1:27am

The early hours of the morning strip my stronghold of unexamined bliss.  It’s in these hours the true darkness comes forth, from underneath the façade of strength worn valiantly in daylight and amidst the moonlit foreboding of another twelve-hour masquerade.  It’s in these hours the memories arise.

Of loving someone so deeply that the pain seeped into my marrow.  So deeply that I left for him, for me, for the us that should never be, as my bones broke with each step I took under the weight of all I wanted to keep giving.  Gratitude for knowing eros and learning it is not enough.

Of not loving.  The relief of not feeling pain, or love, or anything at all for an untold number of nameless someones.  The joy of leaving unmarred, and feeling invincible, like love’s been outsmarted.

Of you.  The terrifying beauty of your being.  Caught between my loving and not loving.  Swung like a predestined pendulum between my staying and my running.

The early hours of the morning awaken the fear I force to slumber.  Fears that you will leave, or stay; take, or give; that I will know or not know you; endure for you or endure by living without you.  Fears that I will love you, and never as much as you deserve.

The Well-Dressed Man

A List of What I Wish Every Man Had in His Wardrobe

1.  A Fedora

2.  Exceptionally well-fitting, dark-wash jeans

3.  A casual blazer

4.  Dark socks–the fewer the white socks in a man’s possession, the better

5.  Fitted tees in dark colors

6.  A black belt but not the karate kind

7.  Dress shoes that can be worn comfortably with dark jeans

8.  Pocket squares.  Oh, do I fall for the man who wears these in the breast pocket of his suit.  Perhaps this stems from my love of the Rat Pack, TCM, and everything old-fashioned, but these accessories are sumptuous.

9.  Casual button-downs with the sleeves rolled-up.  There’s something classy and yet sexily disheveled about a dress shirt dressed down.

10.  A great hair cut.  Whether it’s Clark Gable or more recently, Leonardo DiCaprio’s long, classic cut or Paul Newman’s rugged, messy locks, it’s got to be good.

11.  A black suit, yet charcoal grey and navy are perhaps even sexier.

12.  A black dress shirt to be worn with the dark-wash jeans.  This is clean-cut yet semi-casual, mysterious, and irresistible.

13.  A masculine, silver-colored watch.  Cell phones may have rendered these functionally unnecessary but a man who wears one on his wrist seems to imply he’s busy enough to still need a clock in his view at all times.

14.  Effin AWEsome ties.

15.  Khaki or black chinos.

Unmasking My Cynicism

“You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.”

“I think and think and think, I‘ve thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.”

“I’m so afraid of losing something I love that I refuse to love anything at all.”

–Jonathan Safran Foer

I’ve been attempting to abandon these stratagems to rediscover what I want from a relationship.  The precondition to being happy on mediocre dates was the loss of my own idealistic vision of intimacy.  In losing the characterization of my desires, I’ve been content to nod along to boring conversation and spend more time with a man than I otherwise would.  Then, I came to the epiphany, “just because I don’t want more doesn’t mean I don’t deserve more.”  Equally important to this realization is delving into the desires I’ve obscured.

It’s confession time.  I’m going to describe here what I want from a relationship, every wish that I’ve dismissed as some girly fantasy for a love that cannot exist anywhere but the cinema, opera houses, and the “we’re so happy!” acting jobs put on by miserable suburban housewives.  I’ve learned that my cynicism may cause me to overlook not only the man I truly want but possibly to undermine my future happiness.  As dangerous as hope may be, as empty as it may seem, I am beginning to believe that it is necessary for progress and obtaining our potential.

Forget the logical checklists I’ve made in the past, such objectives seem foolish and all-too-contrived when trying to find a man to love and who will love in return.  Instead of detailing the hobbies and other minute details I want, I’ll describe the personality of the man who captures me.  He’s immensely respectful of me and all humanity.  He is never the same person but instead is constantly evolving.  He’s open to ideas, never stagnant or clinging to his previous conceptions out of sheer habit.  He’s spontaneous but reliable.  And most importantly, we have fabulous chemistry together.

The man I will fall for will be my counterpoint.  I tend to be serious and distracted by my own discipline so I need someone to remind me to enjoy life every day, to share my adventures.  I need him to have his own life so that I may as well, which will also ensure that our relationship never becomes stagnant. I need good conversation.

I see myself as a lover, a dreamer, contented and joyful.  I should hope that we never stop holding hands or going on dates.  Going for a walk and sharing a meal, though simple pleasures, seem far more than enough.  We have conversations not just about the life we’ve created but about the world around us.  Fights are resolved through discussion and avoided through constant honesty and open communication.  We’ve each maintained our individuality, in fact, we aid each other’s growth.  I see myself falling asleep each night next to the man whose touch still astounds me, after reading our books and switching off each of our lights.

And if and only if the right circumstances convene, I see myself as a young mother gathering up the warm little body pitter-pattering away from me across the floor.  In that little life is a profound happiness, the embodiment of the love I share with my lover.  In truth, I do indeed desire to put an emphasis on “young” mother.  As much as having a career is important to me, I want to be energetic throughout my child’s life; I want him to know his grandparents for as long as possible and I want to see his children grow up; I want him to have the health having a child younger often provides.

Whether or not I believe in finding this relationship and this life, I think it is important to acknowledge what I want.  At least I will look for what I want instead of becoming the embodiment of what the average man tends to desire.

“Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”

–Kahlil Gibran, “On Marriage”

“Love does not consist in gazing at one another, but in looking outward in the same direction.”

–Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“Husbands and wives should have separate interests, cultivate different sets of friends and not impose on the other.”

–Paul Newman on his marriage with Joanne Woodward

“The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was.  Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere; they’re in each other all along.”

–Rumi

“I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,

To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,

To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,

To pass among them, or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment—what is this, then?

I do not ask any more delight—I swim in it, as in a sea.

There is something in staying close to men and women, and looking on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well;

All things please the soul—but these please the soul well.”

–Walt Whitman, “I Sing the Body Electric”

Bitterly Beautiful

The night was mine.  Fresh buds, bound like little green roses with tightly wrapped petals, sent the last of falls’ leaves tumbling to the ground.  Parents and their children, pairs of friends, and couples new and old held hands as they circled Lake of the Isles.  I grasped my solitude tightly, and then less so, as I realized this was my night, alone.

Last night I’d spent in someone’s caress, in hands and eyes not my own.  And this is how my life has been—an introvert but never alone.  But now I am with a camera and as my fingers turn the focus, I try to find a scope of my own.  On the waters of the lake, I picture his appraising brow and I wonder about myself too.

It must make me a peculiar woman to feel the contradiction in a man’s grasp, to feel the ill-fated future in the immediacy of his touch.  All of these men find it odd that I respond rather aloofly to compliments but I find these reminders of my commonality.  Thus, I find their praise to be reminders that I may be replaced.

So it is with beauty especially.  Do not detest the women who believe it gives them power; pity them.  Beauty cannot be possessed; it possesses you.  The more people believe in the power of your beauty, the more powerless you become.  As I capture the elegance of new life in pictures, I realize that people must feel entitled to beauty, as I do.

I could never understand it as a young girl, even as it played out before me.  The boys would drop a mirror on the ground and hold their gaze upon it as it grazed the floor.  Wry smiles turned to laughter as they glanced up her skirt.  Yes, boys do play.  But perhaps the true problem is that they never stopped toying with her.

As the girl grows into a woman, boyish disregard becomes men’s outright disrespect.  Men look at her sexually, admiringly.  Strangely enough, she may not even realize they consider her to be beautiful.  Their appraising stares invoke self-consciousness.  Entitled slaps and tugs convey their lack of regard for her worth.

But these forthcoming fellows are not the worst of men.  As someone bluntly stated about me, “men don’t want to date you; they want to f*** you.”  There are men who pretend that they see you for more than your looks.  They seek the challenge of receiving your permission to bask in beauty though it is given as a result of their guise.

Even when a man’s fingers are momentarily intwined with mine, I cannot help but feel unease from the desire that tinges his sidelong glances.  So even though I am alone tonight amidst scores of companions, I feel at rest, at peace.  My constant doubt of the men I am with is dizzying when paired with the faith I also place in them.

I understand the powerlessness of my position.  There is certainly a strange pleasure in being admired like the springtime blossoms but I, as they are, am a fleeting little thing.  Delicate and disposable.  A beautiful sight among millions of gorgeous scenes.  I am a sovereign identity whose fate is determined by the commonwealth of Beauty; alone, I am an object of desire.

Infatuation, Scarcity, and Selfishness

Infatuation is touted as a glorious time of discovering a person.  However, I believe that infatuation involves designing a person; in essence, founding a relationship on an illusion that is destined to unwind.  It is no coincidence that after three to six months, the time necessary to stop lying to ourselves about the true nature of our beloveds, infatuation has subsided.  It is no coincidence that after this period of time, many relationships end.  These relationships end because we become stripped of our illusions and thus the desire for people that never truly existed.

It may seem impossible.  But I contend that the less that is known, the more we are able to make conjectures about the nature of people and thus overestimate their complement to our own personalities.  We interpret the actions of lovers and assign them personalities that may or may not exist.  The highly intelligent man I dated and concluded only loved open, intellectual debate truly loved being right.  The chivalrous man I dated and concluded must be well-mannered and considerate truly was chauvinistic.  And of course, these logical but nonetheless false conclusions led me to fall for men that I did not know.  And so it seems that infatuation is merely a a self-illusion, not the start of a well-founded relationship.  Though your eyes are turned toward your lover, do not be so disillusioned as to believe you are an explorer of someone’s soul, for you are likely concerned with finding evidence that supports your own desires.

Another concept we love in the context of infatuation is scarcity.  If people are available, we assume they must not be valuable.  Truly, they may be intrigued enough by us to make finding time for us a priority but we look down upon this level of accommodation.  Even my own reliability makes me seem too available to some men, a fact that I find appalling.  It should make me more valuable to get back to all people in a timely fashion; however, this is certainly not the case.  Essentially, we reward people for being inconsiderate and unavailable in the infatuation stage of a relationship.

Though it has already become apparent, selfishness is at the root of infatuation.  We want to find someone that complements us, makes us feel good about ourselves, fits our perception of the ideal lover as closely as possible.  Also, it happens to be very convenient that scarcity allows us to better serve our own self-interest.  By caring about ourselves so much that we do not bother to return a call for a few days, we’re often creating an advantage.  The “games” of dating could be summed up into one rule:  “Be selfish.”  Thus, if love is selflessness, how could it be possible for love to be borne out of infatuation?

Love-Swell

I’ve recently come to the realization that the reason losing someone hurts so much isn’t the loss itself, but the inevitable love-swell that occurs.  If it’s truly giving that is a greater blessing than receiving, the love we once gave freely stays with us.  It begins to well up within us with each memory and every action that can no longer be made for the beloved.  We drown in this internal flood; our hearts and minds falter in the current.  There is no ocean by which our waters may find resolution and thus new channels must be found.

Super Simple Dating Concept Map

EXual Relations

I guess it somewhat follows that a romance cynic would be a break-up idealist. I’ve never been one to avoid my exes or whoever else I’ve been involved with; instead, I’ve put forth a lot of effort into transitioning the relationship into a friendship. But as soon as I began thinking that perhaps it isn’t the best idea to remain friends, the universe decided to have a debate with me.

It would only make sense that on a campus of over 50,000 people, I’d run into them everywhere: salsa club, Coffman, the rec center, and classes. And it would only make sense that in a classroom of one hundred and fifty students, I’d notice my “sweetest mistake,” sitting in the very last row in the back corner. He said he wanted to remain friends.

But what does “friends” even mean? Friends that give each other an acknowledgment nod in passing or friends that stay up talking until three in the morning? Or is that frustrating “let’s be friends” phrase just something we say to ease guilt or to ease knowing “there’s my body, just a tomb for the girls [or boys] that I’ve had in the past.” Why do we want to stay friends and what exactly is it we want?

I’d like to say that these men have meant a lot to me, have influenced the person I am becoming, and know me more intimately than most of my friends. But that is not entirely the case for a few exes and not at all the case for the majority. I think my desire for friendship is usually about salvaging any sort of relationship with them, whatever form it needs to take in order for them to stay apart of my life.

This often doesn’t end up being healthy. The attraction we felt before does not usually subside. We play games like, “my life is definitely better than yours” and “the person that I am dating happens to have strengths wherever you had flaws.” And most frustratingly to me, intimacy is difficult to form. Even if intimacy could be created, how could it possibly compare to the closeness that was once felt?

“I want to remain friends with you,” I keep repeating to myself whenever I sit next to him. So then why aren’t we talking about anything that matters? What kind of friend does he want to be? Does he even truly want to be any sort of friend at all?

Am I merely wasting my time?