Love

Forget it. Total waste of time. And it's simple to prove. You spend maybe six months in total bliss. If you're lucky, most need about a week to fall out of love. You take at most a year, depending on how good you are at fooling yourself, to break up. Afterwards you're an emotional wreck from trying so hard to contain the blow but eventually still giving it. Or, if you happen to be on the receiving end, you are incapacitated for anywhere between a year and ten. And I mean literally incapacitated, you can't sleep, can't eat, can't work, can't laugh, can't trust, can't do any of the things you used to do with the same ease as before, everything is slightly slowed down, dumbed down, tied in millions of safety devices. I mean, even the simplest cost-benefit analysis shows it's an irrational pursuit.

So, just don't. Love, I mean. Despite all the bullshit about how love just happens and you can't control it, oh yes you can, trust me. Just remind yourself of your last encounter with it and it will be enough deterrent for one more round.

Love your dog instead. He probably deserves it more than most people you know.

Appalled

“I think he probably is attracted by you, but he also likes you as an intellectual partner, because you have the same type of interests.”

“What are you trying to say, that I’m just some brain, and not a piece of ass?”

What women really want

So what is it that women really want? I’m one of them so I should know. Or, according to a different school of thought, I’m one of them so I should have no idea. I’ll try to refute the latter in a short little paragraph. And you may accuse me of eclecticism, but keep in mind before you say it that you’ll not be the first or last to announce the death of ideology, and in the end taking the middle way is an ideology in itself.

And now back to women. This may come as a surprise to those of you who are into mysteries and stuff, but what women want is pretty much identical to what men want. Sometimes it’s comfort, sometimes it’s a partner, sometimes it’s a sparing partner, and sometimes it’s just sex. Just because one happened to be clingy when you wanted to leave, and another wanted to leave when you were in the mood for clinginess doesn’t mean we’re all upside down or confused or hysterical or heartless. So get over yourselves and try to find the balance. We’re not any worse or any better than your best drinking mate, who lets you in on all of his little (wannabe) conquests and the story of the first heartbreak, which he swore would be his last. We have the ambition to have many lovers in order to feel powerful. Just like you. We also yearn for the familiarity of a stable relationship. Just like you. It may be that we want any of the things we want from you. Or it may be that we want it from someone else. Just like you.

Imagine living in a suitcase

Ok, so he’s apparently gay at first sight. You may see it. They may see it. It took me about two months and someone telling me. I don’t see things. Except if it’s about animals or someone hurting. In the beginning, I hated him because he showed indifference to my anatomy. That is usually unforgivable. Much later he told me in all confidence he’s not really gay, he just can’t stand PMS. Which again is fair enough, I can’t really stand it either, it makes me cry over all kinds of things that never really happened.

Luckily, we soon found a common preoccupation with the hairier part of the human species and we’ve been best friends ever since. That means lots of ups and even more downs. The ups are always visual. We take position on what we see moving cockily on the street and ponder on the trickiness of size. He maintains that height is misleading, the proportion is inverted when it comes to dimensions that really matter. Life has provided me with some examples that come to support his view, but wishful thinking leads me to suppress that knowledge. Such reckless attitude makes me end up in all kinds of close-up situations which call for a silent “You have got to be kidding me!” And some politely faked reactions.

The downs on the other hand are about contradictions. Another thing that unites us except for other men is claustrophobia and its close relative agoraphobia. We suffer of both. We feel trapped most of the time. In a house, in a relationship, in our dependency on white sheets. We’d like to get out and live in a suitcase. Imagine that. We can’t, however, because, from down there in the suitcase, everything seems taller. And that, we have already established, can be momentarily misleading.

In a nutshell

When she got the email she turned around in her usual abrupt manner and asked "What beers on heads?"

"Oh shit, did I copy you on that? I wasn't supposed to. The Frenchie sneaked in here earlier and asked to go for some beers after work."

"Why was I not supposed to know about it?" Then she called the Frenchie. "Why was I not supposed to know about it?" And on goes the loudspeaker.

"He's lying, I never said you were not supposed to know about it. I just didn't think you'd be in the office today."

"I'm not coming anyway." And bang, she puts the phone down.

"I'm gonna be in a movie."

"Oh will you, how come?"

"Because I'm pretty. Smart too, but they're working on that and once it's solved I get new boobs. D-cups on a size eight. Picture that."

"What movie is that?"

"It's not a porn, sorry. Although you will be able to see me on celebritybabes.com once I'm a celebrity."

"Well you'll have to be working on your flexibility then, you were complaining about being stiff."

"I'm not stiff, honey, other people are stiff around me."

Objectivity

Overrated. And I mean totally. It's not like the world is one big giant newspaper where we all need to be balanced and fair to all sides. Would anyone still have opinions? Or would they be considered antiquated artifacts of a confused era, while in the enlightened present we would all be spending our entire time thinking about everybody else's shoes. I much prefer the impulsiveness of subjectivity. We really need to stop taking ourselves so seriously.

How Ms. CoCo became our friend that night and the afternoon after

When we want to cuddle her with words, we call her the lady with the wall. The wall reference is essential because we first became friends on the night when she asked for a wall. It wasn’t the wall that made us become friends, although it was a good metaphor. First of all, she was very drunk. As being wasted goes, she couldn’t stand on her own, hence the wall reference. She’s very tall for a woman, so the wall needed to be significant as well. Just her luck, we were in an actual house. Secondly, this guy she was chasing had just left the party with someone else. Why she was chasing him was a mystery to me, but it could have been her wall fetishism showing early signs. He was tall, Polish square, and about as responsive to outside stimuli as a block of concrete when you bring up the pros and cons of chocolate cake. Yes, that type.

We became friends that night for the same two reasons. One, she was wasted, and it’s much easier to get used to someone when they’re acting stupid. They’re no threat. Of course, if they continue being wasted or acting stupid it may become embarrassing, so you may be tempted to keep them as closet friends. Luckily, Ms. CoCo got herself together the afternoon after, despite the headache, and we started parading her to the world. Second, she was suffering of unrequited sexual desire. Which in petty minds like ours always raises the question of what is wrong with you. It is quickly replaced with the much more acceptable let me be there for you. Therefore Ms. Coco became our friend that night and the afternoon after because she let us be her wall. I don’t know if you’ve ever paid attention to walls, but look around you and you’ll see they only really exist in terms of what is leaning on them. What makes us special in the league of walls are our opinions on chocolate cake.

My best German in the whole world

Constipated would be the word. Emotionally constipated. Don’t get me wrong, I love the guy, he’s my best German in the whole world. Except for Ms. CoCo, which is a different story. But I can’t help imagining the struggle that goes on inside him to keep it all under control. Take women for example. He takes women often. As examples. He can’t take them in any other way, because that would be using them as objects. Objects don’t object. It would really be easier if women were objects. Stop that thought! Too late? Now that you let it through, do something good. Like listen to one telling you about her day. Pay attention. Supermarket dramas are interesting. They were out of lady’s shaving cream? Oh no. See, it helps. You no longer want her to be an object. Drive the conversation discreetly towards tampons and you’re all set. Suddenly her intellectual side will come shining through. Like cold water on a night swim. Even if it doesn’t, you still don’t stand a chance. Listening only turns you into the best friend. Best friends you already have and you very rarely if ever think of throwing them onto the kitchen table and treating them as objects. So listening is not the way. You could try talking. Mention kids. A family. A car for her and a Porsche for you. A second house. All the white sheets routine. That should land you a five-to-nine type. Meaning it will take between five to nine sacrifices to the gods before she goes down on you. Timidly, but forever loyal. Which will easily get you right back where you first started, looking for an object. So talking doesn’t work either. Being deprived of these two options leads to constipation.

Secret to a healthy life: some of us like the object thing. And we’re quite good at it too. From nine to five. All night through. Respect is for daytime…

Fear of flying

And this guy goes, why are you afraid of flying, it's the safest form of transport (which is one of those phrases which is repeated so often that it makes driving up the walls suddenly seem like a commonsensical action). So my answer is, why AREN'T you afraid of flying??? You're in a metal thing that weighs tons, 10,000 meters UP in the air, you have absolutely no control over the thing, should it decide to crash you don't even have time to have your entire life unfold before your forever closing eyes. And did I mention that you're UP IN THE AIR? Yes, but statistics show that it's the form of transportation with the least number of fatal accidents. Yes, statistics. The same science that is pretty much the very opposite of individualism also shows that air crashes have the lowest rate of survival. In other words, you're fucked, it's not one of those things that you can live to tell about.

So, I'm not saying don't fly, but show some decency for God's sake, be afraid!

Melting ice(cream)

This is therapy. I mean, there's another blog somewhere with more every day stuff, I did this and that, but that one's boring. On this one I can actually allow myself to go nuts. If necessary. Anything to get the ice melting. It's dripping pretty well already. Life and stuff, it's quite amazing. Although this right here is a substitute for it, but then it's past midnight and going to sleep might mean I'm about to miss something.

Trapped is what we like to be. Last year around this time I thought I had been released from something quite suffocating. Breathe in, breathe out, phew, the relief. Only to watch my mind create the exact negative of that situation (think photography, whites into blacks and vice-versa), and bang, I'm in up to my nose again. Now I'm getting out of the negative. Drip by drip. What's the likelihood that the next landscape I'll enter will be without frames? If trapped is what we like to be?

Next will be my characters series. Every day a new one.