Lessons learned from Aba and Preach
I want to change the title. It seems so, I don’t know, unseasoned. If I don’t think of anything better at least know that I’m fully aware of it’s insipdeness. Just not enough to actually change it.
I discovered their channel during quarantine. Their comedic style is varied, flows extremely well and is very in your face. You’ll be mindlessly laughing and then look to the side of your screen for a second because the joke hit the pit of your stomach in a way that’s uncomfortable. Not because the joke was offensive but because…well, because…you’re the person being targeted and you’re noticing but you’re not entirely ready to admit to that yet. I never thought that I could become more self aware whilst being at the center of a joke. Obviously, they never spoke specifically about me, that goes without saying. That’s probably what made it easy to watch. The fact that I had my headphones on and I was the only person that knew. Now, I don’t necessarily agree with all and everything that they say, however I do appreciate the way that they argue their points of view. I also highly esteem the way that they disagree with each other. Honestly, I appreciate seeing two people that are capable to call each other out in a way that is neither over the top polite or angrily pointing fingers and spewing bile. If you haven’t heard of them I strongly advise you check them out. Here’s the latest video I watched that I thoroughly enjoyed. Believe me, once you start you can’t stop. It’s like opening a family sized bag of cheetos. Doesn’t matter how sick they make you feel you’re finishing that bag if it’s the last thing you do.
A bit of a disclaimer. I started seeing a therapist around June 2020 which was a couple of months after discovering A&P’s channel. I had weekly sessions and I worked my ass off to get better. A lot of the changes I have made in my life, physically and mentally, are the result of hours and hours of facing myself every day even when it hurt so much I wanted to curl up in a ball and hide away for hours and punching through that feeling out of my own volition. So, a moment of self appreciation. And, done! To add to the work I was doing by myself and for myself the topics that A&P deal with in their videos have certainly had an effect on my way of thinking. Not only theoretically but in some cases also empirically. Here’s a couple of stories.
Lesson 1 → Rejection
How to become comfortable with not being the inspiringly beautiful, smart, admirably brave super star that I am in my head and be dragged down by my general avarageness when confronting people who will see me for who I am and not for who I think I am. Uh, yeah. All those words.
It was the beginning of October 2020. Guatemala had re-opened around the beginning of August and I had installed and uninstalled tinder about as many times as I’d squeezed lime juice into my eyes when making cocktails. A lot. I was working as a waitress in a tropical paradise where people were coming and going constantly. It was the perfect place to be during a pandemic that had so many of us singles doomed to celibacy. Yet I was unconvinced. Of what? People. Of myself. How to get another person in front of me and put our bodies together. It seemed so confusing. It was as if I had never dated before. Then one day as I was rocking on my favorite hammock I watched Chad.
The way he dealt with the shitty and utterly senseless remarks of the person he was on a blind date with was something I knew I wasn’t capable of. Aba and Preach comment on this video and explain why they believe that there are valuable lessons in being rejected. How it’s not only a question of becoming more humble but also more comfortable and confident in yourself. And I decided I wanted to be like that. I wanted to be like Chad.
The pink flame was back on my cracked and glitchy screen and I scrolled through it looking for an opportunity to show to the world I was so comfortable with who I was that rejection barely phased me. It wasn’t as hard as I’d though and I actually ended up having a great time. I met some fantastic men. Smart, fun and some who were just crazy characters with whom I had some questionable yet interesting conversations with. I ended up meeting someone I would spend three very lovely weeks with. This someone taught me a lot about myself and how I love. I realized I was far more lost than I thought I was. Not just in love but in life. It was thanks to this experience that I started to move my thoughts in the direction of finding my purpose. What do I want? In life? In love? What am I looking for? All answers I’m still trying to answer but I’m happy to have finally taken steps forward in that direction and it’s definitely, at least in part, thanks to this.
Lesson 2 → Men aren’t made out of bricks
I had this idea that men were as strong as the third house of the three little piggies. No matter how much you huff and you puff you’ll never bring that house down. Let’s all take a moment to appreciate such metaphors. Okay. I was convinced that men were smarter, better equipped and far more emotionally stable.
For whatever reason I never once clued in on one thing I did rather frequently. I was mean, man! Really mean with the men I loved. My friends, partners and even my younger brother. It never once struck me that I could be hurting their feelings. Never.
A&P often bring up the fact that women aren’t held accountable for acts of violence which I 100% agree with. They also inform us that just because they don’t react when being attacked, whether this be physically or verbally, that it’s not because they’re nonchalant but because they can’t. It was very, very, very rare for my friends to call me out on my bullshit and if they did, they would never address it directly. And you know how I’d reacted if they did? What you’re visualizing right now probably doesn’t stray too far away from the truth. I would get so defensive. A friend, a lover, would be trying to tell me something and I would completely ignore it’s validity. Which was probably why the conversation was always avoided. Why I never thought that I did anything wrong. And if they did confront me it was a verbal fist fight where my arguments stood solely on the basis that I was “joking”.
This is the first video that made me think hard on the kind of person I was and made probably the most immediate change in my behavior when addressing men. The story that Aba tells is very crude. It was hard to listen to at points regardless of how curious I was to hear how it all developed. Shit I’m re-watching it right now just to remember it better whilst writing this and I had to pause it because it’s like…fuuuuck, man. Here’s why it’s hard. I’ve said shit like that, I’ve acted out like that, I’ve been that kinda asshole. Not to that extent, but still. How could I have not noticed how fucked up that was? How could I have been so soaked in my own feelings and hurt that I would literally find the most harmful words I could think of against the very person I said I loved.
It was hard to acknowledge yet it’s true, it was a very abrupt awakening. One that was necessary not just for future relationships but for myself. I saw that I was repeating patterns. Patterns of people I promised myself I would never become. Patterns of other women who laughed and ridiculed the men in their stories. And I decided that, nah, not me, not today.
This other video in particular talks about a leaked audio between Amber Heard and her husband Johnny Depp. Astonishing how Aba presented Johnny to us as if he needed to be presented. Then I remembered I was 28. And that hurt in an entirely different way. But anyways. I believe that the entire video can be summarized by one of Preach’s statements:
Preach — “POTS AND PANS?!”
Now I don’t know about you but I wouldn’t like to be on the receiving end of a flying spatula let alone a pot (or a pan). Still, even though I know this, and I can in many ways relate, I’m still in some way conditioned to believe that somehow Johnny should have just taken it. he should have just taken a soaring, metal, kitchen utensil to the face, like a “man”.
Watching this video, and many others, convinced me of what was meant to be obvious: men feel the same things, they just don’t complain. And it’s not like they don’t complain because they don’t feel they need to but because they are conditioned to stay quite. They are taught to believe that they are not allowed to feel pain.
They aren’t as strong as bricks because that’s how they’re born but because society obligates them to be so.
(So the whole Amber Heard and Johnny Depp thing is something I’m not willing to get into the details of. Who’s right and who’s wrong? I don’t care. That’s not the point of this. Let’s move on.)
Lesson 3 → How perception distorts our interpretation of reality
Now, I’m an adult, to my misfortune, and I know that what I see online is not “real”. I know that these people only exist within the video frame and the time limit of the content they choose and select to have us, the audience, watch. Fully aware. What made it hitting your toe on the corner of the bed obvious was this video.
As it turns out they aren’t friends. They are two professionals working together as partners of a very successful online entertainment business. Maybe it’s rather ignorant for us to assume anything of these people. Even a nonexistent friendship. It doesn’t seem like the stupidest conclusion to come to I’ll be fair about that. On camera they have great chemistry, they work well together, they’re fucking hilarious and it does indeed seem like they potentially could get along well even outside the red box. I’ll also say that being mad at them because they announced that actually they’re not is…just, like, why?
This video was another domino in the great intertwining sequence of domino’s that helped me understand that how we perceive the world around us can sometimes blur the line between whats real and what’s just what we believe to be real.
This is a rather superficial thing and not one of great impact in my life directly but it’s a banging of the chime, if you will.
What you see is filtered by how you see it. Your experiences, feelings and conditioning are what can heavily alter the way you experience a situation. Never assume anything to be true.
In the same way that I wish to have had a better title I wish I could come up with a more interesting, well-written, thought provoking conclusion. One thing I learned whilst writing this is that I still have a long way to go in figuring out not only the kind of woman I want to be but the kind of writer. Do I want to give you my thoughts on what I believe you, the reader, should take away from what I’ve written? Do I try to give this whole thing an ending and tell you how much better I am as human being? Do I just cop out by telling you I don’t know how to end it?
Until next week,
Sarita.
