Once upon a time, I wanted to run away from home but never did. Well, actually there were foiled attempts.

But when I was finally able to do it for real, I didn't have the courage to.

(I don't know where I'm going with this, but it's gonna be long)

So you can understand how I'd look up to someone who I found out, had a history of running away from home. She managed to do something that I failed to do. Let's call her J.

We kinda matched on OKCupid (ages ago), but I never messaged her or anything.

Thing is, I was never romantically interested in her. I just aspired to have the kind of courage that she has.

If you know me, I have this habit of trying to emulate people by learning about them.

Casually followed her on Plurk, http://Last.fm  and Twitter.

It's really hard to find anyone who loves bands like Spoon, you know. She was like this stranger that would've vibed really well with me.

Interacted with her a few times from her tweets. If it's an indicator of how she was, Metric follows her on Twitter.

Growing up in a conservative family, people always talked about how mass communication students are "bad seeds".

But I refused to believe that kind of nonsense. Especially for someone that I look up to. I kinda admired her from afar.

They said feminism was bad. And there she was. A feminist that I highly respected.

At first, it caused me a bit of cognitive dissonance. But the more of her tweets that I read, the more I think that a lot of things that she said made sense.

Feminism made sense.

Yet, at that time, I was still very averse to the word feminism. Thinking back, I feel kinda stupid for getting defensive about it.

I was like, "I'm just agreeing with my common sense, not supporting feminism" lol.

That kinda changed in 2014. I remember how Emma Watson lifted the stigma of being labeled a feminist.

There was that Elle UK campaign where actors like Tom Hiddleston and Benedict Cumberbatch were wearing a t-shirt that said, "This is what a feminist looks like".

J was mostly advocating for sex workers' rights. It's a complex topic that people always conflate with morality and religion.

I was never really vocal on Twitter back then. Just a few comments here and there. But I read up on things that she brought up.

TW: Sexual harassment

A little detour. A thing that happened that changed my passive stance to a more active one.

A friend was crying in uni one day. I asked, and she told me about how a man masturbated to her from inside a car. The man knocked on the window. (cont.)

TW: Sexual harassment

And when she got close, he lowered the window. She saw that he had his pants down. And you can guess what happened.

It was a terrible experience for her.

This moment is kinda unforgettable for me. After I calmed her down and all, I said, "Stay safe".

She kinda snapped. She let out a few "Fuck you!"s.

I didn't take offense to it cos she was distressed. And I know that her anger is to men in general, and I happened to be one.

That was a turning point for me. Cos I learned how tired women are of hearing "Stay safe".

I used to dislike speaking up cos people would call me things like "white knight".

But then I realized that being called those things like "simp" is a privilege as men.

Cos I know that women get harassments and threats for speaking up.

Sorry for the convoluted story, but coming back to J.

She was a feminist, so I would expect that she would have no less than a feminist partner.

I was happy for her when I learned from her tweets that she was getting serious with this guy.

He seemed perfect. Tall and good looking, has a nice job.

Like I said before, I wasn't romantically interested in her. I was dealing with my own romantic struggles, so it was nice to see that she was doing well.

You know when something is too good to be true? Well, her partner was.

He was actually married, and he was a psychopath in the clinical sense. He specifically picked her as his victim because she was a vocal feminist.

I forgot the details, but he actually set her up to find out about it like it was some kind of game. He let her see him at the airport with his wife.

And the worst thing is, his family knows about his sick game and defended him.

Saying that he is good to them, and if he did those things, she deserves it. Like a whole family of enablers, you wouldn't believe it.

How could you let someone being manipulated to that extent? They knew and they just played along, it made my stomach churn.

One of his texts that she posted was something like "You are so stupid. I thought you would never figure it out if I don't make it obvious to you".

Complete psycho. I never knew that such a predator exists. A rich, married man, targetting feminists.

She was utterly broken by that ordeal. I thought about dm-ing her and giving her some encouragement. How she taught me a lot about feminism and inspired me.

But she kinda got hostile towards men on Twitter. She became a completely different person.

Dare I say, J became a literal feminazi. I was watching from the sidelines as my role model spiraled into this unrecognizable men-hater.

She didn't follow me on Twitter. But I found out that she blocked me when I noticed that she hasn't tweeted for a while.

It goes to show that heroes can turn into villains.

Last I heard was that she bakes and sells cake. And she got a Phd.

What happened doesn't turn me away from feminism. If anything, it fueled me even more.

I don't really care that she blocked me. I hope that being a feminazi was just a phase, and that she's still fighting the good fight.

The way I see it, feminism doesn't work without men. Cos the problem is men. The psycho who broke J was a man.

It sucks that I never get to formally thank the person that in a way, made me who I am today. But that's life.

I know a lot of men are unwilling to actively and openly support feminism, even if they agree to the concept.

Still in their "Agreed, but I'm not a feminist" phase.

But I do hope a lot more men will slowly abandon their "Well, good luck with that" approach and be more outspoken.

Feminism needs men.

Sorry if you got bored with reading.
And thanks if you read from the start until the end.