Tomorrow is 14th of February. Cue the clichés and the little angel with a bow. Cue the fragrance and the stupid music to go with panto faces and – badly exercised – gallant gestures. Rejoice in fake wishes and charade rendezvous, cold kisses and clumsy manners bestowed in restaurants bursting with sweat and candles and cheap perfume. Why this entire circus? Why “celebrate love” on a particular day? Why not all year round? Surely if people feel that way they don’t need the entertainment industry to rally them – it’s something they would naturally do every day. But enough of this.
It’s not for me to harangue honest believers – religious or otherwise – unless I happen to take issue. And issue I take now, for it is most badly timed: the dreaded thing happens just as I’ve become single! For Jove, what am I talking about here; as embarrassing as it is for a man, I’ve been well and truly dumped! It’s not my finest hour but at least that got rid of the blinkers. And it pains me to see how dishonesty, dissatisfaction and pretence take hold of people as soon as any vows are thrown in. Pretence is then all they have left. (Once I nurtured the same feelings about marriage to the point that I made a note to myself reminding me not to do it. But at least married people have the excuse of living in an institution over which, once they tie the knot, they have little or no control – other than to divorce, of course).
However, the main grievance was not being dumped. Frankly, it was overdue. What really pisses me off is being incapable of doing it myself. I think – as a man – that if a relationship is at an end it is my duty to put it out. There’s something harking back probably to our early ancestors about this, some primal “slam the door and walk away” feeling about it. There’s also the truth, and I beg anyone to dispute the fact, that women cannot do it properly. Break-ups they never could. It goes against all their instincts and the fundamentals of survival to do it; they’d be ill equipped to preserve the species unless they’re in a relationship.
This sets out two diverging standpoints from the onset of any relationship. (To digress, I resent the word relationship because it takes to relate – which is an honest and pretty self-explanatory verb – and, by adding ship to it, institutionalise it). Anyway, as romance sparks out, glances are exchanged and hands are being held, out from the prying eyes war is declared. War between two genetically and culturally fortified positions. Even the most perfunctory analysis will show relationships to work that way.
At this point the only reasonable thing to do is to negotiate. Explicit or not, every single relationship, as any institution, is based on some exchange of favours. As for me, I couldn’t be troubled to. I conceded all. And expected all to be conceded and, cue the violins, I think the results are clear to be seen.
You can imagine in the circumstances that my first rational thought was to assess the damage and see what can be rescued. And in spite of what cheap literature might tell you about pride, the truth is that everything can be rescued, it only depends on how low you’re willing to go. Everything except trust, that is. Trust can only be lost once. In moments like these common sense prescribes that against all instincts, against manners and feelings, never, ever, trust a woman. Never.
One good example for this aimless rant of mine is sex. Take any honest woman and she’ll tell you that it only matters for the first couple of years. Then it becomes a “carrot and stick” tool for leverage (no pun intended). (We men don’t always object to this attitude because we think it’s allowing us to cheat, something we’re genetically programmed to do). What everyone seems to forget here is that we’re biological beings, we bloody need it! However elaborate love is, it gravitates around sex, and it has to do. Of course, it’s not only about sex. As an evolved species we have grown out of our basic instincts, but that is not to say that we got rid of them. I mean we are quite clever now to wrap sex in red ribbons and underwear, and perfume, and promises, and call it love; and write books and poems dedicated to the old act, but so we do with food. We don’t eat it raw, we use spices, dressings, ovens and grills, just like with love – we read books about it, but make no mistake: if we cook, we’re hungry.
Next, please!
It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Digging) 