A couple of guys hung around him, too, who were a few years older than me. When I was fifteen or sixteen, unsupervised and acting like a street urchin in New York, I was hanging around someone who was considered a “purveyor” of downtown culture. A chummy and sometimes gleeful pat on the back for behavior that at the very least can be obnoxious. While discussing the case with her secretary, Hepburn remarks, “A boy sows a wild oat or two, the whole world winks.” The line captures what I had not been able to pinpoint about my feelings in certain mixed company. In the 1949 George Cukor film Adam’s Rib, Katherine Hepburn stars as a lawyer representing a woman who shot her husband in the shoulder when confronting him with his mistress.

I feel guilty, but I’m tired of smiling and nodding when all I want to do is scream. I just can’t stop bristling when he gives me instructions or advice, or even when he speaks in a certain tone that sets me off. He doesn’t dislike me and has told me that he thinks I’m extremely capable. I am a biologist by training, and this job is in retail.

My boss is a good guy and caring, but I can’t help but fixate on the times when I feel he is not only making unfair and inaccurate estimations of my intelligence, but also searching for/inventing things to call me out on, like asking me random math questions. I just began a new job, and my frustration grew so much by my third training shift that I actually snapped and talked back (which I would ordinarily say is a response completely removed from my sunny, people-pleasing disposition).

Now, though, I notice the feeling coming out around almost every man in my life, including my father. The first time it happened, the anger developed slowly, and my manager’s behavior somewhat warranted my response. I guess I have to get to know them first. This wouldn’t be too much of a concern except that it’s getting in the way of my ability to work under male bosses. It feels involuntary: a shudder of exasperation that courses through me without warning while a man is speaking. For a while now, I’ve been steadily losing my ability to endure men.

Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados