The man I loved wasn’t the stereotype of a misogynist or bigot. He wasn’t anonymous, bitter, and jobless, hiding in his parents’ house. He was clever, sociable, and gainfully employed, neat in appearance, organised in work, and even respected by his boss. He had strong exam results, consistent performance, and the kind of disciplined mind that could have built something meaningful. And yet, alongside that competence, he carried a worldview steeped in grievance.

I grew up in London, Asian and neurodiverse, the daughter of two PhD-holding parents, and a university graduate myself. He came from a very different place, a northern village where most people looked like him. His family had voted for Brexit, their home decorated with Union Jacks, their social media dotted with far-right talking points, including sympathy for convicted criminal Tommy Robinson. This was the environment that formed him. 

On the surface, he embodied “lad culture”: football, pubs, drinking holidays, and cage-fighting videos with his mates. But beneath the harmless camaraderie was a simmering resentment. He admired Trump, Farage, and Andrew Tate. He distrusted refugees and made it known he disliked anyone he considered “outsiders.” He dreamed of studying history through the Open University, but his fixation was on the Third Reich, not as a warning of brutality, but as a system of order and hierarchy that fascinated him. 

His intelligence made that fixation feel more deliberate, more chilling.

At work, however, he played a different role. He was helpful, eager to take on tasks, always ready to “rescue” me in ways he didn’t with my male colleagues. His boss liked him, his colleagues respected him. And I responded in kind, thanking him, appealing to his ego. Gratitude became our currency. But this wasn’t kindness; it was benevolent sexism. 

By positioning me as someone who needed saving, he reinforced a power imbalance where my dependence gave him control.

He tried similar tactics with other women in our team, but they rejected him. It's like they were aware of the hostility that would be later revealed. With me, it worked because I was more vulnerable. My neurodivergence made it harder to meet the invisible standards of corporate performance, flawless polish, instant responsiveness, and effortless masking of exhaustion. His help gave me temporary cover, and I accepted it. But what looked like support was dependence, and that dependence gave him power that he later took advantage of. 

Outside work, his worldview was amplified, not softened. His friends were at least as controversial as he was, some openly supportive of “remigration,” the coded far-right call to expel immigrants from Britain. In that circle, his resentment was normalised, reinforced. His family mirrored these views, regularly sharing and endorsing far-right rhetoric. 

He wasn’t an isolated extremist. He was embedded in an ecosystem where grievance passed as common sense.

The contradiction haunted me. Here was a man with many structural advantages: male, white, employed, respected at work, and clever, yet he saw himself as dispossessed, a victim of a society that no longer affirmed his authority. While many who share these identities reject grievance politics and harbour no resentment toward others, I believe his upbringing and the people he surrounded himself with fueled a narrative of betrayal and decline he told himself.

My feelings shifted over time: first puzzled, then distrustful, and eventually, almost sorry. Sorry that his intelligence had been wasted on harbouring hate. Sorry that his masculinity had narrowed into dominance. Sorry that he could not imagine a Britain where he wasn’t on top. But pity does not erase danger. His politics of resentment were not abstract; they bled into every interaction, every woman he spoke down to, every outsider he resented.

Loving him revealed something larger: the misogynist isn’t always an internet caricature. He can be the man next to you at work, the lad laughing at the pub, the boyfriend who seems stable and social but is quietly nursing grievances against the world. 

He wasn’t just hostile toward women; he was hostile toward the Britain I recognised as my own, diverse, ambitious, outward-looking. 

He hated that version of Britain because it meant he held less power in it.

The misogynist I loved taught me this paradox: resentment can coexist with charm, and sexism can hide in neat clothes and clever words. His story was never just about us. It was about a Britain split between grievance and openness, suspicion and diversity, a divide that runs not only through politics, but through our most intimate relationships.

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