My first girl friend was a type, a certain kind of shy girl
who knew how to get what she wanted by not asking. By waiting for you to offer it. If she
accepted, then you knew (or guessed) that you were getting somewhere.
Of course you never had actual verification from her. And she never gave up the pussy, which would
have been strong circumstantial evidence that she really liked me.
She kind of obsessed me during my high school years, even
after I said something wrong and she slapped me and wanted nothing more to do
with me.
My first wife was of the same type. Demure, quiet but with a fire in her eyes.
She never told you exactly what she wanted you to do and I had to guess,
predict, offer things over and different, whether it was a new kind of
restaurant, going out on an work night to a new neighborhood, get a new job,
try a new position in bed. She wouldn't let
me know I was on the right track until I was far along, too late even to back
out ("You know, I never really liked Thai"), at the edge of the
gangplank and having to plead to be let back on the boat.
Everything I learned about her likes and dislikes were an
accident. A perverse but addictive kind
of unraveling mystery she savored. And
that I did too. Her measured reluctance
to participate in the decision-making process was its own kind of decision
making - she had me wrapped around her finger, hopelessly under the thumb of
her unspoken whims. Out of my mind to please - and whipped.
A girlfriend in there later lasted only 3 months, and there
she was again. I pursued her and she smiled
and said if you want and I thought every decision was golddust. And I wasn't
standing on any real ground. The path
ahead was shrouded in fog.
It was all the same co-dependent neediness, trying to be in
charge but at the mercy of someone else, something impossible to control or
know, movement without purpose.
We repeat our own bad habits because we're comfortable with
them, we know the hurt and we know how to nurse the hangover the next
morning. Who wants to go find a new
unexpected kind of damage? They made me
feel good, they made me feel wanted, they gave me something to live for (and to
worry about). I made love to them well
too.
But then I sought out a different companion and it was a new
and unfamiliar path. When things went wrong, she took part of the blame. And she warned me ahead of time when she
didn't like something. And when she
did. If we traveled too far together she
didn't pull the rug out from under me.
If I fell she caught me.
Even thought I might want to crash on the rocks below in self-immolating
defeat.