Life but the culture of many faiths is to value a spouse more than yourself. Over and over I ignored abuse and doubled-down on efforts to make it a good marriage. We all know how that shit turns out.
I surely did see Cheater as the Christmas Tree of my life which made leaving him and his abuse unthinkable most of the time. I tolerated WAY too much.
Being a person who over-valued a bad partner (and set that example for my kids)…it has been a challenge to guide my daughter to do otherwise, but her partner is a decent fellow who I like very much.
Me either- I’m not pick me dancing with questionable males online.
I’m better than that.
All that being said, and as others have said here today, where you meet someone is no guarantee that someone is loyal and honest. I don’t think there is a guarantee. So most important is that I decide what my dealbreakers are, and lying is now at the top of my list. I excused Traitor Ex’s lies and exaggerating and failures to disclose because they were about “little things”, but I now believe if someone tells lies about “little things” you can be sure they are lying about bigger things. And even so I still have no interest dating apps and prefer the old fashioned way of meeting people in the course of living my life or being introduced by people I know.
“where you meet someone is no guarantee that someone is loyal and honest”
So true. For me, it is a huge irony that my Subsequent to Cheater Good Husband is a person who was (at the time of our courting, since retired) a counter intelligence special agent – someone who literally lied for a living and taught other people to lie for their living. We are 11 years deep in our relationship and he has proven himself trustworthy at every turn.
Oh yes- I’m with you there.
I’ve heard almost every lie there is and aren’t accepting any more.
Fucking eh!!! Excuse my language
I have a very good friend who was chumped by her partner of 28 years. She has remarried to a man she met on Match. He’s a retired Navy SEAL (they attend the reunion events so we know it’s for real) and a contractor who is currently building them their fourth home. The cheater she left was a total slacker. I am thrilled for her after what she went through. I don’t have any criticism of those who use dating apps. They’re just not for me. 🙂
Same. Gotta chime in to say the friend’s experience echoes my own positive experience with online dating. I’ve never had an adventurous love life, but my two worst relationships by far were folks I met in person.
Of course, I did a lot of self-education after those experiences, and learned to spot manipulative tactics and narcissistic traits. So when I was single again, I used Match and eHarmony, and I found that seeing how someone presented themselves online actually made it much easier to screen for quality without being fooled by the charm channel. I met my introvert engineer now-husband on eHarmony; he lived two hours away, , had very little “game,” and yet was funny and down-to-earth and receptive to my feedback on what my dealbreakers are (deception is one; I told him early on when something he told me conflicted with something else he told me: “Do not lie to me. I’m not stupid. If I trust what you say, it is not because I’m stupid; trust is a choice. I can easily make a different choice.” Needless to say, I would not have continued dating him if it wasn’t apparent he took that to heart). He’s respectful, considerate, faithful and a definite keeper, yet I never would have come across him in person.
As for screening on apps, the list will be different for everyone, but for me, I ruled out guys for the following reasons: 1. If their profile photo was them posing in or in front of their (usually flashy) car; it just didn’t represent the values I was looking for. 2. If they included any shirtless pix whatsoever; same reason; 3. If they reached out to me with pickup lines (repeat rejected cons included the ‘I’m a doctor who’s going to be in your town for a medical conference and I’d love to meet you,’ and the ‘I’m younger but you’re such an amazing person that I couldn’t help be drawn to you.’). 4. If they weren’t run-of-the-mill like I am. 5. I looked for reciprocity in getting to know anyone; no racing ahead nor leaving me hanging were accepted.
Anyway, no hate for dating apps in my corner. Applause to CL for saying “it’s up to us to not date losers” as well as for continuing to educate (and remind) so many on how to spot losers’ tricks.
I responded above that my Now Husband was a Special Agent when we were dating and I would actually laugh to myself that his story sounded contrived (in the same way your friend needed to discern that her guy was really a Seal). Like your friend, there were work events that allowed me to discern that he was totally legit, but I was self protective enough to be wary.
I feel bad that part of the reason he was available and single is that he had been callously used and dumped by his XW (I was careful to vet this story too since every middle aged divorced man tells the same tale but most are lying). He was single for a long long time and never used any dating apps. He had not been on a date in 6 years when we reconnected (we had known each other many years ago). So he was the reluctant dater, not me.
Our whole dynamic is unreplicable and if he dies before me, I would never marry again. I never want to change my name or combine finances & households ever again. Im super glad I did so with my current spouse, but every story I hear makes me more thankful for what I have and wary of what is out there.
“If there is a romantic partner in my future, it will be someone I meet organically in the process of living that life. They will be an ornament on my Christmas tree, not the Christmas tree.”
I felt this way, no dating aps were available then, (no internet) but the dating business’s were popping up. My best friend used a Christian one, and I won’t put her down for that, in fact she met an amazing man; and they have been together and have an amazing blended family for many years now.
But for me, I just told myself either I meet someone in my regular walk, (no ads, dating set ups, or bars) or I don’t.
I worked for DoD, so meeting folks was not an issue. I don’t fault folks for dating aps; I know things are different now; but for me, I just didn’t want it.
I think if I had children still to raise, I likely would have not wanted to date for a while. But after a year of being alone, plus the year I was married and basically alone; I was ready to give a decent man a chance.
I happened upon Dr. Scott Eilers on YouTube. He is a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in treating anxiety and depression (hello, chump state of being!) and is also someone who manages his own anxiety and depression. His videos are gold.
Here’s one from yesterday which I would consider a good argument and recipe for being single and content.
https://youtu.be/BCeaiDtJhko?si=47jrE_UIf1SZplQR
This was so very good. The norm in the conservative Christian church where I met and married my ex was that you are only single if you are widowed. There is also a strong husband/wife/kids dynamic. That is changing, but I still lost most of my long-term couple friends there because of what I believe is distrust of single people in general. For crying out loud, I’m a happy sixty-something! Why would I want to poach YOUR husband? But there it is.
Thankfully I knew enough to go elsewhere for friends, and virtually all of my close friends are in far more liberal churches and love me completely as I am.
More needs to be said about being happily single and fully complete as-is. I agree that the modern dating culture is so very toxic, even for oldsters like me. Why should I waste my time even trying? Maybe it will happen more organically as Shani describes, but I’m not waiting to live my best life.
This is perfect timing for me and looks very helpful. Thank you; I look forward to checking out this podcast soon!
Good for Shani- it’s about time these experts were called out on their shit advice- He’s just not into being a human being with integrity , more like.
Both FW in my case were men I met as teenagers and in the second one’s case knew what I’d gone through at the hands of the first FW- it didn’t stop him doing the same and then some. I marked myself as an easy target from the start.
Because you have history doesn’t guarantee anything and can work against you in some ways.
Lesson learned on that one.
I am at T+5 months(approximately) from D-Day. I’ve had a lot of time for moral inventory and reflecting on the relationship I got chumped out of. I spent the last year of my life prior to D-Day trying to win the Pick Me Dance. And the 12 before that attending to her needs(lord knows she had few enough actual contributions it turns out.)
Anxious as I am to start dating again to try and fill that void(Christmas was hell), it’s actually been kind of nice getting to focus on me and getting my needs met on my own. Hell, seeing minimal differential in actual effort to run the household has actually been rather refreshing and eye opening.
Besides, need to put some(OK, a lot of) work in and heal before I inflict myself on some other poor soul. It’s going to feel really, really weird when the time comes knowing that I am valuable(for once.)
Very similar to my situation. D + 7 months for me, the divorce coming up in a week. I spent months Dancing and begging her to stay. Finally mostly past denial, and almost to acceptance. After having someone in your life 30 years, this is scary. I would like to meet someone, but I know I’m nowhere near ready
Winning a pick me dance is the worst thing that could happen. Learn and move on. Cut off all contact. If you have kids it’s text or email kids only. Ignore anything else. You don’t have to talk to her.
“Winning a pick me dance is the worst thing that could happen”
Yes. I won the Pick Me Dance and it got me 7 more years of abuse.
I never did leave him. I was preparing to when he died suddenly. It has been years and as there was no decision, action and outcome of leaving, I still feel an unfinishedness to it. I’m fully aware that “closure” is not a real thing, but even a divorce with no closure is a process that one would walk through as life changed but for him to be there one day and gone from the face of the earth the next, my brain still struggles to make sense of it. I often have dreams where he and I are talking and I am telling him that Im leaving (since that conversation never happened in real life).
very amaxing
I’m conflicted. I 100% want to be a happy singleton. Lord knows it’s better than being paired with FW! But I also would like to experience real love (and good s3x!) in my lifetime.
I believe our purpose in life is to love and be loved. I think I’m good at the loving others part, and have been putting a lot of time into loving myself through therapy and just time over the last year since DDay (15 months, actually). It’d be nice to genuinely receive love from someone else, though since I know now that FW never loved me, not really.
Make no mistake, though, I’m not in a super big hurry. I want it to be the right person since FW was such a, well, FW.
I felt that way for a while, but I realized the freedom of being single is worth just as much as experiencing that. I can love and be loved by family, friends and dogs. It doesn’t need to be romantic love. I’m okay with the reality that I will never experience reciprocal romantic love.
My #1 cheater was a childhood sweetheart and we had a wedding of the century, so meant to be we were. 14 years 2 babies, cheated for 3 years unknown until the last year. D day until Divorce was, 1 year 2 months. Fairytale over.
So #2 cheater…. it took me a total of 3 years from D day to dating and remarriage. I met #2 cheater at a church doing a Divorce Recovery seminar which suggested no dating for a year. We didn’t believe that. We knew better…..so Although our marriage lasted 32 years I have to say that any long term relationship could unravel for a myriad reasons along the way. Sometimes the red flags are waving, sometimes the halos are on for years,babies, houses and work….nothing moves the marriage and then bam. With dishonesty being a masters class one just never knows where the right answers are. How to meet good people? On dating sites, church,, work, …Where is the right place?? I just lost faith completely. But maybe it is not the place you found them but how long you stay spackling, dancing, making babies and more babies, giving 1-1000 chances. ..and you, knowing this is an awful situation you keep accepting, keeping it going. Maybe Classes on how to cut and run, where the good legal teams are,and solid advice would be the spot to sop up the blood. It’s not the place you meet them is it? it’s the person and it’s a roll of dice and a prayer. I’m so thrilled to be 71 next week. Not a craving in my body for company. I plant my own garden now and have sweet peace I do totally get the craving for perfect, but that person might not exist in this lifetime. But we still have hope right?
I no longer have hope in a viable partnership. I do have friends and family, but sometimes those blow up, too! I am six years out and haven’t so much as had a coffee date. I’m 65 and look younger but told I give off a vibe of “don’t cross me or I’ll stab you!” I simply don’t want to risk trusting someone again. Not tempting. Ex FW was married to some rando two months after we ended our 29 year legal farce. She can have him, at least for now. He will undoubtedly move on.
OMG!!!! The EXFW (thankfully 16 months divorced) tried some of this in with the Judge at out Judicial Settlement Conference!! He wanted all the Christmas gifts he ever gave me back (going back 27 years), he wanted lifetime tenancy of the marital home, he wanted the engagement ring back and every other nonsense you can think of. The retired judge laughed and brough up his video collection of cheating, the evidence of the money he spent, the mortgage he tried to take out and FWs attempt to fraudulently draw out TSP while we were still married!!!!!! I got a good settlement and FW had to pay back a $400K loan that he took on the house by forging my signature (basically, he was given the choice of eat the loan of we will go for fraud).FW still tries to send the occassional email but when threatened with harrassment late last year he seems to have given uo.
Thank God for having a judge with a good sense of humor. ExFW actually embarrassed himself in court by demanding Christmas gifts back?? Wow was he mad at you for not being a human hologram wife-mommy fantasy. In other words, all kudos to you for pronouncing your full human status loud and clear.
If my husband passed on, I probably would not date again, I’m past that point and I think I’d enjoy my freedom. I’d like to have some male friends though for companionship and sex but I don’t think I’d want to settle down. There’s a lot to be said about doing things your own way, your own house, furniture, decorations, TV shows, music, events, travel, friends, nights out, sleeping where and when you want, housework, etc. I’d probably live like a prehistoric cave bear, but so what, it would be my place, LOLOL!
Also, I used a lot of dating services or what would be apps now when I was younger, I just thought it would be a quick and fun way of meeting a lot of guys and I DID meet my husband through one of them (going on 25 years) . You have to be adventurous about it and just look to have fun with no expectations. Just do things in public to be safe, and NO SEX – for me it would take at least 2-3 months. Sorry guys, you gotta wait for the good stuff. Most guys were okay, I never really had a problem with any, they all took my cold, frozen NO very well. But I tried to be a good companion at dinner and events and I was willing to go Dutch (most guys wanted to pay) just to get to meet a range of guys. Just look at it as a fun night out. Things may be different now though, people seem much more fucked up to me than previously. If I had to meet guys through my then normal life it would have HAD to be the pizza delivery guy.
These days men call you “woke” if you pay (that is the ones that have any money) and they get mad at you if you say no to sex because they think you owe them for the date. Can’t make this shit up.
I married three cheaters. I married the first one so I could be a part of his wonderful family as much as I did for him. The family was (and still is) wonderful to me 45 years later, but I divorced the cheater after finding out about his secret double life. He slept with coworkers — his and mine, my boss, his boss’s wife, neighbors, friends, friends of neighbors, the woman he rear-ended at a stop light, my sister and Sister Margaret, the nun who led our pre-Cana classes. I put a lot of time and money into marriage counseling, but didn’t learn to value myself or to fix my picker.
My parents (the ones who raised my sister to be the Golden Child and me to be the Scapegoat) talked me into marrying my second cheater AFTER they witnessed him swing a canoe paddle at me. They had hated my first husband at first sight, and loved the second at first sight and chumpy me somehow believed they had my best interests at heart. I didn’t spot the cheating until AFTER I’d left him immediately after he tried and failed to strangle me to death. I was looking for other women, not Father Steve. I’d dragged him to marriage counseling, too. But I didn’t learn to value myself or to fix my picker.
I was 43 when I married the third cheater, completely missing the big, fat, flapping red flags in my desire to love and be loved. I stayed married for 19 years and 9 months before I left the abuse and cheating behind. No marriage counseling this time; just individual counseling and it took me too sessions to realize I needed to value myself and get myself OUT of there. It’s been five years since the divorce. I’ve been going to counseling, journaling, faithfully reading Chump Lady and even attended a faith based support group. (That group has stripped away the last of my faith, but I digress.). I’m learning to value myself and perhaps even to fix my picker. I’m pushing 70 now, probably much too late to have love, real love in my life. But my life without a cheater has been so peaceful, and I’m so happy in my own little home with my dog . . . . it’s OK if I never date again. I’m not looking for love anymore; I’m trying to love myself and my dog. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being single. I never want to give up my home or wrap my life around a man again!
“the woman he rear-ended at a stop light, my sister and Sister Margaret, the nun who led our pre-Cana classes” “I was looking for other women, not Father Steve.”
Wow, just wow. You can’t make this stuff up!
I’m sorry you’ve had such awful experiences.
And Sister Margaret, the nun who led ya’lls pre-Cana classes?!? 😫😖
He slept with a woman he rear-ended at a stoplight???
I was literally just telling my friend today that if I was not with my current boyfriend, then I would not be dating and I wouldn’t be trying to date. Because I’m just so tired of men who want to do the bare fucking minimum and make everything else a woman’s responsibility. And I agree with Shani, everything in dating advice is aimed at single women to either fix a guy or to walk away from a guy who is doing less than the bare minimum. It’s all on women to handle the mess of dating. While I don’t think it is wrong to walk away from someone who really isn’t worth it, it should not be all on women to be the ones to educate their partners about why they aren’t worth it. Men need to hold themselves to higher standards (and turn off the Andrew Tate podcasts.)
How about more dating advice aimed at men telling them that the bare fucking minimum is not enough?? Like, hey, maybe don’t leave her on read for a week and then act surprised when she’s upset and confused? Maybe when you agree to exclusivity, take the damn dating app off your phone. Maybe actually think about exclusivity and don’t agree to it if you aren’t ready to do it but for god’s sake don’t lie so you can keep getting laid. How about actually introducing her to your friends and don’t downplay your relationship in front of them? Don’t make her feel like she has to pretend to be less of who she is to make you happy.
Oh, and if you have to ask “Is it cheating if…” it probably is and you need to knock it off.
Or if you’re “not looking for anything serious” then don’t treat her like a girlfriend, then get mad when she believes that’s what she is.
Splitting responsibilities 50/50 means 50/50. It doesn’t mean you work 40 hours then do nothing but play video games for the rest of the week while she works and keeps the house clean and does your laundry.
This is all coming from either things I have experienced with sub-par men, or things my friends have left relationships over because they were tired of it. And from what I can tell, it’s gotten worse. I don’t know what it is, but more and more of my female friends are making the decision to just stay single and they’re happier about it. I don’t know if it is just a generation of women who are tired of settling, or a rise in men’s podcasts giving TERRIBLE advice about women, or both, but the modern dating scene is just trash.
A-FCKING-MEN
Great podcast ladies. My mother and I went for a long walk recently along a reasonably popular bush track, but on this occasion we only passed one person – a shady looking fellow who was probably ok but looked like he might jump someone given half the chance. I kept walking but mum baled him up and started talking to him. Eventually he scurried off. Mum later suggested he might be a suitable match for me, and has subsequently hinted that I should be scouting for dudes when I take my dog out for a run on the same track.
umm noooo
Hmmmm… I think brightline “rules” like both “Leave A Cheater” and “If He Wanted To, He Would” remain excellent pieces of advice for spotting and leaving ::ABUSE::. It sucks that the burden of ending an interaction with an icky human so often falls on the less powerful person. But I know when I was in the shit, I personally needed to hear “rules” (more like “standards,” really) to know what was really up, to normalize lining up ducks and leaving, and, crucially, that him having a secret life was Abuse.
Chumps should definitely normalize leaving the minute anything feels disrespectful, off, non-reciprocal, or wildly confusing. Yes, it’s true that pretty much all we do to get UN-Chumped is unequal labor, and unduly burdensome on the party being used and abused. Accountability for cheaters would be a good thing, but in this historical moment anyway, there are practically no laws against this type of abuse, judges often side with male abusers in custody cases, and hardly anyone outside of CN truly cares, so we need to continue to rescue ourselves in the meantime. Semantic arguments certainly have their place on the healing journey once we’ve gotten to safety.
Two years out and I have attempted to date, but really, it’s a lot of work on top of everything else, so I am getting to contentment in my singleness. I would say being in your late 30s, there is a draw to get back out there, but the dating scene has changed a lot in the 14+ years since I last did so, almost like a fish out of water. If I do find someone, I hope to complement their life as they do mine.
Unpopular opinion. I listened to the podcast, and I felt a disconnect between the LACGAL philosophy and Shani’s. I feel that Shani and Tracy have different philosophies about toxic people. It sounds like Shani wants people to coalesce around radically changing dating culture by removing themselves completely from the dating environment, if necessary. I felt like her calls to punish toxic people in the dating environment were a bit problematic. Whereas Tracy would probably state that cheaters have fundamental deficiencies in character, and that the best course of action is remove yourself from them, not waste mental energy on trying to “figure them out,” and move forward with an eye toward focusing on your self esteem and surrounding yourself with people of higher character, whether it’s people you date or friends. There is a hopefulness and optimism to Tracy’s philosophy that I didn’t get from Shani, whose philosophy seemed bilious and retributive.
So, Shani isn’t a Chump. At all. Shani is even a bit impolite when it comes to FWs. That’s a key feature of Shani’s message we Chumps can learn from, hence why CL invited Shani to speak on the podcast. Shani’s overall message came into abundantly clear view in the last 6 minutes of the podcast, where Shani was asked to weigh in on Lusiana’s story about her ex-boyfriend Hoovering her to get his Xmas gift money that she spent on baking him cookies etc back from her a year after the fact. 🤯 Shani’s (reluctant) response was PERFECT. Every Chump who is too damn nice and does too much overgiving stuff for FWs seriously needs to go back and listen to Shani 10 more times. It is GOLD!
I seriously hope my own daughter has Shani’s strong boundaries and wonderful sense of self when she grows up and has encounters with the array of love fraudsters out there! 💜
I definitely don’t expect anyone to agree with my take on the episode, but my disagreement is really focused, I think, on the degree to which toxic people can be controlled or changed. I agree with a lot of Shani’s message! I agree that singlehood should be destigmatized, I agree that people should be open to the idea of happiness in singlehood, I agree that people should take no shit from FWs or other toxic people, I agree that men should take on more effort and responsibility in, well, just about everything relationship-related.
But, I feel like Tracy would say, regarding FWs, that you can’t control their behavior, only your own. Whereas it felt like Shani was calling for the dating culture to change by … policing, sort of? Like, she wants men to police themselves, or for there to be greater punishments for assholes in the dating space (and I’m not sure what that looks like. Maybe tougher community standards on dating apps?) Not that I disagree with that, per se. I just don’t think that tougher community standards are going to magically turn an asshole into a quality datable person. I feel like Tracy is more focused on healing yourself and moving on and reaching meh – and that may include being single or finding a new relationship. For me, personally, I want to spend less time trying to change/control toxic people, and not more.
That’s a lot of paragraphs! If you don’t like Shani and her tone, next time just say that? 😭 Your disagreement with Shani isn’t “focused,” nor is it “unpopular” in patriarchy. I doubt you would’ve called a man in Shani’s shoes “bilious and retributive” (neat 50 cent words that don’t SEEM like name-calling) while failing to cite even a single example of Shani ::actually doing:: any of the things for which you’ve vaguely criticized her — while also sort of claiming you didn’t really criticize her, since you agree with her, too. I give up!
Brash, sharp women like Shani who are actively changing narratives always, always, always, get these exact type of “Unpopular Opinion!” call outs from well-meaning, tone-policing people highlighting differences that aren’t really substantive. You must realize Tracy also gets accused of not being over it/being bitter/mean for continuing to talk about the abuse, too? I’m tired. This stuff exhausts me, so I’m stepping away from your replies now. Take care.