‘The Men in Me’ Racism Ended It series

by Jane Serpentine

CW: suicide

Jane has been traveling, living in several countries, and writing for the past ten years. Jane’s always been a proud West Indian girl, but in recent years has explored how her racial and cultural identity have impacted her philosophically and interpersonally. Jane’s hope is to educate and liberate minds by shared healing through storytelling and finding humour in the absurdity of existence.

Jane shares her story in besea.n’s monthly series: ‘Racism ended it’. Where we share stories about times that racism ended or impacted a relationship; whether that’s friendships, work, romantic relationships, or family dynamics.

If you have a story to share about a time where racism impacted your work, family life, friendship, dating/relationships or any type of story that fits under our series theme, you can safely share your story via our pitch form where we may contact you to publish your story anonymously. Please note that whilst we will carefully read every submission, we may not publish every story.

Traditionally, heartbreak has always been written as a story of tragedy. I have found that, in my life and the lives of numerous people, the end of a relationship - particularly with men - has brought a piece of freedom. The story of my liberation is a mural of heartbreaks. 

At four years old:

Would you believe that he was my first crush? People don’t always know that molestation can feel romantic. I think I’ve chased those initial butterflies he gave me for the next twenty-five years. He was tall, with huge dark eyes and curly hair, with a Fresh Prince flattop. I was never sure exactly when we would sneak up to my closet whenever he visited my house, but I knew it would happen - and it always did. It was exhilarating at the time. Then, one day, he stopped talking to me. I think I have been recoiling from men ever since.

At ten years old:

I had a white, Puerto Rican boyfriend named Sebastian, who was two years older than me. He and I were always fighting. It was Shakespearean. He was controlling and I was rebellious. During our last fight he said: ‘You’ll never get married because you don’t know how to love.’ I remember liking the sound of that, thinking to myself that there were so many other ways to love beyond mere marriage. He was thinking too small. 

At fourteen years old: 

My life and aesthetic were in worship of suicidality, death, and suicidal music. I believed I was both more interesting and understood, claiming suicide as my identity. I was the only Black girl in my class, community, and - at times, it felt - the world. Suicidality was necessary for me to live. Jed and I met at youth group, but mostly talked on Xanga. At the time, any boy willing to read and understand my writing was good enough to love. I loved that, at the time, he had a pacemaker for a heart, stunning green eyes, and a lip-ring. He had a girlfriend, but I thought our connection was more important than that. He was nineteen, but that didn’t mean anything to me - he was important enough to give my virginity to. I think him suffering without a major organ made me feel that the bad sex we had was romantic. In the end, once he received his heart transplant, he lost his appeal for me. I ended things once it all seemed less dreary. He was less misunderstood and able to empathise with my own struggles of feeling isolated. The longer he lives, the cheaper the sex we had has become in my memory. 

At eighteen:

I met Theodore. The first night we met he chased me up the stairs and I smiled to myself, knowing he was following me. I turned around to see his big goofy grin: ‘Come with me to an Arcade Fire show tomorrow in Kansas City - you’re amazing!’ I sheepishly smirked; it felt like I had entered an indie romance film and I said: ‘We’ll see!’ I curtsied and then ran away like a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. I ran straight to my dorm and squealed under my pillows. I thought I was in love. He and I did everything together for the next several months. Picnics in the park reading Vonnegut; writing our secrets to one another in bottles and throwing it in the river; lying under the stars spooning while listening to Damien Rice; watching French films and discussing them for hours into the night. Our connection enticed every part of my mind, and it was the first time I had felt like the girl in a love story. 

Theodore always told me how much he hated Black people. He never loved me because I was Black; it was always in spite of it. At the time I felt that that was a good thing. I liked feeling exceptional enough for a white supremacist to love me. I knew he had too much self-hate and hatred for humans for me to be able to love him forever, but I did love him. When the chemistry began to dissipate, I had to end things. When I ended things with him, I cried for three months straight. I knew the minute the chemistry wore off between us, he’d begin to hate me too. I do still miss him though; those Theodore days felt so goddamn special. 

At nineteen: 

I had fallen into a group of friends. Both the guys and girls were so forlorn and desirous of being chosen by one another. Our friendship group incubated us. The group was quite incestuous by nature too: the majority of us were pining after someone in the group, and I think a lot of us thought we would eventually all marry one another. I was the only Black person in the group at the time. The other Black guy dropped out because he got some white girl pregnant. So, I was left to bristle through the jokes and - at times - feel both invisible and exceptional. But there was Slavic. He had haunting, yet beautiful, eyes that were full of so much hesitancy. I understood his sadness instinctively and, while I loved all our friends, I felt we could understand each another the most. He wasn’t Black or West Indian, but he was an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, and our life stories had commonalities. Slavic became family for me. I said I had been recoiling from men since the age of four; that was true until Slavic. 

At twenty-four: 

I met John. After one night out with a few other friends, we were walking back to our apartments, and then we were kissing. My four-year-old thrills resurfaced that night. I didn’t really process what else I liked about him except for how we connected physically. I told him I wanted nothing to do with him romantically and insisted we were “just friends,” but every time we hung out alone we couldn’t stop fooling around. I was ashamed of him in a lot of ways. He was a former skinhead and had intellectualised race in a way that I knew was unapologetically racist. Yet I proceeded. He was just another sad white boy but he was an integral part of my journey in fully unsubscribing from my former religious thinking. He was always coaxing me, using Jordan Peterson propaganda, to challenge fears I had that were derived from religion, and together we shared a sexual freedom that I hadn’t ever found prior to meeting him. One night, he told me he was in love with me. I didn’t believe him and I reacted quite cruelly to him. After that night, he didn’t speak to me for a long time. His distance made me believe that I loved him too, but I didn’t - I just wanted him to love me again. I think it was then I realized how much I loved myself when I felt loved—even by some sad boy racist. 

At twenty-nine: 

I had had enough of strange men’s bodies. Sort of. The men I dated would conflate our connection into something it wasn’t for me, and often, it felt as if they were attempting to possess me, rather than love me. I found this in my friends who were men too.

I had a friend named Alexander, British and Indian. He was always frustrated with the way I chose to live my life. The more I did what he wanted, the more he seemed pleased. It was infuriating. He and I had such a childlike and magical connection, but he would insist I behave how he saw fit rather than love me for who I was at the time. It became clear to me that I was only hurting myself, by hoping for him to love me as the friend I needed instead of getting hurt by him. We were mean to one another at the end of our friendship, and it broke my heart. 

At thirty-one:

It felt as if my thirties swept me up like a flash. Soon after I turned thirty-one, there was a pandemic, and I was stuck in Asia, attempting unsuccessfully to relocate to New York City. I was listless and bored in 2020 until May. George’s killing did a lot to my psyche. It wasn’t the death itself that surprised me. It was a newfound hope I had for some kind of an anti-racist dawn. That was never going to happen, but I briefly hoped it would. Slavic, my long-time understanding friend, had abandoned me that entire summer. It had never occurred to me that race was a topic that could unravel our twelve year friendship and yet it did. It was darkly ironic because he had at times felt like a respite for me racially in the predominantly white space we initially met. That shit broke me. I had never considered that Slavic could do anything to hurt me. It shocked me. It led me to feel terrified about the rest of the world. Slavic was the only man I had ever trusted and I felt neglected by him. I couldn’t help but wonder, what could the others do?

I began to see how white supremacy had disillusioned me. I thought that I could expect a notion of love from my white friends that wasn’t steeped in whiteness. That was a fantasy. 

I wrote a letter to Slavic and most of my white friends, damning the entirety of our friendships and any hope for a future one. I wanted nothing more to do with white people at that point. I figured that, at the very least, Slavic would have written back asking for a conversation, but that was that. He blocked me and we never spoke. I never heard from any of my college friends again…

Until nine months later, when Josiah, a friend from my college group called me: ‘It’s bad, Jane,’ he said. ‘Slavic is gone, he… killed himself.’

Today

I am unsure if these men will ever leave me. Maybe writing this is my exorcism. Each of these men haphazardly shed off a piece of the enslavement of my mind that I was born into. I have tripped and failed into my own sense of liberation. It wasn’t the men who taught me anything, rather it was the pain they caused that ultimately rendered me free.