I’m a Misandrist—But I Still Fantasize About Marrying a Man

I don’t believe in fairytales—but I still want one. This is my tension, my contradiction, and my truth.

Okay—this is a little uncomfortable to admit...

I’m a misandrist.

I’ve always kind of felt this way, even before I had the language for it. And I’ve spent a long time avoiding saying it out loud—because I never wanted to be the person who groups people together or speaks from bitterness.

But here I am. And this is where it gets confusing.

Despite being pansexual… Despite having terrible experiences with men… Despite being non-monogamous and deeply skeptical of traditional relationships… Despite being a Sex worker for over a decade… Despite knowing most men are dangerous, emotionally lazy, and untrustworthy… I still fantasize about marrying one.

Not because I want to be chosen by a man. But because I might end up choosing one.

I even have a folder on my phone—basically a vision board—of the kind of man I *might* end up with. It’s embarrassing. It’s cliché. And it’s my truth.

Groomed to Center Men

I was raised in a house where everything revolved around a man. My mother called her husband—my abusive stepfather—her God. We served him first at dinner. We weren’t allowed to look him in the eyes. That kind of reverence wasn’t love. It was fear. And it shaped me more than I want to admit.

Even as a child, I resented it. But somehow, I still became a pick-me. That script was embedded so deeply in me, I didn’t even realize I was following it until years later.

The Moment That Shook Me

About 3 years ago, I came across a video of a woman—wide-eyed, joyful, completely sincere—enthusiastically professing her love for men. She said it casually, like it was obvious: 'I love men. I think they’re great.'

And I froze.

I was confused. A little shaken, honestly. Because if someone had asked me that same question—'Do you love men?'—my answer would've been completely different.

It made me spiral a bit. Like… wait. Do I hate men? Is that what this is?

That was an uncomfortable question to sit with. Not because I felt guilty, but because I had to reckon with the gap between what I saw and what I actually felt.

Sugar Dating Was My Wake-Up Call

Before that I couldn’t fathom the idea of someone else taking care of me, allowing me to be in my feminine, embracing my softness.

 I thought my sole purpose was to serve. That I was meant to pay for men—emotionally, spiritually, sometimes financially. I was the 'ride or die.' The emotionally available one. The therapist in lingerie. I gave everything—and got crumbs.

But in my first sugar dating arrangement, things flipped. I was the one being cared for.

It wasn’t perfect. And no, I don’t recommend sugar dating unless you know yourself deeply and have strong boundaries. I just got lucky. But for me, it was healing.

Since then, vanilla dating has felt like betrayal. The entitlement. The emotional laziness. I always end up returning to what at least feels honest: transactional clarity.

The One Man Who Proved Me Wrong

The first truly wholesome relationship I ever had with a man was with a gentleman in his 60s, whom I met nearly a decade ago—on a dating app, of all places.

He was 40 years older than me. He paid off my student debt. He supported my growth. He was a man of few words and wasn’t particularly affectionate but he always made sure I felt cared for.

He never asked for sex—I chose it. We were never in a traditional relationship, but what we had was real. Mutual. Loving. Safe.

He’s still the only man I’ve ever truly loved. He didn’t shake my faith in men. He complicated it, in a way that felt healing—not harmful. However, this wasn’t a linear progression— I would eventually find myself craving and chasing  “real love”.  I’d end up lowering my standards and ignoring my boundaries for the sake of being choosing only for the relationship to end in a dumpster fire and I’d go right back to sugaring or some sort of transactional relationship. 

Hopeless Romantic in a Misandrist’s Mind

Here’s the part that complicates everything:

I’m a hopeless romantic. I love love. I fantasize about being swept off my feet—candlelit dinners, forehead kisses, surprise flights to Paris. And even though I know it’s all fantasy, I still crave it. It’s not impossible that I could experience this with a straight-ish man, it’s just not likely in the way that I fantasize. I have this feeling that men are not designed to love women in a heterosexual format that is compatible.

And I know the history.

Marriage was never about love. It was about land, power, bloodlines. A contract. An alliance. Romantic love was a myth popularized in the Middle Ages—specifically by broke French men who couldn’t marry women of means, so they invented longing. They romanticized women they couldn’t afford.

I know this. I know all of it. And still—I want it. That’s the contradiction. The soft part of me I can’t intellectualize away.

The Manifestation Folder

I even have a secret manifestation folder on my phone—men I’ve never met, but fully romanticized. Strangers who look like they walked out of movies or the glossy pages of magazines. And weirdly, it’s working. I’ve ended up going out with men who look exactly like them—men I once thought only existed in fantasy. I don’t know if that’s part of the delusion, or the magic. Maybe both.

Astrology, Henry Cavill, and the Letdown

I’m also really into astrology, and I’d been holding on to this idea that mid-April would be the time. According to my chart, this was the window when I might meet someone life-changing—either the love of my life or someone who would push me closer to them.

That hope lived quietly alongside my manifestation folder. Henry Cavill is in there. And strangely enough, a couple of weeks ago, I went on a date with someone who looked *exactly* like him. Maybe even better in person. I remember feeling hopeful in a way I hadn’t in a long time—like, 'Oh my god, could this actually be it?'

But then the thing that always happens... happened. The lack of depth. The disconnection. The fantasy didn’t match the reality. We sat across from each other at a beautiful restaurant, talked for a couple of hours, and went our separate ways. And I just felt—annoyed. Disappointed. Like maybe this whole thing—this wanting, this hoping—was another story I’ve outgrown.

Living in the Contradiction

I’m pansexual. I’m not monogamous. I don’t believe in traditional relationships. And yet—despite all of that—I still imagine my primary partner might be a man.

Not because I think men are safe. Not because I think they’re better. Not because I want to be chosen by one.

But because I might choose one.

This isn’t about longing for men. It’s about longing for safety in a world that made men dangerous. And reckoning with the fact that I still, sometimes, crave the illusion of safety they’re taught to promise—even when I know it’s a performance.

And still… Somewhere in me, there’s that little flicker of possibility that my primary partner might be a man.

Not because I want to be chosen by him—but because I may end up choosing one. And that’s the part I’m still learning to sit with.

This isn’t about longing for men. It’s about longing for safety in a world that made men dangerous. And reckoning with the fact that I still, sometimes, crave the illusion of safety they’re taught to promise—even when I know it’s a performance.

Logically speaking, I don’t think most men are actually compatible with the kind of love I’m talking about.

There seems to be a biological need—or at the very least, a strong predisposition—for violence, for destruction. And until men start addressing that within themselves, until they interrogate that urge at a fundamental level, things could get even worse— if that’s even possible.

This is part of why I’m a misandrist. Not because I want to be. But because I’ve witnessed too much, lived too much, and know too much to pretend otherwise.