…don’t take advice from someone like me.
When I came I felt it was in the face of everything decent, white sperm dripping down over the heads and souls of my dead parents. If I had been born a woman I would certainly have been a prostitute. Since I had been born a man I craved women constantly, the lower the better. And yet women—good women—frightened me because they eventually wanted your soul, and what was left of mine I wanted to keep. Basically I craved prostitutes, base women, because they were deadly hard and made no personal demands. Nothing was lost when they left. Yet at the same time I yearned for a gentle, good woman, despite the overwhelming price. Either way I was lost. A strong man would give up both. I wasn’t strong. So I continued to struggle with women, the idea of women.
–Charles Bukowski, Women
The more I read Bukowski the more it seems we have in common besides both having worked at the Post Office. Now, I don’t think I’m quite as bad as he describes himself above but I can certainly relate to the sentiment. It was especially weird just randomly coming across this Bukowski quote during my morning internet stroll. Are the Gods trying to tell me something? Nah, they know I don’t listen to reason anyway.
Maybe it also resonated because of an odd experience I had last night. I’m home after my nightly rounds at Cheap Charlies and Mango’s and a message pops up on my screen from someone I haven’t heard from in awhile. She asks me if I can give her some advice. Sure, I tell her. What’s up? Can I call you? Well, okay. I can’t remember the last time I actually used my phone for talking to someone, but why not? So, she calls and tells me her boyfriend in Canada broke up with her. I told her I heard she had broken up with him and that she was in love with someone else now. She told me no, he had ended the relationship before she started seeing the new guy. Anyway, the Canadian guy has had a change of heart and he wants her back again. What should I do? she asks me.
What am I gonna say other than my standard response. Follow your heart I tell her. If you love him and think he is the one, then forgive and forget. But I also reminded her of some of the things she had told me about the guy. Like how he believed he should be able to visit Angeles City to covert with prostitutes whenever he pleased and she would have nothing to say about it. You okay with that now? I asked. She told me that he insists he has changed and doesn’t feel that way now. Okay then, if you believe that… But then she said the breakup had been ugly. He called her a lot of names and then said “I hope you die painfully”. What? Are you fucking kidding me? He really said that? Yes, she responded, but now he says he didn’t mean it, he was just angry and upset. I told her in all of my failed relationships and in my most insane moments I had NEVER wished harm to come to a woman I had loved. I said any man who would utter such a desire is the type of narcissistic bastard who would act on those emotions if he were physically present. You asked for my advice and my advice is to stay as far away as possible from this fucked up piece of shit. She thanked me for sharing my thoughts and we ended the call.
Good luck to you, Iline.
“Good luck to you, Iline.”
I’m thinking more along the lines of, “____uck ___you, Iline.”
She sounds as if she’s stuck in her own little samsara—a self-inflicted vortex of pain and suffering rooted in an inability (or a lazy unwillingness) to pull herself out of the spiral. The more I think about it, the more I think that we’re all kind of that way about something. Maybe we like our suffering. Or maybe laziness really is at the heart of most human problems, as M. Scott Peck contended. Maybe we’re too lazy to break out of our respective samsaras, and that’s what dooms us to keep repeating the same stupidity, again and again. And again. Didn’t Erich Fromm contend that human beings are afraid to exercise their freedom, so they find any excuse to run away from the godlike powers of choice and responsibility? The path of self-improvement sits right in front of our nose, obvious as hell, but we rarely embark upon it, doomed by our compulsions, but more than that, doomed by the laziness that keeps up us from fighting our compulsions.
Maybe John, you and Iline have a lot in common. Searching for love, sometimes settling for something less because she is not sure she will find what she really wants and needs. Like you, maybe she does not know exactly what she wants and needs.
But in regards to your response, I think it was spot on. If her ex said something like that to her, she should run very fast and very far away. It is not uncommon to read/hear stories of victims of domestic abuse. It is sad that so many of the woman return to the guy, expecting something different and seemingly surprised when nothing has changed.
Hopefully she will take your advice.
And if she does – PLEASE PLEASE John, dont let your little head think for your big head.
Kev, thanks for the thought-provoking comment and also the link to M. Scott Peck–I’d never heard of him. Yeah, I’d never articulated Peck’s theories, but I’ve often attributed my relationship woes to being both selfish and lazy. I read Peck as confirming my diagnosis!
It was interesting though that Peck himself was no angel. Engaging in extramarital affairs and being estranged from his kids. I guess knowing the proper road and actually staying on it are two different challenges.
Well, after all, Peck did marry a Ho. (sorry, couldn’t resist)
Brian, yeah perhaps Iline and I do indeed share certain traits and characteristics when it comes to love.
One part of our conversation I didn’t share in my post was about our breakup. From her perspective, I “gave up” on her when I told her I was taking a step back to give her space to decide who she wanted to be with. That’s exactly the opposite of what I was doing…I was waiting for her to do the right thing rather than continue sneaking around and hiding our relationship. I figured she would come to know in her heart that I was “the one” and we’d have one of those happily ever after stories. It was over for me when she got angry and said “I’m glad I didn’t choose you over my boyfriend”. Now she doesn’t have either of us. I hope she is happy with her new guy–she told me his wife just died two months ago. Hmm.
But I’m actually doing better on my “fuck love” journey these days. It still feels like I have a hole in my life sometimes, but that’s better than a hole in my heart.
And no worries, anytime the little head gets hungry I know where to buy him some food…