MrMary’s & Stendhal’s Cures for Love Violence to One’s Feelings

I start where I should always start with Stendhal. He was a real expert when it came to observing people, and I have learned a lot from his observations.

The more desperately a man is in love the greater the violence he must do to his own feelings in daring to risk offending the women he loves by taking her hand.

~ Stendhal

Violence to One’s Feelings

Everyone knows that aside from one’s mother no one else will accept them for how they are. Consequently we all try to trick someone into liking us by “lying about ourselves”. For example guys I’m sure you had to go outside and double check you were in the right housethe first time you saw your girlfriend without make up. What the fuck is that? It would seems now you have no qualms with bringing fucking Gollum home. (It’s an apt analogy: your obssession with one ring that will bind a man forever to your evil bidding etc). Ladies I’m sure you keep that box of Kleenex on the nightstand because nice guys don’t always finish last as they promised they would on the car ride home. Quite often they finish first in an eye-stinging way that elicits unusually nice behavior for a good 2 weeks.

Generally as a modern-day dude and professional box filler, I have observed that most guys fall in love after the test-drive. Well to be honest, after the refractory period right after the test drive where women are watched to see how crazy they may or may not get. [HINT: Ladies if within the first 72 hours you talk about him meeting your boring ass friends, who are in some way socially or romantically defective, your biological clock, an ex-boyfriend, that time you got gang-banged in the bathroom of Pizzeria Uno‘s and never knew if you would feel love again – it’s a wrap] The way a lady handles during the test drive and how she is post test-drive is what determines how low you, as a dude, will let your guard down. So ladies write it down, “up first and then in, then down for the win”. The problem is that in letting your guard down, you start to expose yourself to the othe person as you are. That’s fucking scary if your a dude.

Why is it Scary

Plain and simple we don’t like ourselves, and I don’t mean that negatively. To like something one has to know it deeply and we cannot always see ourselves except through our contact and association with others. To know one’s self is a journey into ourselves. It’s not a popular thing to do. There is a reason after all why Shakespeare’s Hamlet starts out with the penultimate philosophical question: “Who’s there?”

Ladies if you really liked yourself as you are would you

Dye your hair
Make your cheeks redder
Inject botulism toxin into your face – [RANT: So let me get this straight you will inject a bacterial toxin into your face to give the temporary illusion that there is a vivaciousness to that worn cracked baseball glove you call a face but if a guy finishes on it, its an offense really ? Should I tell you what is in the make up and cosmetics you use?]
Wear push up bra’s,
Starve yourselves to fit in a dress that you will wear once and then let die in the back of your closet and eventually haunt you like bill collectors do black people…..
Still drink Bud Light to look cool when you know deep down inside you just want an excuse to act out ?
Hang out with approximation 1-2 girls less attractive than you at the party (didn’t think I knew about that shit)
Be so catty to the new lady in the office who looks better than you and is actually approachable and not a gigantic bitch to everyone ?
Date guys who are clearly violent, or not well in the head, or emotionally immature?
Would you shop at Century 21 – I’ve been in that place with its siren song and smiling fucking harpies.

I am not discounting the fact that society puts a lot of pressure on you to fit this strange ideal of beauty. I am not disputing the fact that you have to dress a certain way to get taken seriously in the work place. There are gender based demands made on you that is ridiculous.

But next time you are about to go to a party and you are holed up in the bathroom with your blow dryer, a curling iron just in fucking case you don’t like your hair straight and might want to add some fucking curls to it provided that 1, its not to humid outside and 2 you can find that fucking bottle that guarantees frizz control in Hurricane level winds, 2 bags one for make up one for cans of bullshit for your hair, not to mention lotions, skin scrubs, face cream, eye cream, foundation, cotton pads, make up remover, nail polish, nail polish remover and an assortment of brushes Picasso would envy, ask yourself what different are you from a sculptor? How different are you from the Photoshop crew called into to work on magazine covers for skinny anorexic models, Sarah Jessica Parker or Glenn Close or Madaonna – who doesn’t know when to stop? Then if you wanna go further you may realize that you’ve become a part of the very system you detest, a co-oppressor of other women (including yourself). You may get a weird feeling in your stomach if you think about it and that is the emptiness at the basis of existence. Enjoy that and either let someone in the fucking bathroom from time to time or don’t get offended if someone pees in the fuggin sink.

Dudes if you really liked yourself that much would you:

Jerk off that frequently,… you need to let the eroded skin grow back, otherwise it burns in the shower
Put up with your bullshit friends who make you feel better because their lives are a lot shittier than yours
Work out only abs & biceps so you can look good in the old Navy Tshirts you bought 3 sizes too small
Live in such a vermin infested festering cessepool that is your room/apartment/ parents basement pretend-space?
Get those stupid tribal tattoos ironically around your fucking biceps that you’ve been working out so much.
Ignore your lady just in the other room waiting for you to ask her about her day so she can talk you into a fucking coma by playing video games.
Wear a T-shirt multiple times and walk around smelling like a fucking gyro stand at a summer fair
Wear a T-shirt multiple times and dump half a can of Axe Body spray on you effectively killing all plant life and human olfaction as you and that cloud of ignorance walk about your day.
Would you try to assert your masculinity by making fun of gay people when you know that when your lady slips a finger in…eh I’m not gonna go there
You have only your career boots or sneakers that you’ve carried for the last 9 years as the only footwear in your closet ?

Conclusions

Generally dudes have a weakness and that is regularity in need fulfilment. If I meet a girl that is not demanding, won’t stress me out too much, actually consistently puts out and not only on the days of obligation (Bday, Local team win a championship, Christmas eve, Christmas, New Years Eve and New Years) then something keeps me coming back. Once you come back regularly you’re hooked. Once your hooked you have to keep on living the lie that you like fucking ballet or Experimental dance, that you really shave often, you don’t smell like shit, that you don’t mind listening to Tori Amos/Paula Cole/ in the car on long drive that extirpate your will to live, that it is ok to take food out of my fucking plate when I ordered something small so that you can get whatever you fucking want on the menu. Of course once you stop living lie that you hear things like

I don’t even know you any more? ( I could say the same thing when you take/peel off the clown mask you painted over that pale discolored crater ridden thing you call a face right before you hop into bed)
You’re Not really taking this relationship seriously? (I show up consistently, I don’t even do that for work or when it comes to visiting my own parents)
Your just saying that to placate me? ( No I just heard that story of that crazy bitch at work who is trying to get you fired and take away from you everything you have ever loved in life that fucking my little princess shit you got as a gift when you were 7. Try that on for placating you)
So you really don’t like my best friend Nancy [ btw fuck that bitch Nancy, I’d tell her to go eat a dick but she can’t get a man]

See what I did there. I put in black what some ex gf have told me and I put in parenthesis what I wanted to say but didn’t. I basically cock blocked my freedom of expression, because they (some of my ex-gf’s) managed to hold off their crazy till after 72 hours post boning out, had comfortable furniture, brought me soup when I was sick, cleaned me up and escorted me outside looking presentable, shiny well groomed.

Now unless you do some egregiously wrong shit I’m stuck living this lie to fucking please you so I can continue to get my needs met, and somewhere in this crazy exchange love enters and I’m finished, I have to bite my tongue I have to hang with your family, I have to watch Project Runway with you and pretend I know wtf chiffon is ? – it’s a violently painful thing to do. No matter how much I try to resist I end locked up each time.

From my experience I kind of feel that a good woman sort of of civilizes a dude. You are transformed from a wild semi solitary animal into the pride of the Westminster Dog show, you get food, warmth some comfort, but you have to look a certain way, you have to jump through hoops and play dead when all those wild impulses come your way or your hear your friends howling at the moon. But despite that there is a love there even after all my sarcasm and snarky comments. James Brown said it best.

This is a man’s world
But it wouldn’t be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl

He’s lost in the wilderness
He’s lost in bitterness