Tom's Love Quest

These girls wooed me the most over all.  Not that they   all   produced the greatest sexual or romantic desire and gratification, though some of them did.  But at times while either pining for or dating each of these, I felt I could be with no one more suited to my tastes, morals, values, education level, religious beliefs, social status, and so on.   While grazing in these ladies’ pastures, the grass immediately surrounding me was always the greenest.  Indeed, there was no such thing as greener grass on the other side of the fence.  There may have been   equally   green grass; but none greener.  I sensed that I was dating among the best I could, and that there was none better.  Now I’ve dated many others besides these.  But only relationships forged with the ladies in this list appeared to be the best that a relationship could be; at least for a few months to a few years anyhow. 

And now, the list:

1. [First Love]   in 1972 through 1990.
2. [Molly]   in 1974.
3. [Ann]  in 1974, and briefly in 2004.
4. [Maniac]   in 1975.
5. [BT]   in 1976.
6. [Shaina]   in 1977.
7. [Dawn]   in 1979.
8. [Cher]   in 1981 through 1983.
9. [Andrea]    in 1982.
10. [Shelly]   in 1983.
11. [Shanee]   in 1983.
12. Paula Eide    in 1984.
13. [Fannie]   in 1984 through 1987.
14. [Kate]  in 1986 through 1987.
15. [Lenee]   in 1988.
16. [Elstan]  in 1988 through 2002.
17. [Cassee]  in 1989, 1994, and 2000.
18. [Renee]   in 1990 through 1991.
19. [Juanita]   in 1991, 1994, and 2001.
20. [Roberta]   in 1991.
21. [Chrissy]   in 1993.
22. [Emeebee]   in 1993-1998, 2000-2001.
23. [Carlene J]  in 1993 and then again in 2000.
24. [Melinda]  in 1995, and briefly in 2007.
25. [Alandra]   in 1996-1997.
26. [Judith]   in 1997-1998, 2010.
27. [Vee] in 1997 -2002, 2006.
28. [Kar]   in 1998-2002.
29. [J]   in 1999-2000.
30. [Lynn]  in 1999-2000.
31. [Beejay]   in 2000 through 2001.
32. [LizDee]   in 2002 and 2004, briefly.
33. [Emmy]   in 2003, and 2005.
34. [Kandi]  in 2003 through 2005.
35. [Ballerina]   in 2004.
36. [Linda]   in 2009.
37. [Miss Independent]  in 2009.
38. [Prism]   in 2009.
39. [Elsee]   in 2009.

Click on each name link to see the posts that pertain to that lady.

Take care.

Tom Hesley

[Mentat],

Actually, I didn’t realize immediately that this was tongue-and-cheek. But that’s okay. Your invitation gave me an opportunity to reflect on my own history with women, and work, and my interests both internal and external to relationships. As a result, I discovered the following: Craving may indeed be a chief source of misery as you put it. But it’s also instrumental to furnishing the world’s most intense pleasures, especially where woman lust is concerned. I have difficulty therefore, with aligning against craving because of the goodness it makes possible for us.

Forgive my dogmatism. But I have much history of indulging my craving for women. Many women. I’ve chased ‘em with just sex on my mind, where getting what I wanted from the relationship without regard for the ladies was paramount ([Peggy Sue], [Shanee]). Others I’ve loved when I couldn’t care less about sex and instead, was intensely attentive to my careers at [work place 1 and work place 2] ([Hane]). Still others, I’ve selflessly loved (like [Lenee]), when I wanted nothing from them except their happiness. I’ve noticed that as a youngling, I was more lustful, and less anxious about the practical sides of an involvement. The woman’s happiness meant less then. But with age came a heightened appreciation of the pragmatic issues. Today, I recognize that though my ultimate goal is still   my   happiness, I must first ensure that the woman is happy if I ever expect to achieve my own bliss. But more on that some other time.

In short, I’ve chased women while harboring varying degrees of obsession. I’ve loved ‘em when my only strong interest was them and the relationship ([First Love], [Cher], Paula, [Emeebee]), and I’ve loved ‘em when the relationship actually took a back seat to hobbies like ham radio, home maintenance, and personal growth concerns ([Hane], [Hanna] [Chrissy]). I’ve attempted many times during the 90s to dull the ache of low love by seeking unrelated accomplishments (ham radio licenses, promotions at work, Microsoft certifications, new music to listen to, et al). But through all that, I’ve found that for me, it’s best to obsessively focus on satiating the craving for intimacy,   until   it’s satiated.

Genuine longing for true love cannot be diminished by enthralling one’s self in a hobby, a career, a religion, a drug, alcohol, lots of friends, a humanitarian cause, or anything else. The only way to truly quench the thirst of the lovelorn, is to find   true love.  Nothing else will do. It makes no sense that one can increase his chances of finding true love by not pursuing it devotedly, and then devoting himself primarily to its maintenance.

Now what you say above, along with our many lengthy conversations on the subject, suggests that you feel that it’s better for a person going into a relationship, to have many interests outside the relationship – quests that are totally independent of it, and efforts that he keeps up even after the relationship intensifies. I admit that   some   external interests seem necessary to prevent growing tired of girlfriends. I don’t want to see them all the time or be consumed with why the relationship is working or not. In fact, as I age, I find that I need more time alone each week for reflection, reading, writing, and such, and any woman I date in the future must accommodate this. However, I’m not convinced that as a rule, love works better when the lovers have pursued (are pursuing) unrelated accomplishments.

Every degree of obsession (or devotion) to relationships to the exclusion of external pursuits, offers advantage as well as folly. Since I’ve opted to satisfy my cravings for women by focusing mainly on how to discover and attract beauties, as opposed to suppressing these cravings by acquiring many non related pursuits, it does seem that you and I have different philosophies on how to achieve happiness and minimize suffering.

Let me say for the record that I respect your view, and believe that given your unique experiences, your position is best. However, don’t be offended because I’ve devoted the rest of this writing to poking holes in your position. I only wish to communicate that your view does not work for me given   my   unique experiences, and to show you how I came to my view, and why.

It may be that one who nurtures many outside interests is more attractive. At least to some anyhow. Indeed, some women are drawn more to the well-rounded man than he with few other interests than to love somebody, and to be loved back. Our well-rounded fellow here, who we’ll call Worldly, might attract more women because he’s less available. After all, with lots of other interests, Worldly has less time for love. At least, he doesn’t want to make the time.

The notion that absence makes the heart grow fonder, indeed rings true in many human interactions. Some Worldlys know this well, and use this to manipulate women into longing for them. They deny their ladies the attention they want. They know that women desire Worldlys because they can’t have them as much or as completely as they would like. Here, Worldly’s claim to fame is his ability, intentional or not, to leave women wanting for more because he chooses not to completely fulfill them. He’s never fully theirs, and they know it. Though they hate this, their yearning for him intensifies because of it too. Whether or not he deliberately makes himself scarce, his lack of presence charms women. The uncertainty about what he’s doing when he’s not with them fans the fires of their passions to roaring, white-hot crescendos. This is one explanation of why worldly men might seem more attractive to women.

But this type of attraction, born from shortage and doubt, and possible button-pushing, is not what I consider valid. It is subject to manipulation and abuse by Worldly, and causes stress in the hearts of Worldly’s women. One could argue that it’s partly this self-absorption which seems to be more common today than in the past, that heightens the risks of disappointment in relationships. Relationships however, aren’t supposed to be stressful. Many are not. In fact the healthy affiliation should lower stress, rather than raise it. I suspect that the women in those many surveys, who say they like best the man who has numerous exterior interests, are themselves neglected to a degree by him. They don’t mention the lonely nights, with him away somewhere off chasing another dream, or the troubled finances because he overspends on his non-romantic pursuits. If I read your words correctly, you say that having other interests may make us more able to be attentive to a lady’s needs. But the opposite is also true, and often appears as a destructive theme in otherwise healthy unions. These studies that advocate moderate to low levels of exclusive focus on the relationship, often don’t consider this side of the story, and can mislead readers as to a woman’s true desires in mates.

Worldly’s breadth of knowledge, acquired through years of pursuing many diverse goals, can augment his desirability. Women say they like a man who can teach them new things, and in fact, much time is spent, particularly early in a new union, of lovers doing just that — teaching the other what they want to learn.

A man of breadth will probably make more money and be better able to recover from setbacks like job loss and illness. And he may be better equipped to rear children.

Worldly will likely be better at empathizing and relating to her plights, if those plights fall within the realms of his experience. In this way, you are right. Worldly could indeed be a more effective listener and supporter. Clearly, moderate focus on other pursuits does enhance the health of any romance by improving one’s ability to understand his mate’s difficulties.

But the question is: How much diverse pursuing is the right amount? And when is it too much? There is a balance between internal and external pursuing. I position that fulcrum as follows: This of course varies from person to person, and there’s no right position for everyone. But for me, top priority is to discover and hold on to a fulfilling love relationship. That’s first. First, above computers, books, self-improvement, writing, the Lions Club, the WPSBC Alumni Association, all of it. While I enjoy reading, writing, Djing, music, and so on, I would gladly trade most of these time-passers for equivalent time with my dream girl. I would swap several hours of reflection per week for time in her arms. I’d pawn all my ham radios to buy her a jewel. I’d sell most of my books to make space for her belongings in our home. Now I wouldn’t give up everything for her. Just most of it. Some of it I’d save as a diversion, for those times when we need to get away from each other. But I have no burning desire to be a Worldly. What I burn for, is to have my dream girl on my arm.

Indeed, the big reason I’ve acquired my many pursuits is because so far, I’ve been a dismal failure at the one goal I most want to achieve. You talked in another post about the value in recognizing that while we may not be good enough at meeting certain goals, that meeting other goals can still make for a happy, fulfilled life even though we can’t accomplish the original goals. I agree that, as Burns might say, it’s possible to be reasonably happy and comfortable without getting everything out of life we want.

But neither Burns nor Ellis, nor anyone else I’ve read has said that it’s possible to be   maximally   happy and   supremely fulfilled   when you’re forced to turn your back on your dream because you’re not good enough to make it come true. That goal of finding my dream girl is the most important yet difficult unfortunately. Its victories have been few and short-lived, and as we’ve discussed, numerous formidable social forces oppose me in it. On the other hand, my non relationship goals tend to offer greater success potential. There seems to be fewer opposing forces in these. Thus, it’s easier for example, to pass the next exam in ham radio, or the next level of Microsoft certification, than it is to mate with a perfect 10. My BS degree, and the four promotions at [work], though they took some time and much effort, were easier than finding true love. Easier, but not as fulfilling.

It was wonderful to get the diploma and the raises. Yet it was empty too. While I’ve achieved success in numerous self-oriented pursuits, and used their victories to manage my depressions, they never completely erased the loneliness. Oh, they took my mind off of it for periods and contributed greatly to my overall “reasonable comfort” with life. So they had overall good effects.

For a number of years, I became the classic workaholic. The job, and doing it well I made my center of existence in the early nineties. While I figured that attaining notoriety would make me more attractive and later, enable me to achieve a healthy balance between career, relationships, and personal interests, I loved the work itself too, with its many thrills of getting programs to run correctly. However, with each promotion, after the celebration was finished, and everyone went back to work, I found myself still in the same, unrelenting rat race. While I had moved a few steps further down the road toward success, and got to taste significant thrills along the way, I was still on the same road, still thirsting. Except for the bigger paycheck, I wasn’t any better off. Girls didn’t want to date me any more as a senior software engineer than as an associate when I first joined [that company]. Besides, the jobs got harder the higher I went. Greater demands, increased coworker conflicts, more blame for things over which I had no control, more harsh judgments from bosses, and with that, less job security and more stress. No fun. More money and higher status didn’t make me any happier with life.

Yet I persisted, hoping I’d find happiness in a nice home. So I bought the classic big house in the suburbs – a hallmark of a successful career. Yet a cold draft whistled down the stairs each night when climbing them to bed. No, there were no open or leaking windows up there. There wasn’t any   real   draft at all. No, this draft was a manifestation of a recurring thought: a reminder that though I “had it all,” something was still missing. And that something, as you’ve probably guessed, was my dream girl. The draft reminded me that though I’d worked so hard to build a good career, I was not getting the rewards promised by parents, teachers, and friends. Indeed, I was just as lonely in that big house in the suburbs as I was during the McKee Place years. What had the intervening years of hard work really gotten me? I had money, but that wasn’t enough. I had colleagues, but outside work, they weren’t around. I had lots of hobbies and spent thousands on them. The house itself kept me pretty busy for the first two years. But I still felt alone and unfulfilled. I did everything I could to make the American Dream come true. But still, there was no one upstairs waiting for me in the bedroom. No one to comfort me and make my work woes disappear for the night. No one to warm that cold air that repeatedly whisked by my face, bringing tears to my eyes frequently. So while it could be said that my career and house made me more like Worldly because they gave me numerous pursuits to focus on besides relationships, in my experience, they didn’t make me more attractive to women. At least, not more attractive enough to date the ones I desired. Nor did they eliminate that thirst for love.

No promotion ever felt as good as when   [First Love]   finally said yes after seven years, or when [Judy] let me give her a foot massage in the [camp] swimming pool and asked me to help her learn more English. Given my experiences, loving interaction with a dream girl is the only completely fulfilling activity there is. And I’ve tried many activities besides this, to know this. Yes. We need periodic victories, even small ones, to keep the blues away. And as mentioned, these little successes seem easier to come by when pursuing non-relationship goals. But no wins, either singularly or together, have ever filled the void of that missing romantic victory for me – lasting love. A win’s meaning is lessened when it doesn’t bring one closer to fulfilling his life purpose. At this point, my own Worldly pursuits, though by many accounts successful, have yet to bring me the relationship I so want, or to give me the degree of fulfillment that loving the right person has and would.

I would, without hesitation, trade ten promotions for ten years with my dream girl. I would swap the entire 15 years of aloneness at [work as a software engineer] for 15 years as a janitor in a dead-end job, so long as I had my dream girl by my side. These days, career and money concerns seem so trivial next to the love quest. While the Ohio years will always be an integral part of any success I achieve in the future, occasionally I look back on them as colossal wastes of time. Stopping that waste was, among other concerns, what drove my decision to finally leave, which marked the beginning of my mid life crisis. For the first 25 years of adulthood, I did what you’re supposed to do, and maintained plenty of personal pursuits – ones that had nothing to do with relationships. I went to school, got a degree, forged social connections, got a job, bought a house, did some traveling around the country, achieved excellence at that job, and went to church. I danced at night clubs, wrote articles for the local singles group, and maintained numerous platonic friendships.

But with mid life came the realization that none of this was getting me where I most wanted to be. Nor did any of it ever alter or obscure my true purpose, to love and be loved. With mid life, it became clear that time’s a wastin’ and that I’d best make radical changes in my approach if I hoped to ever love my dream girl. The change I opted for was to concentrate my focus and effort on what really matters, and give up those pursuits that don’t. In short, I tried, as you suggest, to make “other accomplishments.” It didn’t work for me.

Now, let’s explore another dimension of this. Worldly would argue that having many outside interests makes us more well-rounded, and as such, provides more interesting experiences to share with mates. The contention is that Worldly types bring more of value to the relationship than men of less breadth.  But as mentioned above, selecting breadth over depth has costs. Women enjoy a man’s wealth of diverse knowledge, but won’t like him spending so much time away from them to keep it up. While they’ll appreciate his zeal toward pursuing numerous and diverse goals before they met him, they’ll probably not want him to spend as much time with that once they make him their boyfriend.

Also, while lots of initial common interests are a plus, they are by no means necessary for long-term happiness. Frequently, couples bond with very little in common. Yet they live long, happy, united lives. What they don’t share at the start, they come to share once the relationship is underway. They join clubs, bowl, and ski, read books aloud to each other, dine, and listen to the radio and watch movies together, creating some common experiences that were lacking at the start. As the union progresses, the list of shared memories grows, and that initial void of wanting commonality shrinks and eventually becomes insignificant. The longer they stay together, the more in common they have, and thus, the more they have to build upon. As I see it, the only truly necessary commonalities at the start, are dreams of dedicating their lives to a love partner, and a mutual and profound attraction to each other. If both lovers share these goals and passions, differences become less detrimental. Love indeed conquers all. M. Scott Peck touches on this point in “The Road Less Traveled.”

Now to another point: Relationships are pursuits, no more or less inherently worthy than any other. They offer boundless opportunities for personal growth, spiritual enlightenment, and the thrills of accomplishment. True, they have potential gotchas – hurt feelings, heartbreak, uncertainty, agony, danger, and bitter failure. No different than any other pursuit really. Play actors cry when they don’t get the long-sought part, just as lovers sob when their beloveds hurt them. The agony of waiting for the adored to call, is duplicated in the life of the CFO, awaiting last quarter’s financial reports. Athletes hate when their bodies don’t do as they want, sort of like beloveds hate it when lovers refuse to perform a certain way. The absence of harmful disappointments cannot be found in any pursuit, romantic or not.

Few pursuits offer immediate success to anyone, and all of them necessitate that we make ourselves highly vulnerable to failure. Liability is a cost of renown, and the better you want to be at something, the more of yourself you must dedicate to it, and thus, the greater will be the psychological bruises should you hit a setback. But people supporting a tempered approach to love believe that they’re safe from heartache, if they put just a small portion of their eggs in the relationship basket. They spread their remaining eggs among many baskets. They think that failure in one area won’t be as devastating because fewer of their eggs will suffer damage since fewer of them are invested in this one pursuit. However, in so doing, they trade the excellence of depth for the safety of breadth. They either don’t realize or don’t care that for truly exceptional performers, heartache is plentiful whether you’re courting a beautiful woman, or wooing your boss for that promotion, or attempting to climb Mount Everest. The more you desire anything and the more of yourself you invest in it, the more pain you’ll experience when things don’t go your way. This phenomenon is no truer of the search for love, than say, the search for the cure for particular cancers. All pursuits, carried to the extremes that world class superiority demands, require almost complete focus and tolerate little distraction.

Like any other quest, to do a relationship well demands lots of dedication and constant work, along with a high degree of dogmatic obsession. Most happily married couples agree. If you’re going to play the piano well, you can’t also expect yourself to be a professional golfer (unless you’re extremely gifted!). Likewise, if you’re going to be a career man, then you must trade away some ability at being a good husband and father, and vice versa. You just can’t do it all, nor can you do anything well without performing poorly at something else. Olympic athletes also exemplify the fruits of complete dedication to single disciplines. Few would make Olympic teams if they didn’t practice sixteen hours a day. They must do that in order to achieve true excellence as well as a competitive edge. But how do you avoid putting your psychical wellbeing on the line if you’re going to maintain this routine for long? Indeed, much motivation to achieve derives from an implicit knowledge that our worthiness will suffer if we don’t accomplish the goal. We fear this eventuality, and those who fear it the most often tend to be the highest achievers. They’re the wealthy executives, the world-class athletes, and among the best lovers.

The idea is that most any discipline (loving another included) demands much investment of self to achieve and preserve greatness at it. Any more than just a trifle of diversion to non related pursuits impedes one’s progress in the primary objective. So why must a man dedicated to satiating of his love lust (as I am), be any less psychologically healthy than one who spends decades training to set foot on the moon or to write the great American novel, or to become a Buddhist monk? Pop psychology often illustrates the down side of obsession and how bad it is to be overly dedicated to a single goal, relationship or other. But without obsession, great works of art such as the ceilings of the Sistine Chapel, the statue David, and the symphonies of Beethoven would never have come to be. Why do we seem to regard the role of obsession in relationships with more skepticism than in other pursuits? When channeled such that no other’s rights are trodden on, obsession and compulsion are crucial ingredients in those long-lasting relationships. They are good things in this context, and so necessary to becoming an excellent mate, just as they are in virtually all other pursuits. Lessen your focus by pursuing more than just a small number of pursuits, and you sacrifice your chances of being good at any of them.

In short, I believe that neither breadth nor depth is the patently better mode of living. Sometimes, breadth is good. At others, depth works best. Now relationships don’t always require constant full dedication (depth). In fact, the best unions achieve a high degree of trust between the participants. The more mutual trust, the less necessary it is for lovers to focus on the relationship. Once this trust is achieved, then yes, it would seem healthy for the lovers to spend less time focusing on their bond, and more pursuing outside interests. But again, the appropriateness of such efforts varies as the relationship progresses.

Also, Worldly himself probably got to be Worldly as the result of a series of intensely focused pursuits. Though he has a rich history of diverse experiences, they did not come to him at the same time. They accumulated over his entire life. At any point in time, the number of concurrent pursuits is likely to be very small (say one to three). Worldly himself is more a sum of his single-minded obsessions than a master of managing large numbers of simultaneous pursuits.    At this point in my life, I’d say that I’m a Worldly engaged in fulfilling his biggest dream so far. That may be good. It may be bad. I don’t know. But what I do know is that I can’t give up on my dream. I’ll either make this dream come true, or die trying. While The Quest has dragged my heart through many a painful trench, turning my back on It, has (and would) just replace one kind of pain for another. I’d be trading the disappointment of rejection for the laments of those resigned to the impossibilities of their dreams. You know the old saying: It’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. More on this in other posts.

Tom Hesley

Dear [Mentat],

Yes. When addiction becomes so strong that it compels you to throw good sense out the window, then it must at least be better understood, if not suppressed. Unfulfilled cravings drive many to exude antisocial, counter productive behaviors. E.g. The drug user, the over eater, and the woman so addicted to love that she tolerates physical abuse, lies, and neglect to the point that she routinely puts herself into harm’s way. Her symptoms of addiction make her self-esteem appear quite low, don’t they. Hmmm. Here’s another one of those chicken-and-the-egg questions: Does low self-esteem cause addiction, or does addiction create low self-esteem? Whichever one causes the other, the two seem inexorably linked. The good news is that if one can be improved, then the other will likely improve also. Doing things to raise self-esteem reduces depression and associated addiction. Likewise, when a person stops doing badness to himself because of addiction, this victory can raise his self-esteem. If one believes that he craves too much, he might do things, as you have, that raise self-esteem. Not simple, I know. But it is sound philosophy, and one that you already know well I’m sure.

But consider. Excessive addictions may not be your problem when it comes to women. Think for a moment about all those relationships gone sour in your life, which you attribute to obsession. Do you think any of these would have succeeded had you craved less? It’s certainly possible. But I’ve never known you to be “needy” and have never heard any woman complain about your privation.

Another question: How have your excessive cravings negatively influenced the way you treat women? Were you ever markedly possessive, controlling, temperamental, or clingy? Did any woman (except for  [First Love]) ever break up with you because she thought you were too addicted to the relationship? If not, then perhaps you weren’t as destructively addictive as you think. I say this not to argue. But I worry that if you succeed in ridding yourself of addiction, that you’ll also lose the ability to enjoy a romance beyond an intellectual level, and that the pleasures of the flesh would be lost to you. That would be sad. More on that below.

It’s true that blind passion, as induced by addiction, can lead one into undesirable affairs with dysfunctional ladies. Indeed, some of those scenarios can be so harmful that it’s no wonder people so quickly zero in on the underlying passion as the culprit. It’s easy to recognize and can be managed with things like RET [Rational Emotive Therapy], hypnosis, and drugs. Literature is chalk full of bad ends that its authors link to irrational passion.

But as I see it, the pitfalls of craving by no means justify vanquishing it. Like you, I’ve experienced the bad ends to which senseless cravings can lead (Snuff, overeating, overspending, reckless pursuits, et al). In my twenties for example, virgin curiosity along with rampant hormones, ushered me to the beds of several bottom-notch females. However, consider that it’s not passion itself that did this, but rather, blind passion – passion ungoverned by wisdom. Blind passion is one type of craving that we _should_ purge from our souls. That’s true. But not all passion. Not like the Vulcans. Craving in different circumstances is good, and should therefore be retained and enhanced to help keep life interesting. Nothing at all wrong with enlightened passion.

Looking back, I see that while my initial passions for those [twos] in my twenties were misguided, and that ridiculous passion coaxed me into going too far with them, I still can’t blame the passion itself for the resulting folly. Ignorance was the more-guilty defendant. In those days, the vision of my dream girl was unclear and muddled. While I knew that some women turned me on and others did not, I had not yet learned “the formula,” and thus could not accurately predict ahead of the bedroom which ones would and would not be exciting. I was more experimental as many college people are. Unfortunately though, with experimentation comes many, bitter failures. It’s inevitable. Yet along the way, we learn how to do it better the next time, and it’s craving that keeps us coming back for more. Where issues of the heart are concerned, craving provides the fuel we need to travel the road to wisdom.

Again, longing makes enjoyment possible. Though in the beginning, it lead me distasteful positions, it also forced me to acknowledge its usefulness nonetheless. The very cravings that regrettably drove me to [Peggy Sue’s] bed, also got me into   [First Love's],   a spot where I’ve never known more complete joy and satisfaction. The fact is, we need strong desire in order to reap pleasure. Now I enjoy the thrill of drinking a cold glass of water when I’m thirsty, just as I like eating a filling meal when I’m hungry. And I love going to bed with a women when my cravings for intimacy are especially strong. In these cases, passion is the required precursor to the enjoyment. And I don’t see how I could continue enjoying them if I were to purge my passions. For me, the flesh pleasures are dear. I would not therefore, want to give them up even though they might make me appear too vulnerable to some women. I wouldn’t make a very good Buddhist, would I. Yes, getting love cravings fulfilled in a timely fashion is often difficult, but well worth it to me. So, I attribute my poor judgment of women while attending Connelley, not to the overpowering nature of the craving, but to ignorance – unawareness that experience has since washed away.

You know, I’m befuddled while reading the profiles of eighteen to twenty-four year old women on match.com. So many are painfully specific and uncompromising about what they’re looking for. They want men to be at least a certain height and an exact weight, who makes at least a specific amount of money, and who has accomplished some very explicit career objectives. Now don’t get me wrong. I think people need to be very precise in their understanding of what excites them in love. But it took me years of trial and error to develop mine, (the formula). And I couldn’t have done it without experiencing many types of women. Now I know that an eighteen year-old clearly doesn’t have my experience, yet they’re so certain that one type of man works better for them than another. How could they know, for example, that black men don’t excite them unless they actually go out with one a few times? In my case, it was only after over a decade of trial and error that I came to the realization that fat women just don’t do it for me, and that the slender, quiet, meek, gentle, and introverted females I way prefer to the boisterous, outgoing, laughy, party types. Yet I’ve dated both types. Had to, in order to reach this self-awareness.

As a young adult, I rejected very few women, though in retrospect, if I knew then what I know now, I would have rejected practically all of them. The older I grow, the picker I become. The cravings at McKee Place stemmed primarily from curiosity of the unknown. I didn’t know how to judge good and bad then, so just about all women were fair game. As indicated, ignorance in my mind was as wild as the hormones in my blood. But since then, I’ve learned what it’s like to bed with the ugliest, prettiest, and a slew in the middle, and which of those groups yield the highest pleasure. Yep. You guessed it. I like the prettiest ones.     History proves it. Not prejudice. Not guesswork. Not unfounded childhood fantasy. But hard core experience is what most effectively governs my passions, and yours probably.

I’m not curious anymore, so that source of craving is gone. Today, because of what I know, I will not bed with a woman who doesn’t fit the formula, because experiences with [Lenee], [Shanee], [Hannah], and many others, repeatedly show the futility of such off-point dating. I’ve yet to meet a woman who at the outset is unattractive, but becomes very beautiful after knowing her for some years. Some people, especially women, swear that this happens routinely. So I do not say that it’s impossible. But I’ve never seen it. As a result, along with ignorance, all craving for such off-point women is all but gone. On those rare occasions when it does appear, it is easily suppressed by remembering the pains of off-point dating. In this way, knowledge helps suppress undesired craving.

In my case, the less I knew about life, the more I blindly craved. It is said that the best way to overcome an addiction is to succumb to it, to do what it demands. While I’m not convinced that intentionally overindulging in snuff would have released me from its bonds, with women at least, a bit of experience making bad selections did get rid of craving for those types. Allow it to drag you through the gutter for a time. If there is indeed a badness to reap, then experiencing that badness could retard that addiction. While I’ve learned not to crave most women as my tastes have grown more refined, there are those few out there that it’s so right to crave. And I’m going to crave ‘em ‘til I get ‘em.      I’m glad I didn’t abandon my passions, for I’ll need them to fully appreciate a true love if I ever find her. Thank goodness my desires haven’t lessened over the years. They’ve just gotten more specific.

You say that craving has led you to compromise your standards. But if you’re like me, those “standards” were far less detailed during the McKee Place years. Today, with two decades of adult dating experience under our belts, we both know implicitly that settling produces only heartache and regret. Our standards are very exacting, and we’re more insistent on them being met before starting a new relationship. The degree of conviction I have on this point, which has grown with each dating experience between then and now, keeps me on the right road. It keeps me from dating less than what I see as the best. I see this for you too. You’re a smart man. Well read with some true-to-life experience. I suspect that craving could not overpower you today as it has in the past, because now, you’re seasoned. You are far less likely today, as am I, to be blinded by your passions. You’re at a point now where you can embrace passion with courage. Indulge it with the confidence that you have the good sense to pull out if you discover badness in it.

Oh, and on your comment about cultivating patience and reducing craving in the hopes that this will bring longer-lasting, healthier relationships to you. Yes, that could be. But consider that when a lady’s heart really resonates for you, when she’s instinctually drawn to you by that electrical magnetism of romance, then you  will not  put her off, even if you’re moderately impatient. The smitten find impatience in their lovers flattering so long as it doesn’t turn into chronic demands that they don’t feel comfortable meeting. It’s especially important not to demand too early. But it’s amazing how tolerant of imperfection people who are in love can be. I hate to disagree with you again. But I just don’t see you as the overly impatient type. You have things that you want from a mate and you’re well within your rights to ask for them. Now women may call you impatient, as   [First Love]   often did me. But that isn’t necessarily because you’re  truly  impatient. It may simply mean that [she's] not in love with you. Nothing wrong with you in this case. Nothing wrong with them either, though they’ll tend to make it sound as though you’re the one at fault. Don’t buy that though. For a right woman, you’ll be tops as you are. You’ll be good enough for her.

Now, to your second paragraph [in your note]. Yes, it’d be foolish to waste time pursuing women we know for sure to be questionable. I agree. But how often do we  really  know this for sure,  before  we begin pursuing? Now that we’re older, and presumably wiser, we very often can know. But the inexperienced (like us when we lived on Mckee Place) don’t really know what they want much less how to recognize it, as I’ve tried to show above. So it’s natural that they make many mistakes, which, in hindsight, might seem very stupid. Now hindsight is always 20 X 20. But foresight is usually legally blind. In fact, it is totally blind in the undeveloped minds of teens and those new to adulthood.

However, the road to wisdom runs through experiencing inexperience, if you will. In order to grow wise, we must, for a period, be willing to shoulder the humilities of being green, and to endure the hardships of that greenness. One cannot dodge the adversity of inexperience if he wants to learn how to best improve his own condition. He must go through it himself. Among those hardships is having to live for a time with poor choices in mates, until we learn how to recognize potential problems from a distance – both physical and emotional distance. Advice from others just doesn’t cut it when it comes to how to choose the best mate for us. True wisdom comes from both good and bad experience, not from fairytales.

It makes no sense to blame ourselves once enlightened, for the poor choices we made while ignorant. This is pointless regret. I doubt that today, you would go after anyone you knew to be questionable, would you? You probably pursued such uncertainty as a kid, as did I. But now, I only pursue those who, in my best possible estimation, are unquestionably good for me. Consider, that pursuing questionable women in our younger years, is a necessary step toward knowing who’s questionable, and who is right for us. Thus, there’s a good side to questionable pursuits, especially when one learns from them.

Now to your point about pursuing ‘other’ accomplishments (besides questionable ladies) making us more attractive to women. Well, again I agree, but only to a degree. Only insofar as that women invariably say that they want a successful man. And perhaps, we men hear this so much that we internalize it as “the” manly goal to have. It seems right and just to want to do this, and we feel unworthy when we don’t (or can’t). However, I suggest that ladies’ motivation has less to do with his specific accomplishments per se, and more to do with the fact that he’s accomplished something at all. How many women for example, do you think would find the undertakings of a renowned physicist intriguing? Could most of them even really understand his work, unless they themselves were physicists? Probably not, right? In fact, there’s a pervasive downside to dating the ‘accomplished’ man. And that is that he tends to be away at work too much, and makes too little time for his family. Women complain about this time and time again. The ballerina I dated last fall talked of dating a multi-millionaire ophthalmologist. What intrigued her about him, according to her, was not the fact that he was a doctor. She didn’t care if he saw 5 patients a day or 50, and hated the fact that he was always on call. Rather, it was his wealth that caught her eye. How he made the money was unimportant to her, so long as he made it, and did so honestly.

In the end, however, she left him because, as she put it, he was too career-oriented, and overly protective of his material goods. The example she gave was of a thick glass coffee table he had in his living room. While they watched a movie one night, she put her stocking feet on this table so she could recline, and he angrily snapped at her. Such rich people are often high-strung she told me, and she seems to have dated many of them. So I trust her opinion on this. As I see it, women don’t care about the specifics of men’s accomplishments so long as whatever those are, they make him wealthy. He could sit home all day picking his nose. But if he can afford to wine and dine them, hey, all the better.

Now I know that this isn’t true in all cases. Clearly the man who pursues one thing obsessively, whether it’s women, or careers, or recreation, is probably less attractive than the more well-rounded individual. So again, there’s a ring of truth in what you say. But in all my experience, I never had a woman say to me, “Gee Tom, you really turn me on because you’re so good at computers.” Yet they have said, “Gee, Tom, you really turn me on because you’re so understanding and knowledgeable, and you listen.” So to be empathetic, a trait women love, it pays to be well-rounded, a condition difficult to attain if one is too focused on any single activity. In that sense, you’re correct, because the more diverse and numerous our accomplishments, the more likely we are to understand the plights of women, and this makes us more attractive to them. Onward.

You seem to be suggesting that passion is a force that  necessarily opposes  or clouds good judgment, as certainly as gravity causes a rock to fall. It appears that you live by the credo that the more craving there is, the greater the possibility that good judgment will be impaired, and that choices we make as a response to craving would very likely be bad ones. So, in classic Buddhist style, your mission appears to be to rid yourself of all craving, so that you can maximize the quality of your judgment, and therefore your choices. I agree with this, but only partly.

True, blind passion often does corrupt even the soundest mind as is the case with commonly uncontrolled lusts (like those for power, money, drugs, and love), in which insanity is the frequent result. But on the flip side, well-channeled craving helps animate the human spirit and places us way above mere automatons on the scale of evolution. Specifically, a healthy libido need not always preempt rational thinking, especially in the seasoned, mature mind, where the id and ego are more evenly matched, and the superego, drawing on the wisdom of experience, can properly suppress harmful desire while allowing healthful yearnings to be expressed and realized.

There are appropriate (and necessary) times for seeking the satiation of passion. Without frequent doses of the resulting pleasure, life loses its color, and depression becomes a constant companion. In short, not all craving is detrimental to healthy thinking. In fact, we need a certain amount of longing to help us understand our purpose here, and to figure out how to best achieve that purpose. In my view, we don’t master craving simply by purging ourselves of it, but by developing our superegos through learning which cravings are good for us and which are not, and then learning how to satisfy the good ones while getting rid of the bad.

One could argue that for the experienced man, passions are  products  of his good judgment and not impairing forces to it. In the interests of his own gratification as well as the perpetuation of the species, he should not treat his desires as wrongful lusting, but rather as cues to possible great joy. Evolutionary psychology would probably take this view and claim that the mating instincts are not irrational passions at all. I measure the probable success of a future relationship by determining how passionately I’m drawn to a woman. The stronger the attraction, the higher the chances of happiness. This assumes of course, that she returns the feelings in kind, which admittedly, does not usually happen. But when it does, for as long as it does, wow! It’s wonderful. Passion makes it easier to forgive a multitude of sins and to overlook a vast array of imperfections. There is a rational side to passion, and we need to keep that in mind when choosing which of our passions to purge.

Finally, to your last point, that being less absorbed with what we can get from the relationship might make us more attractive. Yes. Women say that they generally adore the less selfish man more than the self-absorbed, arrogant one (if you can believe what they say. But as we’ve discussed in the past, they often don’t say what really excites them. Many don’t even really know). If we’re too concerned about satisfying our own needs, and as a result, fail to consider hers, you’re correct, this is a very unattractive, obsessive way to exist. But again, the degree of our passions need not make us selfish. I’d even go so far as to say that craving is by no means inexorably linked to, nor directly results in  any  destructive behaviors. Specifically, it’d be hard to prove that excessive craving is what makes people overly selfish (and therefore, unattractive). Yet some claim this. In my view, the negative effects of passion have been greatly exaggerated throughout history. Too much badness in our world gets wrongfully attributed to it. And the whole concept of the so-called ‘needy’ man is likely far less a point of reality than it is the musing of some feminist who, rather than owning up to her own lacking passions, invented the neediness thing to exalt herself and blame the man for her problems. As you’ve probably guessed by now, I’m a passion advocate, arguing more for its discovery and resolution rather than blanket extinguishment of all of it.

Later,
Tom Hesley

Dear [Mentat],

You are a wise man. Much more so than you realize. You’ve managed to put words to feelings that I’ve struggled to express since I broke up with [Lenee] some seventeen years ago. I too feel that usually, dating handicapped women deprives me of the kind of story-book relationship that sighted men enjoy routinely. Given the entire population of handicapped ladies, and the entire population of non handicapped ones, like you, I believe that the percentage of women from the first group that I’d consider worthy mates is much smaller than in the second. Mating with almost all handicapped ladies is akin to settling for ten dollars when you could have gotten ten thousand, although as I will discuss below, some handicapped women ([First Love], Cindy, [Alandra], et al) leave me not feeling compromised, but blessed. I wouldn’t have cared, if I’d landed one of these gems, that I wasn’t getting what other fully-sighted men take for granted. Never even gave it a second thought when   [First Love]   and I reined. But then, there are those OTHER handicapped women such as [Lenee], [Shanee], et al, who encouraged me never to date another blighted female again.

I recall those final days with [Lenee] in 1988. When I knew she was in love with me, these gentle yet nasty dreams began attacking my slumber nightly. Futuristic scenes of she and I in our home in Ohio (her cooking in the kitchen, and pictures of our wedding) hovered before me as I dozed Nothing bad happened in the dreams. Yet their implications often awakened me in cold sweats, with the sensation of being trapped somewhere I heartily wished not to be. If I really loved her though, the dreams would have been pleasurable, not scary as they were, and so were my first indication that I didn’t really love her. They alarmed me because [Lenee] lacked myriad social and intellectual skills, not to mention her extensive mental problems. I found no desirability in her as these inadequacies surfaced. So the imagery of us in bed was truly terrifying, like the boogie man, or anything that went “bump in the night” during my childhood. Aside from being thin, she looked and acted nothing like my dream girl. She was feeble, whiny, childish, schizophrenic, overly defensive, knew not how to nourish herself properly, and generally way out of touch. Her clinging grew repulsive. Yet I didn’t leave. At least, not right away.

I couldn’t, due to the worry over how a breakup would hurt her. How would she handle it? Would she cry? Would she threaten to kill herself? Would she try and hurt me? I knew two weeks into our twelve-week relationship that it wouldn’t work. But concern for her welfare motivated me to stick around a while.

Further, being unable to accept her as she was, exposed what appeared then to be double standards in my ways. After all, if I expected anyone to accept me, handicapped as I am, then shouldn’t I also accept them with theirs? (Irrational Belief?) If yes, then would I not break the golden rule by rejecting [Lenee]? (another Irrational Belief) As I saw it, taking the high road meant staying on with her, and finding ways to love her, shortcomings and all. If I could somehow do this, then there’d be no reason to leave because then, I would come to see her as the goddess – the woman with no meaningful imperfections.

But I never learned to be so completely forgiving and blind, though I tried in earnest. For over two months I endured, searching for insights on resolving the irony, and ignoring my own romantic needs so I might do right by [Lenee] and allow her for the first time in her life, to satisfy hers. She liked our involvement, and for a time, that was enough for me. Being with her at times, felt good. Why? Because as long as we continued, I could hold off the shame of exposing my hypocrisy. After all, I was showing the world that I wasn’t superfluous, that I never rejected anyone just because they weren’t fully functional, and, because of this, that I was so different than (and above the) sighted people of my past who turned me away. Obviously, I had low self-esteem in the days of [Lenee], a fact further confirmed by my certainty that never would a more-attractive lady love me. So, I figured I’d retain [Lenee], ‘cause I didn’t think I had any business trying for anyone better. What non handicapped woman would ever think me good enough?

But, during [Lenee's] second visit here to Altoona, I learned to leave by realizing that there are handicaps, and then there are HANDICAPS. [Lenee] was handicapped squared, if you know what I mean. Like yourself, my only impairment is low eyesight. But not only was she vision-impaired, but a mental and physical wreck as well. Her problems went far beyond simple low vision.

My father helped me to see this, in the most potent heart-to-heart conversation we ever had. He sensed my unhappiness, pulling me aside one night as she slept upstairs. I never saw him cry before. But on this occasion, weep he did, for he knew well my dilemma, and guessed that few women would date me after he witnessed the scoffing treatment I got from public school girls. He pitied, wanting so much more for me, and though normally, people don’t embrace this sort of compassion, I drank it in because it showed that he really understood my heart, that he was right there feeling the pain with me, and wanted to do whatever he could to help rid me of this torment of indecision over [Lenee]. He said, validating my every misgiving about her, that she appeared inept, childish, and needy. Though he promised family support whether or not we stayed together, he felt that she’d be more burdensome in my life than enjoyable, urging me to escape before my sense of obligation to her enlarged. With brutal candor, he pointed out what you and I know quite well – that handicaps sentence anyone who has them to lives of greater hardship. Thus he couldn’t fathom why I’d invite additional suffering by shouldering [Lenee's] giant list of tribulations in addition to my own.

I spent the rest of the night with her snoozing beside me, mulling over his words. Then, at 4:06 AM, a sudden insightful flash jerked me awake. Gee, Dad was right!  [Lenee] was not take-home-to-the-family material. She acted like a baby and was almost as helpless. I couldn’t imagine her paling around with my sisters and Mom, and also fretted over how friends like you, Rich, [Z],   [First Love],  Cindy [...], and Donna [...] would rate (or berate) my fooling around with her. Since people do judge men for their choices in women, I knew that she’d only embarrass me in my social circles.

Additionally, she was physically unattractive, with sexual hang-ups galore. These impressions portended only material, mental, social, and emotional disadvantage to dating her. It was hard enough getting people to accept me with my vision problems, much less me combined with her childlike antics, pushing her doll baby in the stroller. Thus, I loathed the idea of her moving to Ohio after me, which she was ready to do.

So what, if the “laws of nature” dictate that only people of like attractiveness can happily mate. Even if leaving meant that she’d be alone forever, crying every day, and even if it meant the same for me, I knew true love would never grow from the sorrow I felt at [her] plight. Compassion as a basis for romantic love, guarantees only folly. We don’t fall in love with anyone for whom we feel sorry, and I felt intensely sorry for [Lenee], and for a time, confused that sorrow for true love.

Even if I was no more handsome to women than [Lenee] was to me, no way could my inability to attract better ladies persuade me to count [Lenee] among my blessings. Her presence saddened me more than the solitude I’d hoped she’d relieve. I decided then to walk by myself rather than take up with someone I didn’t desire. For me, a woman is not worth having unless she’s a perfect ten in my eyes. All or nothing, even if I’m but a two myself. I’m ready thus, to live my remaining days alone, as fate may ultimately rule that I’m not attractive enough to get the girls I want. Yet until death, I’ll defy nature’s pecking order since, as with [Lenee], abiding by it leaves me guilt-ridden, miserable, and repeatedly unfulfilled. Perhaps this is irrational because I may be too weak to win this joust with nature. But I haven’t a clue of how to change these yearnings [for woman who are beautiful to me]. Nor do I wish to. So I guess I’m stuck in this battle, until either I stop wanting my dream girl, or life itself runs out. There are no other destinations I care to visit.

Well, [Lenee] had nothing of lasting interest to offer, and neither could my wealth of pity for her bind us in regretless and pleasurable ways. Moreover, I came to understand that leaving her would not violate the Golden Rule (GR), because the GR reads, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” It does NOT say, “Do unto others as others have done unto you.” Nor does it say, “You must do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” Until [Lenee], I missed these fine distinctions between the GR and the Christian “eye for an eye” reciprocity rule. They are not one in the same, and it was relieving to know after years of blurred thinking, that I didn’t have to love [Lenee] just because she loved me. The GR does not command that we give back exactly what we get, especially when we never asked for it in the first place. Nor does it demand that we give exactly what we want to get. All it offers is that if we want to be treated a certain way, then a good way to inspire people to do that is to treat them that same way. This makes sense, for if I had in fact, wanted [Lenee] to love me, then offering my love would have probably been the best way to coax her to love back. But as it was, I did not want her that way. Thus, even though she drowned me with her love, I was under no obligation to return it though at the time, I believed I was.

The phrase, “as you would have,” makes the GR much easier to live by. Those four simple words, arranged as they are, shape the GR into a gentle advisory suggestion. Without them it reads more like a strong-willed proclamation to be followed always without question, “Do unto others as others have done unto you.” This is how I read the rule as a child. To me, the “as you would have” part was just a bunch of noise words then. But today, it’s clear that if I’d only understood how that phrase affects the GR’s meaning, I’d have been much happier with fewer dating insecurities surrounding my handicap. As damaged people, we cannot give back to others everything we might want of them. We need groceries, and often can’t get to the grocery store without someone driving us there. Or, we might want someone sighted to make sure we have our socks matched by color. Obviously, we can’t return these favors in kind. And we don’t have to. At least, not by way of the GR anyhow.

I don’t mean to beat this to death. But prior to [Lenee], I just didn’t get it, believing wrongfully that the GR directed to give back precisely as others gave to me. If someone bought me food or gave me a birthday card, then until I did something for them, I’d feel uneasy. If I delayed too long in paying them, guilt ensued in my heart. I now understand that the GR as I saw it then, would be hard for any mortal to execute, and especially [difficult] for someone handicapped.

Now don’t misunderstand. It’s hard to deny that, rooted in western culture, is a quid pro quo philosophy which governs how we conduct both economic and personal business. We learn not to take too much without the ability to give something back of near-equal value. If we can’t give appropriately, then we’re taught to feel ashamed to ask (or even hope) for it. E.g. If you can’t pay the piper, then you shouldn’t listen to the music. If you don’t have beauty to offer, then don’t seek it. If you’re not a perfect ten yourself, then don’t hunt exquisiteness in others. You get the idea. We shame takers, for presuming excessively, and are suspicious of givers who offer without recompense. In mating, society withholds its respect and highest rewards from anyone who doesn’t (or can’t) play this little tit for tat game. And nowhere is this exclusion more evident, than among minorities like the handicapped. You and me find sighted women the most attractive, but I often feel inadequate when pursuing them since I know I probably could not be their dream guy – the chauffeur, the provider, the defender, the leader, and so on. Yes, getting this for giving that, is a very real behavioral protocol in our civilization. So it’s no wonder that people who can’t contribute as freely, feel ashamed. However, my point is that it probably comes from somewhere other than the GR. Or, if the rule does fuels this, then maybe lots of people are misinterpreting it just as I was. I wonder.

At any rate, I sensed that by leaving [Lenee], I was helping further this rule of equity that so brutalizes the handicapped. But I didn’t want to [leave her].  Instead, I wanted to be the superman who could live above this and not display the same discriminatory behaviors that had caused me so much pain when school girls treated me, as I was about to treat [Lenee]. But Dad helped me to see that I could not suspend society’s rules, unjust as they might be, for the happiness of a woman, not without sacrificing my own [happiness]. So the next day I told her we couldn’t see each other again; an act, thanks to Dad, that was much easier to carry out than I predicted.

Though his insight enabled me to break from [Lenee], his comments showed an aversion to handicapped people like her. Even today, I wonder: if I ever found a top-notch woman, would her parents advise her to stay clear of me for similar reasons that mine warned me against [Lenee]? Well, I just hope I’m perceived as more “normal” than [she], and that for the women I seek, I have more colorful attractions to offer than [Lenee] had [to give] me.

In numberless ways, bodily dysfunction sentences those afflicted to lives of excessive compromise, humiliation, and doing without. in effect, only via the compassion of the unencumbered may they even survive. It’s bad enough that they must grapple with the everyday tasks of living, which are made even harder without full vision. More disheartening still, is that isolation is forced upon them. Why are their impairments compounded so by others’ avoidance? The confirmation of normalcy we get from dating ordinary ladies, indeed tastes sweet. But unfortunately, for most normal women, we truly aren’t good enough, and you are astute to acknowledge this, not irrational. I too, often speculate that I’m inferior to them, and have an extensive history of rejection to prove it. So many think us unworthy treating us like we’re lacking, like we cannot engage them fully, like we have little of interest to offer, and so on. No wonder more handicapped suffer mind ills than other groups. How do you think Dr. Ellis would assess my rationality on this point?

But alas, no one person or group can rightly be blamed for our hardships. It’d be duplicitous to criticize the ladies for my history of negative responses since I do it to them too. I reject those who don’t attract me, handicapped or not.

Too bad we can’t be sure that a god is out there from whom we could request deliverance. No, as I see it, we’re here on our own, with no sentient “greater power” to help us. Now this is not to say that there ARE no greater powers that force us to live in deprived fashion. I believe there are. The very fact that we’re handicapped pigeonholes us into handicapped lifestyles. Usually, we either exist in subsidized or substandard housing (or both), must shoulder higher education bills that include specialized learning equipment, constantly persuade others that our affliction is serious enough to warrant their aid, well, you know what I mean. Some impaired individuals break this mold, for sure. But most of them do not. And this force that represses us, though not conscious in my view, is as real as God is to the born-again Christians.

I try not to despair though, because sometimes, these “greater forces” work to our advantage. You found the means to get to California. I found that job in Ohio. Decidedly good things, right? Well, these forces may again help you and me one day, and I hope that before I die, random chance will bring us both true lovers. If people do become more accepting as they age, then perhaps advancing years will soften ladies’ man preferences, and transform you and I from frogs into prince charmings. We can only hope. No?

Take care,
Tom Hesley

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