In 2016, I cast my first vote for Hillary Clinton a couple of days after my 18th birthday, confident in my beliefs. Seven years later, I found myself seeing a man who didn’t share any of them.

Somehow, I found myself defending someone who voted for Trump — twice.

Dating across political lines can work, but when those views reflect misogyny and a lack of empathy, relationships inevitably break down. My experience shows the risk of trying to humanize someone who won’t do the same for you.

We met in October 2020 at our local bar, where I quizzed him about his political views. I’d wanted to know where he stood ahead of the heated election. Standing in the bar’s grungy backyard, among a crowd of punk rockers and alternative kids, he leaned in close and asked me to keep my voice down. He whispered that the crowd probably wouldn’t react well to his conservative views.

I’ll admit it — my curiosity was piqued.

I had my feminist awakening as a teenager, not long before I came out as bisexual. I registered as a Democrat as soon as I could vote and have proudly displayed a Bernie Sanders poster in my bedroom for years. And at the start of this year, I launched this paper that you’re reading now in protest of the DeSantis administration defunding DEI initiatives throughout the state university system.

So, how did I end up telling my friends about this guy I was excited about, and soon after, defending him when his political leanings were inevitably brought up? Yes, he was a registered Republican. Yes, he voted for Trump. But no — he wasn’t racist, or homophobic, or misogynistic, at least I convinced myself of at the time. “He was one of the good ones,” I thought.

But when you’re wearing rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags.

“Why do you have this?” I asked him in 2020, sitting in his living room, as he proudly showed me a golden knife engraved with “Trump 2016.” We were next to a bookshelf lined with titles by Ayn Rand and Henry Kissinger.

His answer?

“Why not?”

Fast forward to last year after we reconnected on Halloween. The morning after his birthday, I found myself asking a similar question when he pulled an AR-15 out from under his bed after asking me if I wanted to “see something cool.”

“Why do you have this?” I asked again, my voice tight with surprise. His response was just as nonchalant as before.

“Why not?”

He was tall and lanky, and in that moment, holding that gun, he looked like the embodiment of someone I’d been taught to fear. Suddenly, I couldn’t tell if I was still attracted or terrified.

Like most situationships, ours burned bright and fast, from Halloween until just before New Year’s Eve. For me, it was an emotional whirlwind. For him? Maybe just a distraction to pass the time.

After it ended, I found myself reflecting on how his political views had been expressed throughout our relationship.

At first, I found his staunchness appealing. There was something almost chivalrous about how firmly he clung to traditional gender roles. After watching Barbie — which I begged him to put on — he admitted it wasn’t “as much feminist propaganda” as he’d expected. He opened the door, paid for dinner, and for a while, I liked it.

Until he called me a whore.

It happened after I talked about my past relationships, something I’d been open about, believing honesty would strengthen our bond. But my honesty became a target.

During our last real conversation via text, he wrote, “Maybe you talking about all the countless other men you’ve been ran through by isn’t helping your image as a whore.”

His words hit like a brick. Suddenly, all the charm of his traditionalism revealed its darker edge. In his mind, my openness wasn’t something to admire — it was something to punish. I was reduced to a stereotype, and no amount of doors he held open could erase the way he spoke to me when my “body count” became the only thing he could see.

In hindsight, I wasn’t dating a person so much as I was dating an idea — a test of my own boundaries, my own ideals, and my own need to find love in unlikely places. But some gaps are too wide to cross. And as I’ve learned, no amount of love, debate, or wishful thinking will turn red flags into green ones.

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