by Erislover

Of course, apart from sex, it was all I really had to offer her.

Hmm. Perhaps we should back up a bit. My thoughts probably wouldn’t make much sense to you without some context.

I was raised by horses. No, not in the wild. Yes, on a farm. And yes, I did have a father and mother who technically raised me. When pressed to the issue I’ll confirm that, but just between you, my thoughts, and me, I was raised by horses. Didn’t know it then, of course. Horses don’t do much in the way of teaching.

They are pretty dumb animals, when you come down to it. Ever read Steinbeck’s The Red Pony? Eh, life with equestrian animals is hardly so romantic, but you know how stories are — at least, you will when this is over.

Later in life I had come to read a bit about the infamous Allegory of the Cave, wherein we humans are merely gasping at shadows of true reality. This is where the horses come in.

The allegory of the cave wasn’t particularly an eye-opener for me. It was sort of a confirmation of the beast that we call man. A bunch of scared, dogmatic creatures frightened of their own shadows. Turn around, already. Christ. And the horses, you know, like all animals, in their stupidity achieve greatness: they could give a shit. Really. I’m sure the only reason the groundhog cares is because we’ve bred the poor bastard to.

And I got to thinking about the other things that I’ve read, all Steinbeck-depressing-futility, Bronte-romantic-tragedy, Orwell-conspiracy-holism… blah blah blah, it goes on, you know. Literature. Always liked reading because it took me to another place. Television was all right, too, but not quite the same thing. At any rate, you get to meet a lot of people as you live through your life, and they all have these little quirks and habits that one can map onto characters in literature. “Oh, she’s such a hopeless romantic,” we say, relating that to some novel, some movie, some television character — or more likely, a combination of all of them.

Me, I’ve never been that emotional. Never really saw it, felt it, the whole lot. Oh, I knew what someone meant by “romantic,” I could relate it to a thousand different characters.

Again, this is the horses. Me, just a horse. Just some animal walking around, taking in food, excreting waste. Only I had brain food and brain waste as well, with thoughts and their practical expression, speech. Rubbish.

She wasn’t really romantic (the example I gave above). She was a simulation of romanticism. He wasn’t really a “bastard,” just acted out a role. Shakespeare knew it, we are all just players. Except for him, maybe, since he saw it. And there are others, of course. They aren’t “romantic,” or “tragic,” or any other convenient role-cast creature. They are just weird. Sort of a bland term, could mean anything. Thing is, it really means nothing. It means, if you’ll allow me to translate, “This person is not possible to place in a role or a combination of roles through my experience or the passed experience of others.” ‘Course, no one ever says things like that because it would force them out of the shadows, and out to a mirror. “Good heavens!” they would then exclaim, “Is that me?”

The horror, I know.

So anyway, I had met one of these people (no statistical oddity) who thought reality really was the books and roles we made up for people. She was attractive enough, stirred the old libido, had some interesting thoughts on politics and such, kept up with world news and economics. Sort of an interesting woman. We were friends, and you could tell that that was a role as well, with expected scenes and already-played-out conversations, ready-made emotions, snap-on spontaneity. You might wonder why I was interested in one of these people, so typecast. I would wonder too.

It isn’t like she wasn’t like all the others. She was. It wasn’t like there was an extra bit of uniqueness there (not “uniqueness” like everyone has because they are supposed to). I think it might have been because, like Shakespeare and maybe even Plato, she knew damn well that she was just a part in a play.

“Life isn’t a game, you know,” she told me once in a conversation about a coworker of hers (that is, she knew I knew, the “you know” was sort of rhetorical). I was nodding thoughtfully. “This character”—character, ha! It was so clear—“has some notion that competition is everything. I don’t know where he got that idea, because it has obviously proven so unsuccessful for him.” I nodded thoughtfully again. A typical if - only - everyone - would - just - realize guy. Dime a dozen, really. “But really, you know, not worth explaining to him.” I muttered some affirmation of that; it really was pretty pointless to talk about such matters. This was reality, point-blank and obvious as a head wound. If they refused to just turn around and look out of the stinking cave then telling them what was going on certainly wasn’t going to change anything. And if, like this woman, they knew already that they were just role-playing, casting themselves in the molds set by the fiction we so enjoy, then the discussion was moot and no point in bringing it up anyway.

So we shared some times, acting out the friendship bit on her end, and me playing the weird guy on the other (even not-being-typecast has become typecast, as a last desperate attempt by the fakers to get everyone to fit). I’m not sure if she was attracted to me physically like I was to her. Hard to say, because in the roles we read we already know the answer, it is spelled out for us through painfully artistic (or dreadfully inefficient) prose, paragraph after paragraph setting the role, creating the scene. It isn’t romantic, you know, if there are no candles. And such-and-such music must be playing, or should have been playing, or would have been a better scene had it been playing. But we know what’s expected, and the thing that trips us up is that the difference between romance and friendship was really just the sex.

So, you see, when I said “Apart from sex, it was really all I had to offer her,” “it” was “weirdness.” Weirdness and sex, take it or leave it. I didn’t know how to put it any better, any more eloquently, any anything. So I never said it, anyway, and here we are. Typical sexual frustration coupled with the inability to accurately gauge the other person’s role. It’s not that I didn’t know her, or any part of her. I didn’t know how she really felt, if underneath all the plaster was a person. A weirdo. A weirdo who wanted to have sex with me.

And there really was no point to beating around the bush, taunts and parries, roller-coaster drama. When weird guys express their feelings they aren’t typecast either, so I couldn’t just come out and say it. Weird guys, you know, get a bad rap. Everything they do, even at the peak of statistical normalcy, “feels” weird, and wrong, and not definable. Not like it “should be,” even though the “should be” couldn’t be described either, not without referencing a millennia of religion and philosophy and the rest of the great fiction.

I was sinking into the role. Damn near whirlpool effect, once it starts. I saw me as “the weird guy.” And I saw my feelings as “weird feelings.” Obviousness is not a part of our character; ambiguity is what creates the tension in relationships. And my wavering decision process started flowering into a classic internal struggle. Should I look to Hamlet for advice? Should I read some treatise on morality? What would [blank] do?

I began to sigh a lot, sort of a motherly trait, disappointed in what I was becoming, but not depressed. After all, I was raised reading these stories, hearing these stories, what would make me think that I wasn’t a part of it?

Perhaps tomorrow I would get some candles, make a nice pasta dish (medium effort, for one can’t come on too strong), and rent a bland drama, a romantic comedy, something appropriate to the situation.

I mean, when you come down to it, why swim upstream? All you’ll find is some big, boring lake, or maybe get stopped at a waterfall and tumble, tumble, tumble… Not that this was the easy way — all ways are easy — it’s just that the point isn’t there one way or the other, so quit pretending I’m the author of my own life when I know it isn’t true. Here, here, and here I can point for you, all the times where I was a perfect work of fiction.