There’s a popular quote attributed to Marilyn Monroe that goes something like: “If you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best.”
And seeing as it has comes off in even the slightest as empowering for women (even though no gender is stated), there’s no shortage of anti-feminist jerks (the so-called “men’s rights activists” but I don’t like to call them that because men’s rights isn’t something they actually care about) whining about it and calling Monroe a drug-addicted slut who therefore had no business wanting respect. Because a woman wanting respect is oppressive to men somehow.
But I digress. There’s that and there’s an actually reasonable criticism of the statement, which involves responding with “Define ‘worst.'”
If “worst” means “abusive”, then surely one shouldn’t be expected to handle that. Or even if “worst” isn’t necessarily abusive but is still extremely draining and leaving very little of any “best” to speak of, yeah, that’s not a great situation.
Or just take it at face value, in which case “worst” might simply mean sad or sick or stressed or scared. Rather normal human lows, that if you’re going to cast off someone for experiencing, you’re kind of an asshole. Or at least it’s not much of a relationship or friendship or whatever.
Humans are imperfect. It’s not a bad thing to remember. But, hey, why get in the way of some accusatory overthinking? 😛
This has been Day 38 of the 100 Days of Summer, Round 14. 