An Online Magazine by Bay Area Writing Project Writers!
Single Stories
©Myles Boisen, 2008
My married friends love to hear my stories, living vicariously through my hot, seedy, or amusing dating adventures. There’s the fat man who was very good with his hands, the ‘inventor’, who told me about all of his yet unpatented brainstorms, the guy I made the mistake of kissing on the first date who later delivered a minute analysis of the kiss: what it said about me, how it felt to him. A friend summed him up succinctly: ‘What a putz!’ I enjoy telling a good story to an appreciative audience, so it’s a fine arrangement. Perhaps that’s why it’s taken me a while to shake myself out of the narrator role, and probe past the marrieds’ shy dismissals of ’oh, my life’s boring. Just the same old same old, you know’.
There is nothing boring about maintaining a committed relationship or raising children, while the effort of sprucing oneself up for a stranger, again, and trying to calibrate wariness of red flags with an openness to newness can get tedious.
When I do probe, gently, I find discussions about differing parenting styles across genders which help me reflect upon my parenting. I hear about one husband who falls into TV viewing instead of conversation, and the wife is struggling with how much to expect of him, how to get a closeness that she craves. Another was quite sick for a while, and felt saddened to discover that her husband did show concern and care for her, but only in ways that were easy and didn’t cut into his schedule or social life. She wondered if and how she should confront him on that. A third friend has a husband who just turned 50, and has been taking longer to get aroused. He is very self-conscious about that, but she is enjoying the slower pace, and appreciated a reminder that she should tell him so. None of this bores me.
The intricacies of how and when to communicate with a loved one, how to enjoy and embrace changes in them, to know when to shut up and just listen, and when to offer more than silence but less than judgment, to figure out ways to insert some spontaneity and romance into very busy, stressful lives, all of this fascinates me.
The work I do on a first or even later date can be humiliating and exhausting, sometimes tender and creative, but not usually all that deep. I first encountered ‘the fat man’ online, with a photo showing him neck up. First clue. Over many phone conversations, he showed his charm and humor. When he first opened his door to me, I received the shock of someone around 100 pounds overweight. My heart sank as I asked myself how I would get through the date. Turns out his charm still worked on me, and the weight actually was not a problem. Not for the first date. After, I asked myself how and if the weight would be an issue for me. The relationship didn’t last, so this was never explored. But this is when it gets more interesting. When I wonder how much to accept criteria about appearance or other superficialities, and how much to fight against these biases (I respond very strongly to a man’s voice). The more refined or difficult work that I do doesn’t usually translate well to the stories that I share. Maybe this is a problem of the storyteller more than the audience, pandering to perceived interest instead of telling truths that need to be told.
Perhaps we all want short punchy stories, gossip, or anecdotes, instead of long, meandering novels. We don’t have the time, energy or attention span anymore for the latter. So, my married friends reach for my little stories with the guilty greed of someone picking up a glossy magazine. Maybe the very lack of depth offers a short reprieve from the unending work and complex joys in their own lives. And too, another person’s life always seems more interesting than one’s own. The distance makes it a story. We don’t usually see our own lives as narratives. As I talk about mine, choosing details and pace for the entertainment effect, I also get distance which smoothes over the aches and pains of the lived experience.
But this is really about quality, not quantity. I don’t mean to equate duration with depth. There are unhealthy or even shallow relationships that drag on and on. A short little romance can be a mini-relationship that leaves a mark on both participants for a lifetime. The short story is my favorite genre -- all of that poetically dense meaning fitted into a concise, crafted package. But those meaningful brief encounters are rare, and the need to tell or hear about the frivolous disturbs me.
The marrieds also seem to listen more than talk because of an unspoken gag rule, a loyalty to the spouse that keeps people quiet about tensions or flaws in a partner or the relationship. Maybe there’s also a fear that naming a problem will make it grow. It has therefore taken many of my married friends a very long time to feel comfortable opening up to me, with the added awkwardness if I’m also friends with the spouse. I sort of get this and I sort of don’t. There’s something sweet about the loyalty. And maybe creepy too. I don’t hold marriage up as very different or more special than other close relationships. To me, siblings, unmarried lovers, and nonromantic buddies are all intimate, loving relationships needing work, understanding, and sometimes outside perspective and advice. I want to hear about them all, because they make good stories. I am also glad these married folks have started to share, because it must be lonely to uphold the perfection myth about marriage, similar to the parenting myth, that we love our children unfalteringly 24 hours a day. I feel that my love for my son grows more deep and genuine when I can admit the challenges and talk through them with someone I trust.
New is appealing. New glistens and seduces. A married person can get that fun from listening to someone like me reporting my forays into the dating world. Dating seems such a teenage activity. That’s why I find the whole thing demeaning for someone aged 44. What should I wear? Should I wait for him to call me? What did it mean when he didn’t introduce me to his friend? Stupid stuff. But entertaining, in a summer romantic comedy sort of way. I wonder if the need for a fresh new story is why some married people have affairs. They can’t see the subtle newness in what they have, and so seek it elsewhere. I sometimes have a hard time accepting the idea of long-term monogamy. Being with the same person for 30 or 40 years seems mind-bogglingly claustrophobic to me. But then a wise friend of mine, who was reporting that she had lived as many years married to her husband as not, commented that she had married at least six men. He keeps changing. He is not static, nor is their relationship. I love this concept, and I think it explains how ‘my life is boring, same old same old’ is really a cover for ‘I don’t have the energy to explain the nuances of my love relationship. I’d rather listen to the obvious messages in yours”. They want to hear from me, but they don’t envy me.
I think about a guy I grew up with who never left the Bay Area. My younger, narrow-minded self felt him pathetic for not getting out and having adventures. I’d lived on the East Coast, and then the Far East. I’d ‘seen the world’. But later, when I learned that he was a park ranger and knew every inch of Mt. Tamalpais, I had new respect for the details that he observed and cherished and I didn’t even know how to notice. Repetition isn’t. The second time is always different because it’s the second time. (Isn’t that what Gertrude Stein was about?)
I like to get involved in the big questions my married friends are asking. Like the one who has found a ‘soul mate’ of sorts at work, a non-romantic intimacy, and wondered if he should tell his wife about it or not. Is emotional closeness without any physical connection a betrayal? Is love without sex still love, or is that friendship? Is sex more threatening, or love? Another friend has an admirer from childhood who sends emails with praises and warmth, shares music with her, harmless flirting that she finds ego-boosting and fun. When she sees him, only about once a year, she never allows moments alone with him, nor does she allow alcohol onto the scene. Should she not encourage this guy at all, break off all communications, or keep the gentle fun going? Another friend just learned that a colleague of his was having an affair with the wife in another couple that they know. Should he and his wife cut off the friendship completely with him because of his very bad behavior? And what about the husband of the other woman? He might not even know. Should someone tell him? How should loyalty be measured, tested or ensured, both in marriage and friendship? These stories interest me not for the soap opera value, but for the complex psychology of relationships, much like what you’d find in a Jane Smiley book.
Set against all of that, the questions I ask are, ‘Do I like him or am I just tolerating him?’ ‘Why do I like him so much? Is it mainly lust?’ ‘Is it rude to just stop calling him and let it go away, or does that make things easier for him too?’ or ‘Can I really go out with someone who blasts Olivia Newton John in his car?’ I wish I had better stories to tell. The easy laughs and cheap thrills, I’ve had enough of them. I wonder if my married friends will ever have enough.
©Sara Schupack, 2008
Sara Schupack completed the East Asia Writing Project in 1997, in Thailand. She has been teaching for over twenty years, in Hong Kong, at international schools, and at two-year colleges. Now she is off to pursue further studies in Education. (Sara says a sad farewell to the Bay Area, and hopes to return.) She doesn't have any great dating stories from recent memory to report at this time.
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Copyright 2008 Digital Paper
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