Emotionally Bankrupt?
Yesterday, G called distressed over how things were turning out with B – I told her I saw warning signs written all over him – he has a rigid personality – now he has a lot of other things – he’s good looking, smart, informed, etc. – but the rigidity is what got me. Both G and I are opinionated but that opinion can be amorphous and slippery sometimes, not to say we won’t argue it at the moment to our deathbed, but I don’t adhere strictly to any cause or thought and neither does she. She quoted from NPR’s This I Believe where one woman wrote in and said “I believe I do not have strong beliefs.” Ha! Anyway this was the crux of my issue with S – he had strong beliefs, and I didn’t, so his won out too many times.
Meanwhile, L, man of mystery, called to see if I wanted to ride bikes to a party uptown with him, so I said yes. There was silence at the other end of the phone. And we went and it was fun, as all New Orleans gatherings are fun – a woman there named Santa, who kind of looked like Santa, the hostess, T, is a C-something something pilot, B is good friends with George Porter who lives down the street, H and her girlfriend A were the chefs making jambalaya, jerk chicken, marinated flank steak, and more. L was getty anxy after a while so then we decided to head to Bacchanal but first had to run home and take care of his dogs. I had already taken care of the Bean.
We’re at the house and talking about this and that when he started talking about where he is in life on the relationship chart. Seems like L, since he is a hottie, spent most of his adult years trading up on women, always thinking if he had one that was hot, he might snag another that was hotter, and so it went for years this way. Then he woke up one morning and wanted a relationship and lo and behold, he did everything he thought he was supposed to do and one, two, three, he got dumped and had his heart broken. So now L, man of no more mystery, is vulnerable and perhaps had therapy and realizes that for years since he was not happy with himself, not satisfied with his job, he sought an external badge to wear, a girl adornment, to give him value. But he might have bankrupted the kitty so to speak, used up all the girls and now what?
I changed my mind and said it was a school night and Bacchanal was not in my cards – I begged off and came home. After 40, you come to the table with so much history tucked under your belt (literally) that it is no wonder some people decide to go it alone.
A woman who I see in the neighborhood was at the Ogden the other night – she said she had been on Match.com for ten months and came to the conclusion that men are emotionally bankrupt and so has given up. I think it is more likely that we are all in the same boat and each of our canoes are laden with baggage that threatens to sink us and so we are caught in the navel gazing nit picking of what pieces of ourselves are worth keeping in the boat, which can be thrown overboard and not be construed as litter, which could or should be shredded, burned or floated out to sea, it’s just a mind fuck really – what is the sum of any of us, and what can change and should?
There was a great article in Fortune magazine about New Orleans and its future – it quotes a study from RAND that New Orleans will have a population of 272K by 2008 – if you have a chance to read it:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/08/21/8383661/