Love

How long is two weeks?

The documentary tonight is about farmers in Indonesia. The evils of modern Western Society intruding on their pristine, spiritual life. You know, the same self-hatred types running off to third world countries, making amends for their contemptible self-indulgent guilt over being born in Canada or France instead of India, Vietnam or L.A. It's not as if it's genuine remorse or anything. Sometimes you wish they'd just go and apologize to the poor sods who toil away so we can have two VCR's instead of blathering on for hours like this on T.V.O., late at night.

It's friday night and you're sitting there with nothing to do except stew in your own bitterness. You're one big puddle of oozing bile.

They say that it's better to have loved and lost. I wonder who "They" is. Obviously, "They" has never been dumped by someone who'd really rather not have to so then dragged it out because they wanted to be good friends. Maybe "They" had a wonderful relationship, fell madly in love, and then decided to drop their mate for some certainly good reason (just because, let's speculate wildly, they're going to be separated for a few months and writing's too much of a bother and they're young and life's meant to be a smorgasbord of variety or some convenient crap like that). I wonder what "They"'s partner thought.

I'll bet it was amicable, they decided together that it was better to just forget and move on. Yup. Like emotionally mature and entirely rational people, they both decided at the same moment that, while yes, they loved each other more than the sun and the moon and every twinkling star in the clear night sky, familiarity and being separated are awful and we have to stave them off so let's just be friends.

And they'd be the best of friends and meet every week for lunch or dinner and tell each other the intimate details of their lives and talk about their new boyfriends or girlfriends and laugh and hold hands like they used to but they'd never reminisce because it's not worth the emotional stress and that was the past anyway except when they're feeling sentimental. They can forget about their past, or at least be nice and maybe build on it.

Sure. You know people like that. You saw some on T.V. yesterday in some dumb American courtroom saga-epic of our times, those movies are so pompous with their melodramatic music and flashy credits that go on for twenty minutes as if we care who ordered Thai food for the overpaid crew. Except that they were both lawyers, which proves that no-one can be perfect, eh? Somehow it makes you feel a little better.

Sometimes you get to believing it. You really think there's something worth the time and effort. It's meaningful. You make a real connection. And you know it's two-ways. Now, that's rare, and you're no fool so you throw yourself into it. You're skeptical at first, because you've seen all the angsty Woody Allen movies and read the great depressing existentialist philosophers and know how everything is just chemical and we're slaves to our biology. But you let go for a bit and it's wonderful and everything is one hundred and fifty percent, nineteen times out of twenty.

And then you have to stand perfectly still as someone rips it all open with the gentle caress of a serrated knife. Smiling, no less, with much grave concern emblazoned on a wrinkled forehead. You trusted them (not the general Them, but the gender-neutral non-specific "other" them you're supposed to use today whether or not it's grammatically correct). You have the honour of watching as the colour relentessly bleeds away from your life and the fabric of half of what little identity you've been able to cobble together collapses on the floor like a deflating balloon. It's supposed to pop, but it doesn't. It just slurps to the ground with a sad, pathetic squish.

And that's nothing compared to sleeping in your nice big bed, bought because your old one was too small for two people because you get too hot and might need to move at some point. Or seeing the poster on the wall that your most beloved gave you, too high to take down unless you want to spend the effort and you don't.

You remember her beautiful lips, and think of someone else kissing them and caressing her perfect breast and you can practically hear her moaning softly because you know exactly what she likes and she'll be saying someone else's name. Now, that well and truly sucks.

But the real biter, what really gnaws at you, what makes you want to throw up on the bathroom floor so your housemates have to clean it up as you get taken to the hospital for an illusory ailment that you want to kill you in agonies of self-pity is that "They" is right. Damn it.

You try to think maybe it's not all glorious meaning and wonderful inspiration. You tell yourself that you'll never let it happen again and this is it and next time I'm just going to do it for the sex and be friends and be chummy because it's all just biology and who needs a soulmate anyway.

But you know you're wrong. You know your poisonous bitterness is all just frustration and mindless, undirected jealousy and resentment and that you can't keep bitterness like that going for more than two weeks even when you're really pissed and you can't hate her because right now you still love her and later you won't and how can you hate her when you don't care and then you'll meet someone else.

And you'll be cautious. You won't let your guard down. But she'll be really nice and you'll like her and then you'll be the best of friends and you'll work together and before you know it you'll be sleeping together and then, despite whatever evil hatred you desperately try to keep stored carefully on your desk in a sealed bottle, you'll fall in love again. You know this because you're either terminally stupid and you've lots of evidence of this or maybe you're just idealistic and they're probably both the same thing anyway.

And you'll be good friends with the person you couldn't have imagined being without, and you'll send her postcards and see her when she gets back and go shopping together and introduce her to your new beloved.

You hate it. At least, you do now. That'll pass too. Bugger.

But you just know it's going to be a very, very long two weeks. Maybe you can sleep through it and wake up when it's over, eh? You probably haven't tried that yet, I'll bet.