The Worldly Lover
Dear [Mentat],
Man, you sure have a way of opening up cans of worms! Yes, a Worldly [lover] brings more to talk about into a relationship, which is a real advantage once the sexual lust fades into the background. Assuming that the lust ache always fades eventually, I agree. Your position on the increased points of commonality with Worldly [lovers] and how this adds diverse enjoyments to the relationship is well taken and is certainly crucial in relationships where the sex lust eventually goes away.
Now I know it may sound like I’ve been so focused on getting my dream girl for so long, that I’ve shrunk into a less worldly persona [...]. But I believe that my experiences thus far make me worldly enough. I need not exert efforts at becoming more of a Worldly [lover]. Why not? I’ve spent the last few decades learning electronics, computers, math, and history, time management, ham radio, psychology, The Bible, relationships, the list goes on and on. These days even, I spend at least an hour a day reading new stuff. So I have a propensity toward worldliness, without going out of my way for the sole sake of becoming worldlier. My life patterns assure what I believe to be a sufficient level of worldliness within me. I have much to discuss with the right women. Good conversation has rarely been a problem except for when I was a teenager perhaps. I’ve never had a woman leave me because I couldn’t converse on her level (at least none have told me such). In fact, when we disagree, they get frustrated because I argue my positions too well. Even when we agree, sometimes they say I know too much, and resent me for that, and a few have left giving the reason that they felt that they were too far beneath me intellectually. Some even called me a nerd.
I’ve left women also because I felt that they were above me. It’s no fun to be constantly humiliated by a smarter girlfriend. So at times, it’s better not to be so smart and well-read, or at least, to keep that smartness quiet. It’s very easy to demonstrate intellectual superiority in many such exchanges for me. What’s much harder is assuring that she doesn’t feel confuted or dwarfed or ‘put in her place’ too often. In this way, being too worldly can be a clear detriment, particularly when the necessary interpersonal skills to manage it are lacking. The best way to solve this however is not to restrain one’s words too much, but to find someone more on his level, someone of more equal worldliness.
The absolute degree of worldliness by itself does not make our relationships better or worse. In other words, we can’t claim unconditionally that the more we know, the higher the quality of mate we’ll attract, and the more fulfilling will our relationships be. This may be true in specific cases. Undeniably, so much of that depends on the personality of the particular woman involved. For women who find extensive worldliness stimulating, they’d date men of greater worldliness, and so, we’d do well to make ourselves more knowledgeable if we hope to take them out. But with others, that’s not so important, as long as the guy is smart enough to intelligently engage in everyday conversation, can enjoy movies and shows with them, can read a book now and then with them, and then discuss his impressions, and so on. Not every woman seeks an Einstein.
Then, as you probably know, the importance of a given amount of substance as you call it, is relative. If I were a man like [Bobby], [Rolly], [Musky], [Connor], [Willy], or [Jackie] (who by the way, married [Olga]), I’d be happy talking about things which, to you and me today seem trivial. For these men, [Olga] had ample substance. They, unlike us, may in fact see her as a perfect ten. Indeed, [Jackie] and [Olga] are happily married and have been so for five years now. They haven’t grown bored with each other yet. Now again, assuming that sexual desire must decline, five years seems like enough time for their lusts to have waned to the point where [...] sexual desires aren’t why they’re still together. They must have found something to talk about in all that time. So while we might see [Olga] as the veritable fruitcake, there are those [...] who find her plenty adequate. Yes, based on your description of your dream girl, you’re definitely seeking different mate qualities than was [Jackie]. But while we might not view their marriage as exceedingly deep, [they] do nevertheless, seem quite happy and devoted [...].
It’s appropriate to note that while [Olga] may not be educated, and that this fact makes her undesirable to many learned men, she nonetheless has a peculiar, innocently-caring way about her that enthralls more men than you might expect. She listens as long as her man wants to talk. Though she might not have the capacity to understand deeply what he says, she’ll try with all her heart to understand. And this effort, more than the understanding itself, can be most meaningful. Though her kind of love might seem simplistic in terms of the variety of subjects she can discuss at length, she gives this love more unconditionally than most any other woman I’ve known. She never expects to get something specific back in return before she bestows her affections, and she’s very accepting of a man’s flaws. She doesn’t care if he’s rich or poor, and never demands that he perform as a success object. Though she’s our age, she’s somehow managed to avoid becoming jaded. That is, I’ve never known her to assume an adversarial or defensive posture with men.
In spite of all the pain and abuse she’s suffered at men’s hands starting with her own father, and then her first husband, not to mention the intervening string of boyfriends, she still greets every new [romance] as though it was her first; with a charming naivety and her guard always down. Her plentiful bad experiences have yet to close her heart. She hasn’t a cynical bone in her body and seems to have mastered forgiveness. She never holds grudges, and a man need not prove himself worthy of her and never has to try and impress her. With [Olga], there are no bulwarks to penetrate; no nut to crack. She makes him understand that he’s okay from the very first moment they meet. In some ways, though she’s probably never picked up a post-secondary level book, she’s really quite advanced; a fact that used to gall [First Love].
[First Love] hated [Olga] passionately all through school because, among other reasons, [Olga] could seduce [Sherwood] in ways that [First Love] found most threatening and confounding. [Sherwood] was [First Love's] first love. Yet despite [First Love's] smarts, sophistication, academic achievements, near perfect ten good looks, fancy clothes, and efforts to win [Sherwood's] heart, [Olga] – simplistic [and] unrefined [...] – seemed to have the upper hand. Indeed the rumor mill buzzed more with tales of [Sherwood's] amorous encounters with [Olga] in the rainy-day gym, chapel, and suitcase room. We never heard about [Sherwood] and [First Love] sneaking off to screw. I don’t know that they didn’t. But even if they did, [Sherwood] was apparently less concerned with propriety and discretion with [Olga] than with [First Love]. It was as if he was saying, “[Olga], I don’t care if the world knows about you and me. But [First Love], we must keep our involvement secret.” We might conclude as [First Love] likely did, that [Sherwood] was less ashamed of [Olga]. So no wonder [First Love] was given to fits of rage even as late as our sophomore year, routinely bullying [Olga] in grade school. Her loathing ran deep then, and seems just as strong today, because in the mid 90s I tried to get them to reconcile. I offered to facilitate a conversation, but [First Love] wanted no parts of it, though [Olga] welcomed it.
[First Love] may have been worldlier than [Olga]. But this apparently meant little to [Sherwood], as he was obviously quite torn between the two. Without trying, [Olga] marshaled a powerful charm that not even [First Love's] superior intellect, calculation, and dedication could trump. As a result, [First Love] was in a constant state of war with [Olga], even though [Olga] was oblivious to the fight.
The point [...]: Worldliness has differing value among different people and is not an across-the-board necessary ingredient in maximal enjoyment of a relationship. Worldliness comes in various degrees just like good looks. But increasing our worldliness does not necessarily make us more attractive to more women. As we get smarter, the type of women we attract might change. Perhaps the less worldly entries in the list of those who’d date us, and who we’d date back, would gradually be replaced by the more worldly entries as our own [smarts rise]. But I’m just not convinced anymore that struggling to stuff a bunch of knowledge into my head makes me anymore universally attractive to higher numbers of women. Indeed, if we make ourselves too smart, we may place ourselves beyond the reach of any woman. Plus, we’d lose the ability to respect women in general as they’d virtually always be beneath us. Besides, many guys clearly dumber than I [get] gorgeous women, and I just can’t believe that they know something I don’t, which enables them to win like this. I’m assured that their worldliness is by no means their claim to fame.
One final point: It would seem that [Olga], who I’d rate as a five or six [out of ten], is able to create long-lasting relationships even though she’s not that smart and not that pretty [by our standards]. Perhaps she doesn’t have much to say after the sex lust fades. But having lots to talk of isn’t all a relationship is about either. Mom and Dad didn’t talk very much that we kids heard. Rarely did they debate issues of world importance or laugh over a book they’d read together. They never went skiing together or attended a self-improvement class. They did spend a few days a year [as a couple,] alone, but this was rare. For them, and [Olga and Jackie] , much of the activities in a relationship center around the mundane – around doing the little things that help sustain the relationship – more specifically, that help the other. Mom [washed] Dad’s clothes, [cooked] him meals, [kept] the house clean, and [did] umpteen other domestic and loving chores. Commonality of many external interests she did not need to love him well. Dad did the same by remodeling our house, keeping the yard groomed, going to work, and babysitting when Mom needed a reprieve. Obviously for such an arrangement to work, they had to have some similar [...] values and goals. But up [until their] marriage, their lives were very different. No matter. They still managed to make it work very well.
But though they had the same primary objective – providing us kids with a safe, warm, clean, and nurturing environment so we could [reach] healthy adulthood, they really didn’t seem to have much more in common than the values mentioned earlier. Mom was an avid reader, devouring one to three books per week. Dad never bought a non work-related book in his life, although he did subscribe to Game News magazine for decades. He didn’t know when Plato lived, the distance to Alpha Centauri, or how to decorate a room. However, he loved to fish, hunt, and build things, and though Mom appreciated his work, she couldn’t have cared less about how to properly cut a board to size or when the best time of the year is to lay concrete. When Dad got too technical with her on these details, she’d up and leave the room. He knew these things as well as how to outsmart a fish, survive in the woods for weeks at a time, how to make a turkey call sound that would fool even the most astute gobblers, and how to clean a gun. Mom was very good at making a room look homey, fixing torn clothes, arranging flowers in appealing ways, and putting together scary Halloween costumes for us kids. [But] though each of their qualities proved essential to the smooth running of our home, their skills and knowledge overlapped very little. They both agreed on what needed doing but had little in common in terms of how to get it done. Yet, they cooperated very well on the whole, and deeply loved each other too. Love doesn’t need many common interests to flourish.
Often, Dad would get frustrated at work. But he couldn’t delve into the particulars because Mom wouldn’t understand. After all, she was unfamiliar with his work culture, the technical issues, and other workplace intricacies. Though Dad listened well, he didn’t have much help to offer when Mom complained of stitches not flowing right in a shirt she’d been mending, or her sugar being too high so often once she got diabetes.
You might say that had Dad been worldlier, that he could have been more useful to Mom in these problems and that their relationship would have been “better” as a result. Maybe so, but really, that’s academic because whatever it was that held them together for nearly forty years seemed plenty strong without his learning to sew, decorating rooms, reading philosophy, understanding the details of diabetes, and so on. Nor did he expect Mom to clean fish, change the oil in the lawn mower, or clean his garage. Occasionally Mom griped that he was too quiet and uninvolved. But never, beyond a brief period when they first married in 1960, did she consider leaving him.
She too could have supported him better had she’d learned how to fix broken switches, build a set of stairs, track rabbits, and plant trees. If she had, they would have had much more mutual interest to share. But again, any lacking commonality didn’t seem to degrade the marriage’s potential fulfillment for either of them. Though they typically had little to talk about beyond the trivial concerns like the weather and household matters, they still loved each other with unwavering devotion, long after their bedroom passions disappeared.
Neither of them ever strayed that I know of, and when one got sick, the other was consistently there to help in any way s/he could. It would seem that though my parents didn’t have many interests in common outside the relationship, they did share other commonalities that proved sufficient to keep them [...] serious about their commitment to each other. We might conclude that lots of deep conversations aren’t required for sustaining a thriving relationship. [So one need not be a wordly person to enjoy the very best fruits of true love.]
