Cruel Better Judgement

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Dear   [Mentat],

Well, you’ve beat at least two major addictions in your life: alcohol and snuff. Now that you’ve got years of sobriety, and know deeply the necessity not to waver, hopefully no woman or career will ever make consider drinking again.

But yes, listening to your better judgment, as I found out firsthand, must trump all other voices. My better judgment always told me to not date heavy women. But as you can well imagine, my mother, sisters, and female friends disagree with this vehemently. They say I’m shallow and short-sighted, offering that the type of beauty I seek is temporary and that a love based on it can never last. They argued that the ravages of aging affect less a person’s mind (their soul), than the body, and so they say that the energy of the spirit rather than the matter of the flesh is the more righteous quantity upon which a male should fixate. Of course I know this to be untrue today. But from the late 80s through 1997, their arguments, so cogently sounded by so many, had me doubting my better judgment, and from 1990 through 1992, overtly defying it.

But though the inner voice of better judgment rates quieter than those of the surrounding crowd raised in unison against it, it’s the one to which we must listen, for it punishes us most severely if we don’t. Yours did perhaps, by driving you to drink more. Mine did the minute I stripped off the clothing of those [curvy] women in the 90s, who I refer in that Lady-In-The-Park story as   dark ladies.   Their [obesity] turned my stomach. Poor [Hane]. I almost threw up the first time I saw her naked. I couldn’t contain my revulsion, which must have shown on my face, for she knew of my displeasure immediately and started to cry. She wondered aloud why I’d permitted our relationship to go so far if I thought her so detestable. I told her that I’d ignored my better judgment in order to do the “right” thing by her. I wanted to love her, and hoped that I’d find a compelling reason to, if I allowed myself to know her well.

She was a decent girl, and most helpful in taking me shopping, to doctors appointments and such. She never regarded me as too needy, and always respected me. Her attitude never betrayed any disappointment in me. She loved me. Hands down. Once she took me to a dinner with her coworkers and made frequent references as they conversed, to what she considered my greatest qualities. She was showing me off, bragging about dating me, and that felt most nice because to that point, I hadn’t experienced a woman so deeply proud to be with me; especially a fully-sighted one. Though my inner voice screamed to get away, I didn’t listen because [Hane] was so good in every other way. She only lacked   sexual desirability. Notice that I’m favoring the phrase   sexual attraction   now over   physical attraction   because the word   sexual   more accurately encompasses both the physical and mental aspects of this lust. To say that someone is   physically attractive   incorrectly implies that this attraction is   only   physical, when in fact it is so much more. As we’ve discussed, the attraction involves highly cognitive, evaluative mental processes that consider far more than [just] a woman’s shape or bodily attributes.

Nonetheless, in those times of blind ignorance in my life, I suspected that those women whose judgments drowned mine might be right. Perhaps sexual attraction really does mean but a trifle in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps it should mean nothing. All the good things that [Hane] was, they said I should revere, and were adamant and thus “right” in this. Why? Because had I rejected [Hane] upon realizing that she attracted me not, I’d have never seen her good. I’d have never allowed her to show me what a deeply abiding love from a lady other than a family member was like. Up until [Hane], I suspected such unbridled affection from an able-bodied female impossible, as no sighted woman had ever taken a serious interest in helping me except my mother, grandmothers, and sisters to a lesser degree. So [Hane's] love threw me into a rather large ego trip for some months, filling voids I hadn’t realized were even there.

She   wanted   to help, and used to get angry when I’d take busses or cabs instead of calling her for rides. She reacted oppositely to my handicap than most every other woman. Rather than shrugging me off, she embraced and respected me for having made it so far career wise, while contending with such an oppressive force.

I told her once about my eyes being extra sensitive from the cataract surgeries, and how unattractive I felt that the resultant squinting made me. But she disagreed, saying that the squints were cute. She enjoyed leading me around, which women since have said they did not like doing. They felt that I should have been ‘the leader’ as we went into restaurants, skating rinks, and golf courses. The fact that I often couldn’t see where I was going did not lessen their desires for a man who takes charge. They took no pity on me.

[Hane] didn’t care though. I think she relished being needed, as exemplified in our public outings where I’d walk sighted guide slightly behind her. In all my years of dating, I amassed a big list of laments of the treatments I received from sighted women. Yet none of those, not a single one [did Hane ever exhibit]. She never treated me badly, and seemed to know, without being told, what I needed from her to feel happy. Her spirit was pure even though her body was fat.

[Hane] made it easy to believe those women arguing for the mind instead of the body. But I would soon learn what to me then was unthinkable: Neither a woman’s good deeds nor her hardships make her romantically desirable. However, I’ll get into that another time.

At any rate, better judgment can seem brutal and cruel because it often instructs us to stay clear of people who seem on intellectual and emotional levels, to be so wonderful. We may think they’re wonderful. But if we don’t feel it in the heart and loins, they’re just not good enough. So avoid ‘em.

Tom Hesley

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