or at the very least have the ability to be selfish in a different way than women.

I had a situationship like this with a girl from the time i was like 18-26...basically were together when we were in the same location, she'd come visit, i'd visit...I would say i loved her, we had a deep connection. but i was also young & immature in some ways, bad at communicating my wants/needs, & selfish.

In my head (& many men's heads) the "you knew what this was" defense is impenetrable. Around that age I was just learning the basic frameworks of feminism & took "I was honest in my words about this one thing" ("I don't think we should be in a relationship") to absolve me of any wrongdoing. In my head, it was 2015! If she had an issue with it she could just say so & it would be no hard feelings! I didn't want to take away her agency!

It wasn't until I eventually started dating a new woman that I started learning what it meant to actually communicate, & expanded my understanding of feminism. I really look back on those years & had to apologize to this other woman for (what I felt) was taking advantage.

Yes, she could have left at any point. Yes, I said I didn't want to be in a relationship. Yes, we were adults & could make our own choices. But I also know that I was socialized in a way that didn't place a value on women in that way (yea yea, I was a "gentleman" & would make sure no one "disrespected" them, but I wasn't critical of what was going on in my own house, so to speak) & she was socialized in a way that the power dynamic was never actually equal between us.

Often times men can rationalize this, but at least for me, I've gotten to a point where I recognize how my inability to communicate my wants/needs + selfishness fostered by the society I was raised in led to me not really being as "good" a person as I'd like to be.