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Mar. 25th, 2013 09:05 am
Mar. 25th, 2013
Mea Culpa, Youra Culpa...
Mar. 25th, 2013 04:45 pmFortune has blessed me with the company of some amazing women over the years and I'm truly proud to count each one as a friend and fellow traveler on the often perilous road that is the arts. They're talented, funny, caring, driven and yes, frankly, each uniquely beautiful in their own way. This time last year though, still fucked up by a break-up, my homelessness and my father's passing, I didn't see it that way. All I saw was myself a prisoner of the 'friend zone' (invoking images of General Zod in the Phantom Zone in my geek filtered paradigm). I resented that I was overlooked for whatever it was I felt they couldn't see in me - a confident disposition, a fetching physique, a career on stage, at times even a hypocritical if not misogynistic bravado.
But over the course of the last 365 days something changed in me. I stopped seeing these friends as a prize I was denied and began instead to see the incandescent brilliance of their souls. Those who dropped everything to rush by after work when I was on the brink of tears over dad, the drinks and dinner paid for despite a diminishing bank account, the busy hours juggled so time could be found while I bitched about whatever it was I was bitching about and of course the complimentary passes to many a show that I would otherwise be unable to afford to get into. Mainly though the patient silence as I babbled about whatever idea I was driven to write about.
In time the paradigm shifted. Not just in how I saw them, but how I saw myself. Am I confident, well, I don't know about that - but I know I have enough self-respect again to look at how to make my future count rather than brooding over past mistakes. Am I 'fetching'? You know what, it's taken me 40 odd years to say this but yeah, I am... enough so that I resent no man by appearance alone and can say I've turned a few heads in my time. Even if I was too busy looking down on myself to see it. A career on stage? Well, that's not my bag, but I write as well as my theatre friends can act and when I've been on stage I held my own just fine thank you very much. As for a hypocritical and misogynistic bravado... well, is that any less attractive than a hypocritical and self-defacing sense of false humility?
It's odd being here at times. Frustrating, only in that some of my lady friend's boyfriends eye me with a suspicion that is quite frankly my fault. Guys I've never met or only met once who friend me on Facebook to keep tabs of a sort (as if I was going to post - "Guess who just won tickets to Cuckold Town with So & So's Significant Other"). Occasionally I hear second hand reports of the trouble I've caused some of my friends by making my amorous attentions less than subtle when drunk or coked up. Some aren't even dating them anymore, but believe that an invisible contract was signed with their cocks that place them in perpetual harem status - ("It's an open relationship: I fuck who I want and in return they can fuck who I want as well"). Some are just assholes frankly, but no more than I was once.
That's okay. Because I've learned this much about confidence. When you have it. When you truly have it beyond being bellicose or confrontational, beyond cruelty or cockiness you also have faith in the one you're with - because you know deep down they have chosen you for who you are not what you think they see or don't see. Guys, gals, and all those pretty eyes that are categorized in between.
One day I'll meet a different kind of female friend. One who will make me laugh and back my play when I'm outgunned. A Valkyrie and a poet of whatever medium strikes her fancy. A fellow geek maybe or someone driven to make the world around them a better place. There will be mutual chemistry and awkward kisses and the sense that in each other we have found our way back to a home we forgot we had. Who knows? Maybe not? There's a certain ingrained shyness at times and the fuck-up artist in me who cannot help but say the wrong thing at the right time. Bachelor me at 65 if I make it that long and that's fine. I guess it's part of the charm.
It's taken me awhile to learn to live with myself and for now myself is proving to be company aplenty. All I can say is I'm sorry to my friends for the fever illusion that I needed you to be more and my gratitude for seeing who I could be all along.
But over the course of the last 365 days something changed in me. I stopped seeing these friends as a prize I was denied and began instead to see the incandescent brilliance of their souls. Those who dropped everything to rush by after work when I was on the brink of tears over dad, the drinks and dinner paid for despite a diminishing bank account, the busy hours juggled so time could be found while I bitched about whatever it was I was bitching about and of course the complimentary passes to many a show that I would otherwise be unable to afford to get into. Mainly though the patient silence as I babbled about whatever idea I was driven to write about.
In time the paradigm shifted. Not just in how I saw them, but how I saw myself. Am I confident, well, I don't know about that - but I know I have enough self-respect again to look at how to make my future count rather than brooding over past mistakes. Am I 'fetching'? You know what, it's taken me 40 odd years to say this but yeah, I am... enough so that I resent no man by appearance alone and can say I've turned a few heads in my time. Even if I was too busy looking down on myself to see it. A career on stage? Well, that's not my bag, but I write as well as my theatre friends can act and when I've been on stage I held my own just fine thank you very much. As for a hypocritical and misogynistic bravado... well, is that any less attractive than a hypocritical and self-defacing sense of false humility?
It's odd being here at times. Frustrating, only in that some of my lady friend's boyfriends eye me with a suspicion that is quite frankly my fault. Guys I've never met or only met once who friend me on Facebook to keep tabs of a sort (as if I was going to post - "Guess who just won tickets to Cuckold Town with So & So's Significant Other"). Occasionally I hear second hand reports of the trouble I've caused some of my friends by making my amorous attentions less than subtle when drunk or coked up. Some aren't even dating them anymore, but believe that an invisible contract was signed with their cocks that place them in perpetual harem status - ("It's an open relationship: I fuck who I want and in return they can fuck who I want as well"). Some are just assholes frankly, but no more than I was once.
That's okay. Because I've learned this much about confidence. When you have it. When you truly have it beyond being bellicose or confrontational, beyond cruelty or cockiness you also have faith in the one you're with - because you know deep down they have chosen you for who you are not what you think they see or don't see. Guys, gals, and all those pretty eyes that are categorized in between.
One day I'll meet a different kind of female friend. One who will make me laugh and back my play when I'm outgunned. A Valkyrie and a poet of whatever medium strikes her fancy. A fellow geek maybe or someone driven to make the world around them a better place. There will be mutual chemistry and awkward kisses and the sense that in each other we have found our way back to a home we forgot we had. Who knows? Maybe not? There's a certain ingrained shyness at times and the fuck-up artist in me who cannot help but say the wrong thing at the right time. Bachelor me at 65 if I make it that long and that's fine. I guess it's part of the charm.
It's taken me awhile to learn to live with myself and for now myself is proving to be company aplenty. All I can say is I'm sorry to my friends for the fever illusion that I needed you to be more and my gratitude for seeing who I could be all along.