This is a bit of a rant, courtesy of a friend’s dismay tonight on having her boyfriend of some eight months spring on her “the truth” that he isn’t attracted to her and he wants to break it off.
Naturally, he thinks she’s wonderful in every way except “not being attracted to her”. Naturally, he finds this result after eight months quite reasonable. Through tears and sips of merlot, she regaled me with the story. She’s gone home now to snuggle kleenex and shove it all into the box called “it doesn’t matter” until she can believe it is true.
Me? I rant. For her and for the ridiculous ways men sometimes just seem to utterly miss the point. As usual, this item is rendered into personal terms as part of practice. There’s enough in it that I recognize to make it worthwhile. It shouldn’t matter, but it does. Oh, humanity.
—
I’m not exactly content with the manner in which men consistently try to woo me to bed with commentary ranging from acceptance to praise; as if I’m too stupid to know the difference between genuine respect and flattery; as if I’m so desperate for companionship that I’m willing to trade flesh for it. As if I’m so self-loathing that giving myself utterly to someone for the “favor” of their presence is other than completely selling myself out.
It grows old, this seemingly inevitable schism. I could rant for hours about it. A simply litany of frustrated annoyance for superficial things. I try to put myself into the frame of mind where the genetics matter, but I just can’t. Never could. To the generic male who finds them so important, the following:
Guess what? You’re not the hottest thing to walk the planet. I didn’t NEED to say it. I didn’t even feel it mattered until you were crass enough, until you made it clear enough that the only terminology you use is the grading of body parts as if they could ever possibly convey what they carry.
Does it never occur that I might like you for who you are and that, maybe, just maybe, how you look is never part of the consideration?
Does it never occur that what I like best is that someone might enjoy me best for who I am? That the reason for my attraction to you is who and how you are? That what ruins it is the moment in which you so clearly convey my primary value, the only reason you could possibly consider spending time with me, is how well I might fuck you or how well my parts stir and stiffen you?
Do you understand how sick I feel to face that? “I’m not attracted to you, but I’ll fuck you anyway” or “I don’t feel any attraction to you, but maybe if you fuck me enough, I will.”
There is not enough delusion in the world to make those sentences other than disgusting; to make the sheer, churlish objectification interesting. To do so is to mistake me for my self-loathing or gold-digging sisters; you so choose to do yourself disservice (and in the doing, obviously, demonstrate that you care not for the disservice you do me).
Don’t mistake me. I am far, far, far from being a prude. Unlike you, I’d have fucked you forever (and utterly senseless) for your thoughtfulness or your compassion. I’d have been your happy slut behind closed doors for your attentiveness or your kindness. I’d have let you have me a hundred different ways in as many places as you could imaging for your philosophy; for a solid and unequivocal rejection of the ridiculous “laundry list of perfections”; I would have explored and indulged every possible fantasy simply because you embraced me for who I am.
I had no need to tell you that I wasn’t enthralled by your body because I saw you first, best, and most delightful for what you showed me of your mind. The casing in which you walk the world was of no matter to me. That you do not match the inner reflection of the Animus is irrelevant, moot. I saw you as you were before you needed to weigh me on such superficial scales. I liked you until you told me you were incapable of the same.
And every time this happens, I miss the man I thought I was meeting. And every time this happens, I miss the feeling that it can be different, it will be different.
You tell me in so many ways that, if I am willing to chase after you in spite of being told I am found lacking and lessor, that you *might* change your mind. I laugh for it. Do you really think that acceptance and embrace and care could or should be contingent on THIS?
Do you really think that, having explicitly expressed that my primary value rests anywhere but in who I am, I should find you worthy of me?
Do you really think I should pursue you with all alacrity; hoping that the very shell you deride will convince you of something you’ve already admitted you cannot see, grasp, or understand? A fool’s hope that you, oh generic potential partner, would be less willing to judge my shell or less willing to find all the rest lacking for the lacking you find in my body, my parts?
Thoughtlessly, you find this reasonable. Blindly, you set it forth as if worthwhile. Ludicrously, you give this to me as if it should be received like a gift; “Here,” you say, “Have a crumb from my table. If you beg for it well enough, if I like the manner in which you dance for it, if the sound of your savoring it pleases me, I might reconsider thinking you a dog, begging for scraps.”
Succinctly – You have told me that you do not think. Wherefore, then, the reason to find you attractive?
Um, thank you, but no thank you.