Frightening awful silences. Hiding behind all those mannerisms and quiet, crouched down behind himself. Unfiltered cigarettes, beer, broads and lumberjack shirts. And all that quiet to read into. One not only has to read between the lines, one has to fill him in altogether. Because he’s not there. To make him important in one’s life requires an overactive imagination. Unfortunately, mine never knows when to quit.
During the long stretches of silence one can study him, eventually filling him in to suit one’s likes or dislikes. (The satisfaction of one’s fantasy.) I have filled him in to be unobtainable, disinterested, attractive and bored with my company. My ideal mate. Someone to endure, never to enjoy. I am totally at his mercy. I suffer through the silence, imagining that he is suffering my company. That I am merely an alternative for nothing better to do. I’m frightened of the power I have given him over me and of how he will almost certainly abuse it, merely by not being fully aware he has it.
So he assumes his apathetic poker face and I sit practicing wry knowing looks somewhere in his periphery. I don’t dare pick a topic for fear that it won’t be funny enough or interesting enough for his awe-inspiring judgment. With his silence he establishes himself as a sort of trapped audience and so you break your ass to meet the enormous challenge of entertaining him, frantic with worry that his teeth might suffocate. Oh, he’s very funny sometimes with his parched sense of humor. But he only plays himself part-time. I work myself around the clock—obviously I have not heard about the child labor laws. But then I have not totally accepted that I am no longer a child. Once I do that I will have to accept responsibility for everything I do.
We have no feeling for one another. We lie buried together during the night and haunt each other by day. Acting out something that we don’t feel and seeing through something that doesn’t deserve any focus. I have never done anything quite like this.
I sit patiently awaiting the consequences. I talk, walk, eat and sleep patiently awaiting the consequences. How can a thing that doesn’t seem to be happening come to an end? George says that if you look at the person someone chooses to have “a relationship” with, you’ll see what they think of themselves. So Harrison is what I think of myself. It’s hardly a relationship, but nevertheless he is a choice. I examined all the options and chose the most likely to leave. No emotional investments. Never love for me—only obsession. Someone has to stand still for you to love them—my choices are always on the run.
I can’t think about it anymore. It makes my head hurt. My mind works overtime trying to rationalize it, categorize it, define it until it no longer means anything. Put it into words—you can’t feel words. I think that if I could give a name to what I feel it would go away. Find the word that describes the feeling and say it over and over until it’s merely a sound.
That old familiar feeling of hopelessness. That vague sense of desperation; fighting not to lose something before you’ve decided what you’ve got. I must thank him someday for teaching me to be casual. I realize I’m not very adept at it yet, but given a certain amount of time I feel I could learn to act as though I wanted to be somewhere else, maybe even manage to look as though I was somewhere else. I can charm the birds out of everybody else’s trees but his. Vultures are difficult to charm unless you’re off somewhere rotting in the noonday sun. Casually rotting . . . a glib cadaver.
I’m sorry it’s not Mark—it could’ve been. It should’ve been. It might’ve meant something. Maybe not much, but certainly more.
This is a totally unreal situation but it’s the only reality I’ve got. I call friends trying to recapture some of my old dime-store perspective, but no matter how long we talk or how deep we delve I can’t seem to make any of it stick. I don’t really know how any of this feels. It’s important to decide whether all this is right or wrong, but as I’ve always seemed to judge myself in terms of other people’s standards and opinions; I have no moral reserves of my own to tap. I’ve always relied on the kindness of strangers, acquaintances, friends, relatives and Tennessee Williams to see me through. I’m quite sure, though, that if I had any principles what I’m doing now would violate most all of them.
I suspect that no matter what happens I will allow it to hurt me. Eat away at my insides, as it were—as it will be. As it always has been. Why am I so accessible? Why do I give myself to people who will always and should always remain strangers? I have always relied on the cruelty of strangers and I must stop it now. I am a fool. I need a vacation from myself. I’m not very good at it lately.
Who do you want them to think you are? How do you think people see you? Or don’t you let them near enough to see. You make up their minds for them. Do you think that you succeed in convincing people that you are what you seem to be? You make people meet you on your own territory. You don’t help them. You let them verbally hang themselves and then feel better about yourself, your power, your own sense of worth. You have the power to alienate them and if they allow it, you might even manage to make them feel awkward and foolish—foolish for letting you affect them at all. Do you want them to like you? Or are you one of those people who “don’t care what people think.” You’re not living your life for them, so why should you give a fuck what people think? You make people come to you and, when they eventually do, you punish them with your smugness. Nothing ever out of character.
I wish you would love me more so that I could love you less.
—Not Me
The man sitting alone so silent and strong
So what if you’re attracted for all the wrong reasons
So what if your reasoning’s wrong
Call his indifference mystery
Call his arrogance intellect
All you’ve got to lose is your heart
And a little self-respect.
If you’ve got arrogance and indifference
You can make them pay
They’re the most commercial product
On the romantic market today.
What do you think I feel for you or think of you? How sophisticated do you think I am? That’s not a fair question because obviously I don’t even know how to answer it. I overestimated myself. I thought I could be with the big kids. The grown-ups. The ones who ask questions like they already know the answers. Who never give themselves away; no emotional souvenirs.
What’s happening to me? Who the hell do I think I am? Why have I become casually involved with someone who, if I am totally honest with myself, I don’t care for and who doesn’t care for me? And is married?
I must figure this thing out once and for all—this pattern of becoming obsessed with inaccessible men. I think I’ve just about covered the boards by now. I think I’ve bled it dry. First homosexual men, already established in their inaccessibility before I came along, so I couldn’t take it too personally—just personally enough to get the taste in my mouth. The taste of disinterest and abandonment, sort of like cottage cheese with an aftertaste similar to smoked haddock. From then on it seemed I couldn’t get enough. As it were—as it seems to be. I started with snacking on the inaccessibility of random silent jerks and seem to have arrived at making a full meal of it. Now I’ve had more than enough. I want the check. Waiter?
Thanks for the good times. Thank you for being so generous with what you have withheld. Thank you for being the snake in my grass, the thorn in my side, the pain in my ass, the knife in my back, the wrench in my works, the fly in my ointment. My Achilles’ heart. Caught in a whirlpool without an anchor, relaxing into it, calmly going under for one of many last times.