Rick's February Tirade
Love and the Single Cynic
Along comes February, briefest and bitterest of months, neatly
bisected by a day consecrated to lovers in memory of a saint. This
Valentine's Day finds this particular cynic alone, uncoupled,
remarkably free of bliss.
A lost love clings to his soul like a trace of perfume; its faded
fragrance alternately charms and tortures him. He is still bound to
the woman's memory, especially her voice -- her intimate and
melodious voice -- though he slowly emerges from his addiction and
regains his customary lucidity. (He wonders why there is no Betty
Ford clinic for recovering lovaholics.) Before long, no doubt, he
will be delving once again into his arcane books and hobbies,
solitary, harmless and mildly content. Or will he?
We cynical bachelors aren't accustomed to having our way in the
world, despite our assumptions of superiority. We're continually
forced to watch the favored alpha males reap a lopsided share of the
spoils: inflated incomes, professional pats on the back, enhanced
socioeconomic standing and the attentions of comely women,
frequently including their wives.
Watch the alphas stroll into the office on a Monday morning,
their bodies still humming from strokes of freshly received
pleasure. Such men appear to have ball-bearings for joints, so loose
and fluid are their movements. They roll visibly on their hips as
they make their presentations; they exude effortless energy like
weathervanes twirling in a breeze; they tend to look a decade
younger than their years.
By contrast, the lonely guys are easy to recognize: tense, lumpy,
prematurely graying, already primed for their first heart attacks.
Deprived of a woman's touch, their bodies produce no calming
endorphins to ease their burdened nerves. As their arteries fill
with fatal sludge, so do their souls. Rumpled and morose, they're
the laughingstocks of the executive suite.
Love-starved men can be dangerous; when their frustrations
overcome what's left of their senses, they're alarmingly prone to
florid outbursts of psychopathic behavior. You can be reasonably
sure that Jeffrey Dahmer, John Hinckley, Jr., Son of Sam and the
Unabomber did not partake of the conventional bedtime festivities.
On the other hand, frustration in the realm of Venus can propel
stronger men to greatness. George Washington longed for the lovely
Sally Fairfax (one could fall in love with her name alone, redolent
of mirthful eyes behind the aristocratic facade!), but fickle
fortune had made her the wife of his best friend. So the noble
Virginian steeled himself and settled down with a bland, prosperous
widow. No passion, no steamy sheets, no harpsichord music in the air
-- just an amicable lifelong partnership -- and Washington's
energies were freed for loftier pursuits.
So why do most of us feel like such abject losers when we're
starved for love?
For any man or woman with a dollop of romantic imagination, what
kills us is the perception of life ill-spent: month after withering
month of mundane intercourse with an indifferent world, devoid of
the nurturing solace and soul-recognition, the flights of joy and
fancy, the soothing sense of paradise found that we experience only
in the embrace and conversations of a true lover. The lovelorn are
exiles from bliss, and the imaginative lovelorn suffer most of all
in their bleak Siberias.
The irony is that the generic couples who populate the working
world appear to be barely conscious of their bliss; they consume it
daily like a bowl of corn flakes; they fritter it away before the
TV, at the mall, on tiresome excursions to Disney World.
What a different path my own life has taken! My romantic history
would befit Mr. Spock, the long-eared Vulcan of the original
"Star Trek" series. Vulcans, as you might recall, would
exist for seven years in a state of rational inertia, then suddenly
erupt in a brief and consuming frenzy of passionate mating. Their
appetites sated, they'd revert to reason and celibacy for the next
seven years.
And so do I. Not always for seven years, fortunately; lately the
interval has been reduced to two or three. But revert I do, into
collections of ancient coins and artifacts, volumes of
eighteenth-century English prose and medieval Chinese poetry,
evenings at the local coffee house, birdwatching, portrait-
sketching and long walks along wooded streams. Or so I used to do.
Now, in the ridiculous prime of my middle age, I've finally
tasted the intoxicating potion reserved for the most unreserved
lovers, a heady brew that simultaneously jolts the senses and wraps
them in a comforting quilt of blissed-out tranquillity. I've
experienced the exhausting exhilaration of unfettered, over-the-top
love. And after quaffing such a brew, there's no going back to root
beer. I'm hooked.
Maybe I've been a latent alpha male all along, merely downtrodden
by my woeful status as a liberal arts graduate in the business
world. I'm big and burly enough to pass for an alpha; I take long
strides and spread myself powerfully at a conference table; my voice
and laughter boom across the room and down the hall.
But no, some vital gene has always been missing; I'm
constitutionally incapable of managing people, of seizing
opportunities, of using the talents and energies of others to
further my own interests. I'm tentative and vulnerable in
negotiations, hapless in winning support for my ideas. Cursed with
the ability to see both sides of an issue, I'm rarely swift and sure
in my decisions. I exude no menace unless I make an effort to furrow
my brow.
Worst of all, I'm inclined to be whimsical.
Whimsy can be a charming trait in the right hands, but we don't
associate it with power. The majority of whimsical men are probably
gay. Such men appear to be comfortable in their traditional role as
companions and court jesters to wealthy women -- and with the fact
that the women overlook them as potential lovers.
But woe unto the whimsical man who courts a woman; though he
gains the initial advantage through the beguilement of his
conversation, he rarely wields any lasting power over her. She might
grant him her favors for a time; she might delight in the refreshing
sensuousness of his lovemaking. But ultimately his kindness and
whimsy prove to be his undoing. His most civilized traits have only
proven that he's not an alpha male. His genes won't do.
Women have been programmed for eons to seek males who can protect
them from marauding Neanderthals and saber-toothed tigers. Deprived
until recently of the opportunity to pursue their own ambitions,
they've hitched themselves to ambitious men... the corporate jocks,
hungry achievers, smooth talkers and high-libido womanizers who
answer to the description of alpha male. These Darwinian winners
promise high social status and robust offspring; a woman would have
to be pretty obtuse (or exceptionally intelligent) to overlook their
appeal.
Of course, alpha males often prove to be less than congenial
companions. Wit and kindness rank low on their list of priorities.
They spend much of their discretionary time watching televised
sports. They tend to be quick and perfunctory in bed; their emphasis
on quantity over quality drives them to seek comfort in the arms of
nubile nymphets. Most unforgivably, they sometimes use their power
to hold women in thrall, tossing them an occasional table scrap of
affection to watch the poor creatures grovel at their feet. It's a
sorry spectacle.
But more often than not, these men fulfill their promise: they
provide handsomely, maintain the domestic infrastructure, procreate
and help raise a new generation of genetically desirable offspring.
Of course, today's financially independent career women have
other options at their disposal. Women with money are free to
indulge their fantasies, and their fantasies are depressingly like
those of alpha males. Now you can see 47-year old women cavorting
with nubile 24-year old men, thick-lipped boy-toys who are
essentially male bimbos. Are these women pursuing these men for
their wit or their fascinating stamp collections? Guess again.
They're using sex as a perquisite of power, something successful
alpha males have done throughout history.
Interesting point, though: If women are free to override their
genetic attraction to alpha males, they're also free to favor
civilized men. That's what separates our special breed of ape from
all the other species that have populated this planet: we don't have
to answer to our genes. Those little hereditary dictators may try to
direct us, but we have the power to say NO. A woman can say,
"My soul craves more than a five-bedroom house and a six-figure
income... it craves more than animal sex with a 24-year old tennis
instructor. I'd rather spend my life with that sweet, interesting
cynic over there." What a refreshing concept. But such
serendipity is the stuff of Woody Allen movies, which (no
coincidence!) happen to be scripted by Woody Allen.
So here I am again, solitary at Valentine's Day, with no
prospects in sight. It doesn't help that I'm marooned in a
provincial burg where the majority of heterosexuals tie the knot
within a month or two of high school graduation. (All right, a few
of them postpone their nuptials until they've picked up an
associate's degree at the community college.) But the point is made,
and the point wounds me: I am in the process of being selected out
of the Darwinian pageant.
Even worse, I am sleeping unwarmed in my bed, uncaressed and
uncaressing, unbonded in intimacy to a kindred soul, unenhanced by
the romantic possibilities of a too-fleeting life. Memories of a
great love might console me, but they won't help me stroll into the
office on ball-bearing joints. Neither will my books and
collections. To survive and thrive, I must become a hunter of women.
The irony is not lost on me: a HUNTER. It's the ALPHA MALES who
are supposed to be the hunters, not us cynical bachelors! I have no
aptitude for hunting. Never will. What we need is a romantic geiger
counter that will start clicking wildly when a suitable prospect
approaches.
But barring such a fortuitous invention, where will this cynic
find his mate? Some nights I can almost hear her crying out across
the long expanses of the republic. Was that her voice or only the
wind? Will I find her in Pennsylvania or Oklahoma? Should I
interview every likely woman I encounter at the ATM machine?
Or, like George Washington, should I jettison my romantic dreams
and settle into a passionless domesticity with some plump and
pleasant matron? Maybe then I can stop fretting about love and start
accomplishing great deeds.
But the answer is not that simple; it never is. The fact is that
Washington, comfortable as he was with his devoted Martha, pined for
Sally Fairfax the rest of his days. Near the end of his life, he
wrote her a heartrending letter in which he proclaimed his undying
affection for her. The father of our country was unfulfilled in
love, he knew it, and he regretted it until the day he caught his
final chill.
Gentlemen and gentlewomen, I've made my resolution: it's love or
bust! God help me.
Here's the complete archive of Rick Bayan's immortal tirades for your reading pleasure:
December 2002 — Hello, I Must Be Going
November 2002 — A Raving Moderate
August 2002 — Is Western Civilization Worth Saving?
July 2002 — To Scam or Be Scammed
June 2002 — I Read the News Today, Oh Boy
May 2002 — Speechophobia
April 2002 — Fanatics on Parade
March 2002 — The Prestige Gap: A Lament
February 2002 — On Becoming a Dullard
January 2002 — Art for Slackers
December 2001 — An Unsolicited Christmas Card
November 2001 — A Tale of Two Tribes
October 2001 — On the Fallen Towers
August 2001 — Why Do We Bother?
June 2001 — Notes from a Doomed Planet
May 2001 — The Museum of Discarded Names
April 2001 — Indecision
March 2001 — A Slight Case of Insanity
February 2001 — Letter to a Conscientious Critic
January 2001 — The Cynic's Inaugural Address
December 2000 — The 50th Tirade
November 2000 — Travel Advisory
October 2000 — Beyond Work
September 2000 — More Work
August 2000 — Work
July 2000 — The Doves' Nest
June 2000 — Great Affectations
May 2000 — Tale of a Virtual Village
April 2000 — The World Is My Obstacle Course
March 2000 — A Living Heck
February 2000 — On the Treachery
of Time
January 2000 — A Letter to the
Future
December 99 — Rare Bird
November 99 — Not Just Another
Obscure Ethnic Group
October 99 — Extinction Reconsidered
September 99 — Good Life, Bad
Life, Better Life
August 99 — Household Relics:
An Elegy
July 99 — A Meditation on Profanity
June 99 — In Praise of Sloth
May 99 — A Bug's Death
April 99 — Obligations!
March 99 — The Courage to Be Ordinary
February 99 — A Grave Story
January 99 — What's Left for
Men?
December 98 — On the Uses of
Friends
November 98 — A Cynic's Thanksgiving
October 98 — Grand Illusions
September 98 — Filth
August 98 — Will the Real God
Please Stand Up?
July 98 — Adventures in Downsizing
June 98 — Lady Longevity
May 98 — Uniquely Human, Uniquely
Clueless
April 98 — The Mathematics of Excess
March 98 — Humbuggery
February 98 — Love and the Single
Cynic
January 98 — By the Sweat of
Your Brow
December 97 — Is Suffering Unfashionable?
November 97 — The Tao of Housekeeping
October 97 — The Sensory Deprivation
Blues
September 97 — Down with Natural
Selection!
August 97 — Noise
July 97 — On Eating Our Fellow Creatures
June 97 — Trouble in Book-Land
May 97 — Interview with an Unemployable
Man
April 97 — The Cynic's Dream
March 97 — Inequalities
February 97 — Flesh and Mortality
January 97 — How to Be a Success
December 96 — Why I Can't Hate
Christmas
November 96 — How I Became a Cynic
