To the Daughters of the Angry Emailers  Occasionally, I get
emails from disgruntled boyfriends or husbands who have been
asked to read The Terrible Bargain We Have Regretfully Struck by
their girlfriends/wives, sometimes as explanation for why
they're walking out the door. They are men who need to be angry
at someone, and can't quite bring themselves to express that
anger to the woman who directed them to the piece (or can't
because all avenues to express that anger to her have been
blocked), and so they express that anger at me.  I understand
why they do it: It's certainly more satisfying than directing it
at the intangible, diaphanous abstraction of a culture that has
socialized them with the reflexive arrogance of privilege that
impedes empathy and inhibits intimacy.  Nonetheless, I don't
engage with them, if for no other reason than because most of
them have been asked to read it by a woman expressing a desire
their partner engage with her, and I refuse to provide an easier
alternative to that invitation.