Magnificence; What I Lost, What I Found

“There are three things we cry for in life: things that are lost, things that are found and things that are magnificent”

-Douglas Copeland

Dear Prussian Blue,

The moment you decided to make the intimate events that passed between us into entertainment and titillation for strange women online, you gravely violated the sacredness of the trust that was between us. Your actions have consequences; you do realize that, don’t you?

You could easily have averted these consequences by acknowledging what you did. I know it, you know it, what’s the problem?

But you choose not to do so despite my urgent insistence.

All you’ve done is respond with some weak drivel about never owning up to something you haven’t done. And thereby attempting to “rob me of my own story”.

But don’t worry, I won’t be using your real name, I will call you Albert and have you living in a different town. There is even an RAF car sales company in that town. You’ll be working there. How cute is that? However, I am including your Englishness. And your military background. That’s okay, isn’t it? You certainly seemed to think so when making excuses for chatting online about me. I have already entertained several friends with the “Here’s-what-I-hope-dosen’t-happen-to-you-in–2016” message. I shared it with one of them a few months ago. I was kinda surprised when he burst out laughing. I wasn’t offended, just rather taken aback. Then I asked a stranger (at the same table — we were seated on high stools at a coffee bar) to read it (I am preparing myself to be published so I need to work off all my reticence) and he laughed too.

So I was inadvertently surprisingly droll. Who would have thought it? And my friend shrieked with laughter when he saw your response, where you only mentioned the books. He thought you were stupid. “Look John,”, I told him, “I won’t deny that I dated a cutie once who wasn’t the sharpest pencil in the box, but this man WAS intelligent.” And there I am, defending your intellectual prowess, believe it or not! You see, I was more ashamed of dating a dumb guy than an evasive man with no integrity. I felt ashamed on your behalf. And I felt ashamed of myself for having been with you. Like the man in “The Sex Object” (the anecdote is told in his biography, not in the short story), you may someday be out for a drink and a man at the other end of the bar will shout: “Hey, I heard you were the main character in a chapter of that best-selling erotic novel. Good for you! Cheers” And you will shamefacedly deny it. You’re good at that, denying stuff. Well, actually, you’re not good at it, even though you’ve had plenty of practice. You’re not convincing, because you lack credibility.

Honesty is a very expensive gift, Don’t expect it from a cheap person

— Warren Buffett

You have these little speeches. You couldn’t even remember that you’d glibly recited your monologues to me several times.

There’s the “If-ever-I-have-a-dog-again…” speech, there’s the “our-ancestors” speech (Yawn! — Maybe it’s interesting the first two or three times — I am sure I’ve heard it at least seven times! And of course I remember it verbatim because I used to hang on your every word.); there’s the “women-like-to-live-in-apartments-in-town” speech. By the way, how do you think I felt when you were more or less sharing aloud your plans to seduce these strange women and evaluating your chances of scoring them? You see, I lied to you when I said I felt safe with you. I read on the internet that guys love to hear that and I slung it out to see if it worked. And you lapped it up! I always felt contention and aggravation when I was around you. Sometimes I felt direct fear. I felt under siege — except for that brief moment once, I always felt threatened. And I was. Sadly, I didn’t then realize how threatening you were to my equanimity. I have been with men who have made telling the truth a point of honor. In fact, many men tell the truth even when it shows them in a bad light. These are men whom I trust, to this day. I trust that they will tell me the truth and that makes me feel real and authentic inside, even when I don’t like what they are telling me. I want my children to be like these men. Respected.

Credible.

Trustworthy. They acknowledge who they are. They aren’t ashamed to admit what they’ve done, no matter how gruesome their crimes. Not that I am in any way suggesting that your actions are even close to illegal, I’m not.

These men don’t feel the need to denigrate my response by negating it, ignoring it or trivializing it. Be like them. I look up to them. I admire them still. Be like Don, for heaven’s sake. Be like Jake. Be like Joe. Some men can do it. Why not you? Be honest. I urge you. Be fearless. The truth will set you free. And the truth is the sexiest thing of all. Even a simple thing like saying you had no plans to come to my home town. If you couldn’t even admit that that was untrue (you had forgotten that you had told me — or had supressed it) and THEN leave it alone…. I might have supposed that there was a chance that you would own up to the other stuff, that it was worth my while using my time and energy to meet you, that you did have a shred of decency or honesty. But you didn’t. You see, I called you out on it and you couldn’t even completely own a straight-up lie for more than 10 minutes.

Instead of owning it, you criticised my “tone”, again attacking form and not substance. I decided to yield graciously but that only seemed to encourage you. Are you really one of those people who equates kindness with weakness? BTW, you wrote that you had mentioned in our telephone conversation that it is very serious to accuse someone of something they didn’t do. ’Very serious’, you repeated. I am curious; how serious exactly? I am not accusing you of anything. We both KNOW what went down. Maybe you did say that, but I have no recollection of it. You must be mixing me up with a different woman who is accusing you (unjustly, clearly, in your opinion — poor, poor you !). Are you going to sue me for defamation of character? Are you building a case? Are you planning on taking legal action? Maybe your menacing tone intimidates the intellectually limited chicks that you normally roll in the hay with, but not this one.

One more thing, how mean and thoughtless is it to tell me: ’I’m going to see Mumford and Sons at a concert venue in your home town with the subtext: ‘you aren’t invited. I’m going with someone else’. I felt hurt. So tell me this, just as a matter of interest, what changed your mind about sending the books? For months and months you dig in to your no-action position and then suddenly after I have yielded in our telephone conversation, you fall over yourself in your hurry to send me books. Not the “Go Set a Watchman” book I asked for, and then withdrew my request for.

No, no, no, two other, different books, I guess just to make the point that you were the one in control and nobody pushes Mr-Very-Private-person around. What’s all that about? Was it entertaining for you to tease me with something I wanted very, very badly until I gave up hoping for it? Did you enjoy playing with my feelings? Did you see that as a kind of entertainment? Or was it just thoughtless, inconsiderate, casual, mindless cruelty? I wanted my simple birthday present.

I wanted you to answer my quiz, a three-minute favour.

I wanted you to unblock me from the texting app.

I wanted your attention.

I wanted your respect.

I wanted your discretion, Mr Very-Private-Person. Why was it so terribly difficult for you to give me what I wanted, while I still wanted it? Why? I think it unlikely that we will ever speak again in this lifetime, and God forbid that it should happen in the next. And now YOU want ME to speak to you in a civil manner. Well, that probably ain’t gonna happen. I no longer have any incentive to give you what you want anymore. If I see you in the street, I doubt if I will feel at all inclined to talk to you, although I might tell my companion that you were the married-but-pretending-to-be-single English mid-life-crisis cliché that I used to fuck who lied to me, cheated on me (Although so far I only have circumstantial evidence) and bragged to strangers online that we’d had great sex. Or I might just scream at the top of my voice: ‘Crawl back under your rock, Lothario!’.

Oooooooohhhhhh! Wouldn’t that be fun!

I rather like the dramatic effect that that might have ;-).

Imagine how people would stare!

Imagine how shocked your companion would be!

Imagine how rattled YOU would be.

I must remember to call you by name otherwise you could explain it away. But don’t worry, that’s not really my style (though it could become my style… it kinda thrills me to think about it.). I am considering the title, “The One-Night Stand That Lasted Five Months” for the chapter on you.

It’s got a gritty authenticity to it, (something sadly lacking with you); it’s got an ironic distance and perfectly reflects the illusory intimacy (or lack thereof) that was what we had together. It was interesting that when I presented you with the natural consequences of your actions, you see that as hatred. You see it as heinous to point out to you what I felt and that your actions wounded me deeply. You are so obtuse that you even write “There is nothing I can do that can change your opinion of me.”

But there is. And I have spelled it out for you in glorious black-and-white. Time and time again. You see, I would never blame you for being who you are. I have heard the darkest confessions that a human soul can confess. I never judged the people who told me these terrible secrets; I only admired them for their bravery, for their courage in telling me their truth and for sharing harrowing events with me. And I have done my best to not judge you. I sympathize deeply with who you are, and you know it very well. Like it says in the Leonard Cohen excerpt: “I know you had to lie to me, I know you had to cheat, you learned it on your father’s knee and at your mother’s feet. I have only asked you to acknowledge what you have done. I wanted you to acknowledge the pain that I have felt, me, the “other”. But you were not up to the task. Even in the same breath as you agreed to meet, you were already beginning to backtrack and stonewall.

Your insensitivity and your tone-deaf response continue without respite. You failed to rise to the challenge that truth called you to. You were already lying through your teeth that very first time, in my kitchen, when you said that this was your first on-line date. Didn’t you even feel the slightest discomfort when I laughed and asked you,

“Really? You’re kidding me”. I mentioned to a friend that I’d been online dating. And I told him that I’d learned one thing: “Men will lie to get laid”. Well, I exaggerated of course, using the plural, you were the only one that I know that for sure about, that I have direct personal experience with. But it made him laugh, in this sad tragedy of dashed hopes and broken dreams. Just a few days after I sent you the message where I expressed a wish for you to acknowledge your actions, where I wrote “In my wild daytime fantasies, this is what I imagine you will write”, I get a message on Facebook, an abject apology from an ex-friend that I dated, many years ago. He wrote more or less what I had asked you to write, isn’t that amazing? And kinda spooky… I think it unlikely that I will ever contact you again. And I don’t have a whit of enthusiasm for meeting you, as you have probably already figured out. You’ve never given me what I wanted before, when I wanted it. I can hardly imagine that you are going to start now. It’s always been about what YOU wanted.

For you, I was always a pawn to be played, a person to be put right where you wanted me whenever you wanted me there. Your only loyalty was to your need of me. Once your needs changed, so did your loyalty. I had needs too, a need to be protected from the bacteria of your other sexual partners, for example, and you bridled and bristled in your unyielding resistance to what I needed.

If I hadn’t allowed myself to be so distracted by your overt sexuality, I would have seen through you immediately. You used your wife until she had raised your children, you used me as distraction and entertainment, you used your colleague’s widow to get over me and then threw her away almost immediately (if the story you told is true… And really, with you, who knows?). Humanity would be significantly better served if you used a blow-up doll instead of using other people to assuage your emptiness and lonlieness. And now you want me to fade away and pretend like I’m a ‘how-are-you-fine-thanks’ kind of acquaintance. Yes, let’s be strangers. I suggest you drop your plans to move to my home town. Your name is mud here and this town is surprisingly parochial. You see, your reputation will precede you. I have blabbed now, too.

How many English ex-servicemen are there in your little town who do Crossfit, do you think? I entered this with my eyes closed, I am leaving it with my eyes wide open. Love grows where trust is laid, and love dies where trust is betrayed. There is no better test of a man’s integrity than his behavior when he is wrong. How do you think you’re holding up so far? Goodbye and thanks for all the rancid, putrid fish. A

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