Mars Is Not a Home

He was from Mars and I was from Venus.That is the kindest way I can explain it without using names or faces.At first, I thought the distance was interesting. I told myself difference was depth, that unfamiliarity was something to be studied, not feared. I approached Mars the way women are taught to approach men — with patience, curiosity, and the quiet assumption that if we just understood them well enough, they would soften.Mars never softened.I watched him closely, the way you watch something you don’t trust but want to. I tried to learn his climate, his logic, the violence of his terrain. I excused the dust storms, called them temperament. I excused the barrenness, called it emotional restraint. I excused the hostility, called it strength. Every red flag was renamed something noble so I could keep standing there without admitting I was slowly suffocating.Understanding him did not make him better.It made him clearer.Mars does not nurture. It conquers. It does not communicate; it dominates. Everything is a battlefield — feelings, conversations, love itself. Tenderness is treated like a weakness to be eradicated, not a language to be learned. And the most exhausting part is that Mars is not unaware of this. It simply does not care.The distance between us was not emotional.It was ideological.Mars views sex the way empires view land. Acquisition is proof of worth. A high body count turns him into something impressive, something admired, something congratulated. The same numbers on a woman turn her into a warning label. Used. Careless. A disgrace. Mars never questions the arithmetic — only who is allowed to benefit from it.He insists this is natural.He insists it is not that deep.Mars believes his desire is neutral, authoritative, entitled to space. When a woman alters her body for her own comfort — reducing pain, reclaiming autonomy — Mars feels comfortable announcing his disappointment. He mourns breasts he never carried, never suffered under, never owned. As though his preference should outweigh her spine, her breathing, her daily relief.He does not see this as arrogance.He calls it honesty.Mars walks through the world unaware of the fear stitched into women’s routines. A woman walking home at night calculates exits, keys between fingers, footsteps behind her. Mars sees the same woman and thinks vulnerability is an invitation. He strikes up a conversation while she measures the distance between safety and disaster. He is offended when she is cold. He is confused when she is afraid.He insists he meant no harm.Mars does not experience his presence as a threat, so he assumes it is not one. He does not understand that fear does not require intent. That safety is not something women feel around men by default. That existing in a female body is a constant negotiation with male unpredictability.A woman can have a terrible day — bruised by labor, disrespected by systems, exhausted by survival — and still Mars will feel entitled to her appearance. He will interrupt her grief to remind her she would be prettier if she smiled. As if her face exists for his comfort. As if her exhaustion is an inconvenience to his pleasure.Mars does not see this as cruelty.He calls it a compliment.And that is the problem. Not that Mars is violent — though he can be — but that his worldview centers him so completely that women become background objects. Bodies to desire. Faces to decorate his day. Numbers to tally. Threats to dismiss. Discomforts to minimize.I grew angry not because he was different, but because I kept being expected to adapt to his difference. To become fluent in emotional neglect. To accept silence as depth. To interpret cruelty as honesty. To praise detachment as maturity.I began to hate him.Not dramatically. Not loudly. But in the quiet, corrosive way hatred forms when disappointment is repeatedly dismissed. I wanted him to be gentle. To be intentional. To be safe. I wanted him to be something he fundamentally was not.And that is when it became obvious.The things I kept begging Mars for were not rare. They were not unreasonable. They existed naturally elsewhere. I did not need to reshape an entire planet to experience them.Earth exists. Briefly. Barely worth mentioning.Because this story is not about where life thrives.It is about where it does not.This is not the personification of planets.It is the objectification of humans.Mars is men whose comfort is protected, whose desire is centered, whose harm is minimized. Venus is women taught to overextend, over-explain, overstay. Taught that love is labor and patience is proof of virtue.We are taught to study Mars instead of asking why it is so uninhabitable.So no, this is not a tragic love story.It is a case study in misplaced endurance.In women confusing understanding with obligation.In mistaking survival for connection.Mars is not misunderstood.Mars is not unfinished.Mars is simply not a home

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