Love’s Great Promise
I wanted to believe in the Great American Fairy Tale. What the British humorously refer to as “Love’s Great Promise.”
I remember when I was about to start a relationship with a woman from a different part of the country—a woman I had only known through social media—and many of my friends tried to warn me not to be so hasty. With Covid ravaging the country, my convoluted logic was “we could die from touching our face (you do remember when it was like this, right?) so why not take a chance on romance?”
Truth be told, I was even included in an article in the NY Post on Love in the Time of Covid, where I was quoted as saying this very thing. What I, unfortunately failed to anticipate in my philosophy of “if it fails, it fails” was the traumatic and insidious nature of the discourse that generally precedes a breakup. The observations and accusations of someone you have been naked with who grows weary of your habits or outlooks or quirks.
In other words, there’s always an awful lot of “you always,” “you never” and “the problem with you is..” and even though we are convinced that our lover turned adversary is a raving lunatic, we internalize their criticism and, in our darker moments, even sometimes believe it.
Now, three years later, I still don’t ever want anyone moving in with me and she—well, she’s changed her sexual orientation. All in all, it seems like it might be safe to say it was nothing short of a disaster. All in all, I am ready to concede that my friends were right. And although there’s an irreverent part of me that wants to believe I am prone to doing just about anything for sexual adventure, if I take a really good, hard look at myself, it goes deeper than that. I wanted to believe in the Great American Fairy Tale. What the British humorously refer to as “Love’s Great Promise.”
This past Thursday, I didn’t fall asleep until 10:30 and my eyes opened irreversibly at 2:30. So, when I pulled my truck over to the shoulder and had a nap for lunch, I had a dream that pushed me into the stratosphere. I dreamt that yet another Facebook friend of mine admitted their feelings for me and, once again, a love affair started. I wasn’t sleeping long enough for things to start going sideways, but it left me with either a renewed sense of delusion or a return to the sort of optimism I haven’t felt in years.
As I put the truck in gear and continued on the interstate, I began to toy with the idea that this didn’t work out because I wasn’t paying careful attention to who it was I was ready to throw my lot in with. She didn’t have a job when we first started talking and she had no plans to get one after she got here.
Not to use a Trumpian superlative, but I am one of the least judgemental people I know. When my friends were asking me why she had no desire to work, I would invent these elaborate theories of how it wasn’t essential for everybody in the world to participate in capitalism. Not everyone was meant to be a cog in the soulless machine. To a certain point, I still believe this.
I am not referring to people who are profoundly and clinically depressed, I am referring to people who suffer from general malaise: there is nothing like productivity and work to keep our heads from slipping into our own asses. And unless you're Ram Dass or Eckhart Tolle, I don’t recommend spending too much time gazing at your belly button, either. Because–A–all you’re going to find is lint and–B–it’s most likely going to be someone else’s fault.
My days are very stressful. From the moment I get in that seat to the moment I clock out, I have no choice but to adopt a military sense of awareness of everything that’s happening around me. I can swear that it feels like everyone driving a car is hell bent on ending their own lives and it’s up to me to dodge every attempt. And there’s an attempt every 30-45 seconds. People cutting you off and hitting the brake to turn, people driving behind you when you’re backing into a loading dock, people trying to race you as three lanes turn to two. All day. Every day.
Regardless, when I pull into my driveway and I know I earned a few hundred dollars and it’s time for dinner, I can’t remember any of that. I feel accomplished, hopeful and ready to enjoy the little time I have for myself before bed. The experience of a person who has been in the house all day is much different. They want to discuss a look you gave them as you were heading into the shower. The way you texted them back at 1:30.
I don’t want to belabor the point, but perhaps in the right conditions, love will keep its great promise. Perhaps I am more than justified to feel a renewed sense of hope. I like what was going on between me and my Facebook friend–even if it did only exist in the ether of a highway dream.
Well, that was a flashback in Elephant time. Some "romances" are best kept to a period of discourse through social media, or work lounge chats while eating sandwiches brought from home. Then gone. One day the right one may walk into the gas station when you are leaving and then you see her again in another location and eyes meet one another and you both smile. See the Great American Fairy Tale is still alive. or better, you head to Venice and she walks up and asks if she can share your table. You look around and all the other seats are taken. Two hours later you are both strolling down the street as she shows you are best places in her city, the ones the tourists never see. If only for a week...perhaps more.