Scene: I’m building a new IKEA flatpack shelf with my partner. The room is full of that intoxicating warehouse smell. I’m pumped for this.
I see something on the instructions that doesn’t look right. I say “I’m confused by this- wait, no, it’s fine”. He tells me which holes things go in while I’m doing it. I think no big deal, I can let it slide, maybe he thought I needed help. I ask if there’s another screwdriver in the house, and he says “no, but you can start putting in the screws on step 2. The step 2 screws”.
At this point I say I’m a bit annoyed. I just get really annoyed with people telling me what to do next, and it’s not his fault he’s a man, but it doesn’t really help the picture, you know.
He proceeds to shut down, get really upset, and go through every defensive tactic in the book. “I do this to everyone”, “Nobody else says anything about it”, “Somebody said something once, but they liked it”, “I just don’t have an idea of how good you are at building furniture”, and I explain that it’s no big deal, and it’s not criticism, I’m just saying it annoyed me. He calms down and then I think we’re all good.
He walks out of the room and says: “I think the problem is we both just want to do everything”.
A beat.
No.
In my head, I’m thinking, no, that’s not the problem. I said I was annoyed with you telling me what to do. You can’t twist that into me wanting to control everything.
It’s so hard to separate individual communication problems from sexism. But I really feel like I brought up a small thing and suggested that sex comes into my perception of it, and I got a massive overreaction, and him trying to put the blame on me.