Men Don't Get Periods

Lately I’ve been thinking.
Yes, I know. Whenever a man says that, someone should probably hide the remote and the car keys. But this one kept bothering me.

Women.
And the amount of pain they quietly sign up for just by existing.

Not the poetry kind of pain. Not the “she looked out the window while it rained” type. I mean the real stuff. The body-hurting, mood-twisting, energy-draining kind that shows up every month like a landlord who never forgets rent.

And I sit there wondering. Why is this part of the deal?

Because if you look around, women are basically issued a survival kit the day they’re born. Hormones. Expectations. Emotional labor. Period cramps that feel like the body is folding itself in half. And life just pats them on the head and says, “You’ll manage. You’re strong.”

Strong is such a convenient word.
Mostly used by people who don’t have to be.

Then comes the modern world with its solutions. Thousands of apps. Fitness apps. Meditation apps. Hormone apps. Ovulation trackers. Mood trackers. Sleep trackers. Water trackers. By the time a woman finishes tracking everything she feels, she deserves a PhD in her own biology.

And everyone keeps saying the same thing. Women’s wellbeing matters.

Of course it does.
Because if she collapses, the whole house collapses.

The kids go feral. The husband forgets where the plates are kept. The plant dies. Civilization begins to wobble.

The world loves a healed woman… but won’t give her time to heal. So she heals on the go. On the job. In traffic. While stirring the dal and suppressing the urge to scream into the pressure cooker.

And sometimes I genuinely wonder who designed this system.

Women create life. Fair enough. Beautiful thought.
But does the factory have to be on fire every month?

And somewhere in the middle of all this, there is this mythical thing everyone talks about. Her happiness.

Even she sometimes isn’t fully sure what that looks like.
But she knows very clearly what she doesn’t want.

Men, meanwhile, walk around confused like background characters in a mystery film. Nobody handed us the instruction manual. But men do learn one survival skill.

Patience.

Because those few days every month… my god. Nature turns the volume up on everything.

Nobody’s safe in those days. Not husbands. Not kids. Not the innocent colleague who dared to say “good morning” too cheerfully.

But here’s the strange part. Inside all that chaos there is a quiet miracle. Most women still keep going. They still show up. Still care. Still hold things together. And the men who survive those days are usually the ones who understand something simple. Stay calm. Don’t argue with the storm. Let it pass. Offer chocolate if required. Retreat if necessary. And somewhere between empathy, confusion, fear, admiration… you realize something.

This whole system is slightly unfair.

And maybe that’s why I think about it. Anyway.
That’s my theory. Also possible I’m PMSing. Or maybe the universe is.