Audacious & Salacious in Stilettos

You know what’s always astounded me?

Men have had thousands of years—THOUSANDS—and the absolute best they can still come up with to tear a woman down is the same tired, dusty vocabulary: bitch, crazy, slut, whore. Four whole words. Four. A millennia-long legacy of emotional illiteracy.

Three years ago, I learned that lesson the hard way.

There was a man I’ll call Steff McGee—the “Steff” from Pretty in Pink, the charming, corrosive asshole who treats Andie Walsh like trash because he secretly wants her. For most of our friendship, he was fantastic. When I met him, I knew instantly we’d be close. Our personalities ran parallel—we understood each other on an intrinsic level. And when we were together, we incessantly cracked each other up without even trying.

But we also fed the worst in each other, fueling the other’s baser drives like two gremlins high on gasoline fumes.

We were two people with a shared talent for self-destruction, reinforcing each other’s impulses and justifying behaviors that, deep down, we both knew were damaging. And while my priorities were slowly shifting—toward responsibility, stability, mental health, and trying to get my life on an intentional track—his remained firmly anchored in escapism.

Somewhere early on, Steff developed feelings for me that I didn’t reciprocate. And what he could never seem to grasp, or respect, was that I needed to be alone. I knew myself too well: sex, for me at that time, would have been a drug. A distraction. A way to numb everything I wasn’t ready to face. And a relationship? That would have been worse. I didn’t love myself then; I would’ve in essence been employing someone else to do the job for me and fallen into the same codependent trap I had barely escaped before.

Steff started getting drunk and high almost every night. And with each intoxicated spiral came a barrage of vicious words like clockwork—allegations, character assassinations, psychological drive-bys meant to hit every soft spot he knew I had because I made the mistake of trusting him. It didn’t matter that I had always tried to protect him, always been honest, always stated my boundaries with uncomfortable clarity. It didn’t matter that I tried so hard to do right by him.

Night after night, I kicked him out of my home.
Day after day, he apologized, said he blacked out, said he didn’t mean it.
Again and again, I believed him and gave him another chance—because guilt makes you stupid, and loyalty makes you blind.

Ultimately, I felt guilty for causing him pain. Because I thought loyalty meant enduring someone at their very worst. Because I didn’t want to abandon my best friend.

He accused me of thinking I was “better than everyone.” No. I wasn’t “better.” I was just trying not to get caught in the riptide with the rest of them. I was working. Healing. Taking care of a puppy. Trying to survive. Meanwhile, he was busy performing emotional gymnastics that could qualify for the Olympics.

And when I didn’t want to sleep with him, he called me a slut.

That was the irony. I was a “slut” for not wanting him.

The truth was actually far darker. We did have sex once before, but I chose to not pay heed to it because I was not mentally present; therefore, I thought it better to bury it deep in a numb recess of my mind and pretend it didn’t happen. It was on my birthday night celebration where Steff was supposed to be one of the people protecting me from such an onslaught. That’s a story in itself, but I will reserve commentary for the stage.

Without fail, he twisted my boundaries into insults and convinced himself he knew what I was thinking and feeling—even when his guesses were the exact opposite of reality. There is nothing more infuriating than someone insisting they understand your mind better than you do.

And then came the line that carved itself into me:

“You’ll never be taken seriously. Men will only give you opportunities because they want to fuck you. You’re never going to be good for anything more than bartending.”

That one lodged itself in me because I desperately wanted to be valued for my intelligence, my work ethic, my drive. And the worst part? My first corporate job later validated his claim in ways that still make my stomach tighten. Trauma has a sick sense of humor, apparently.

The breaking point came the morning my sister went into labor. I hadn’t slept—his words were still ricocheting in my skull from the night before. When my mom called, I threw clothes in a bag, found someone to cover my shift, and drove three hours home while crying so hard the road blurred.

Steff is the closest anyone has ever come to actually breaking me. And that’s saying a lot. But in the rubble of that so-called friendship, I learned something reality-shifting:
I had trained myself to accept abuse.
I had handed him every weapon he used against me.
And I had mistaken emotional endurance for strength.

Never again.

Now? Everyone gets two chances—unless the offense is unforgivable.
Mistake once? Maybe you didn’t know.
Mistake twice? You knew exactly what you were doing.

At that point, you can pack your shit and get the fuck out of my life.

And it took that excruciating experience to teach me the lesson I’d avoided my whole life:
I have to put myself first. I have to protect myself. I have to believe people when they show me who they really are.

So here’s to Steff—the man who was supposed to be my best friend, but instead became the most accurate mirror of everything I needed to outgrow.

And here’s to me—the woman who crawled out of the wreckage with teeth sharper than his ego.