Everyone wants to mate, you know, just not with you.
Lately I feel like I have been surrounding myself with men who will stroke my ego (free of charge!). I feel like I'd been playing poker and got them to show their cards - Groundskeeper Willy told me that he found me tremendously attractive (I noticed), Kieran thinks me lovely and intelligent and smart and well read, and Iestin (in a message filled with adorably misused big words! English is not his strong point) thinks I am intelligent and pretty. Affirm my sexuality! There's a good boy.
I am these things. I am attractive and intelligent. But I'm other things too, and I know that they are sometimes things that resist easy categorization. I'm a package of bad habits, smarts, goofiness, laziness, and occasionally hardcore industry plus an Eternal Sou-el. Plus I can't help but think they're being either a bit cagey to get me into bed and/or their death shack (when I'm feeling cynical) or are just misplacing love for lust and are emotionally confused. Still, I don't seem to tire of being complimented. Oh my swollen head!
Whenever I see pigeons courting each other - basically a male pigeon looking really puffed up and chasing around a smaller, reluctant female pigeon - I shout at them "Everyone wants to breed, just not with YOU, yackass!"
Anyway, as these dopey boys tell me that they looove me, and want to maaaarry me, I can't take their puffed up pigeon selves seriously. (The night I met Iestin he affirmed his undying love for me ... while I laughed at him.)
Women have potentially a lot more invested in sex than men: and that is pregnancy. The cost of sex is a lot higher for women, and our psychology (since it seems likely that it evolved, and didn't spring into being one day) couldn't account for oral contraceptives, obviously. I am endlessly fascinated by the kind of posturing male creatures put on in order to get laid - professions of fidelity, boasting about their academic achievements and how much money they have, showing off the kind of devoted mate they can be (even if they don't really want to be). I don't think they set out thinking "Oh, I'm going to deceive a woman into my bed / behind the quickstop / into the back of my volkswagon with this posturing!" but rather it just seems like something they do.
And women and men probably are fundamentally different about sex, which makes the fact that we tend to do it with each other really difficult. It seems like someone's gotta give. You know?
I do think that oral contraceptives have probably changed all the rules of the game. We may be wired one way, but our behaviour is a mixture of our Eternal Sou-el (I dunno, personality?), instincts and environment. Our instincts are nothing new, but the 20th century has produced some fairly novel environments.
There you go. That's what I think.
2003-05-21, ramble about pigeons, sex, men
When I joke that I don't know how to say "no" in Welsh, I'm not really lying about it.
2003-05-21, Oh and I wish I were
Groundskeeper Willy has a girlfriend in Denmark but he continues to invite me to his death shack. Okay? Weirdo. Also, I used to swear on a stack of bibles that I loved misspellings, but "say la ve" did him in for me. Matt doesn't love me, even potentially love me, which makes me glad I avoided inebriated confessions of love. ("I looooove you, Matt. Not 'I LOVE YOU MAN' love, tiramisu love.") Frank loves Charlotte. Well, they all do, really. Not that I really thought I had a chance with him, I just have a thing for boys who talk to me about literature. Even though they study Marine biology. And who loved living in Oregon. Yeah. Oh well.
And then Kieran asked me to the ball. I haven't been asked to a prom in a good five years, and I suppose I'm touched a bit. But at separate points in the evening I talked with both Frank and Kieran about 1984, and the conversation with Kieran makes me think he's just not very interesting. You know how you kinda wonder if there's something more to a person? And then find out that maybe there isn't?
Anyway, I just went from having too many potential men (granted, Matt hasn't registered in these counts) to none. I have the best luck.
2003-05-21, I get no love, I just get leavin'
I'm slightly overwhelmed with - oh, is it inertia? I can't get myself to do anything. I'm sleeping a huge amount and can't seem to do anything with my day - I feel tired. I don't really feel bad, but it's a struggle to get myself to shower and to get out of bed.
In fact, I feel quite fine. I'm just, I don't know what I am.
Exciting news: Sue, one of my dear friends from Middletown is coming up from London to see me. I'm excited but somewhat dreading what effect a visitor will have on my bankaccount.
I'm going to go home, lie in bed and listen to BBC4.
2003-05-20, Lame
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