Fuel

In my teens and twenties, the whole monogamy thing escaped me altogether. It’s a shameful thing to admit, I know, but it’s true. I wasn’t a slut, and didn’t guy-hop exactly. In fact, I managed to keep boyfriends, and eventually a starter spouse, for far longer than most. Still, no matter how content I (convinced myself I) was, inevitably I’d encounter someone with whom I shared an entirely spontaneous and irresistibly intoxicating chemistry, and try as I might to honor my pledge, tacit or otherwise, of fidelity, there would come a moment of weakness and opportunity. Or moments, as the case may have been.


It was disturbing, that repetitive failure, and I agonized over what I could at the time only assume was my having been doomed to continue thusly throughout my time on this earth, always intending to stay true to the mores and philosophies I then espoused. That agony led to a chronic and persistent decay of what little self-worth I possessed, until eventually all I had left was a dim memory of my former moral fortitude. Ugly, wretched stuff.


The most perplexing thing was, even during the best times in my primary relationships, I was still prone to those serendipitous encounters. I’d be carrying on with my ordinary business, grocery shopping or working or whatever other things that teeny-twenty-somethings do with their time, and WHAMO! Some guy, some unbelievably articulate, magnetic, critical thinker of a man, some eloquent stranger would meet my eyes with his, and in that moment the crushing certainty of the coming (no pun intended) failure would flood over me with blinding clarity. I couldn’t not proceed. Certainly, it was an exciting thing, but only for the duration of the chase. Without fail, any consummation of those brief unions was... less than earth shattering. It was never the sex. For me, the pursuit buried its barbed claws into my psyche, gathered me into itself and held me fast until the business at hand had reached its inevitable conclusion.


I thought for a long time that the problem was with my choices of partners, and certainly there is some truth in that assessment. What I’ve since learned, is that having had relationships with people who were hopelessly incompatible with me was really immaterial. The problem wasn’t me. The problem wasn’t the men/boys I so poorly selected. The problem was, in fact, not a problem. It was Humanity. Evolution. The inescapable fact that, as a Human, an occupant of the uppermost tier of the Great Apes (if Darwin and his cohorts are to be believed anyway), I am a primate. You are a primate. Every single person to have ever breathed or walked upon this planet, as far back as "Lucy," and even farther still, for untold millennia, the whole of our species and all that preceded us. We are, at least in part, our physiology.

Yes, homo sapiens (allegedly) possess the capacity to chose a single, lifelong mate. It happens. Nevertheless, from a strictly statistical perspective, those cases are the exception. They are the aberrations. Not abominations, but aberrations without question.


I’ve recently had the opportunity to get up close and personal with a little bird called a Carolina Wren. This bird, tiny, dingy brown drab-feathered, visually unremarkable as feathered critters go, actually IS monogamous. The thing tops out at a whopping 3/4oz., and measures about 6" in length with a max wingspan of up to 11". The two most fascinating characteristics about these guys, in my opinion, are their masterful constructions of softly rounded funnel-shaped nests in odd places (ours nested in a stray paper grocery sack atop the shelves that sit in the outdoor alcove where my deep freeze is stored) and their lovely song http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Carolina_Wren_dtl.htmlsound. To see the things though, they blend right into the woodwork, going about their birdie business essentially unnoticed.

I wondered, after discovering the nest in my house and doing the requisite research to determine whether or not to report the winged thingy to the Bird Police, how it was that so tiny and literally birdbrained a creature benefits from a lifelong bond with another specimen of its species. What advantage does that pairing impart, other than the general safety-in-numbers thing?

Over and over again in the animal kingdom, we see that breeding with multiple partners serves to diversify, and thereby strengthen, the population of virtually all species. More partners means more combinations of DNA, and more combinations means more opportunities for the species to develop new and advantageous gene combinations, giving them a higher probability of being "naturally selected" to live longer and produce more offspring. Why, then, would a bird, this miniature living dinosaur, develop the monogamous lifestyle it practices? To what end?

I can’t begin to come up with a good reason. I mean what, do those extended bird unions yield greater understanding, each bird of the other? Does it bring them closer to each other, afford them the ability to have some sort of avian mind-meld? I don’t get it. Hell, maybe my brain’s just too damned big to determine the reason. Maybe there is no reason. I suppose I’ll ask the Big Guy after my existence in this mortal coil ceases. Who knows?

So a critter with a brain the size of a grain of rice derives some sort of protection from selecting a lifelong mate. How on earth can that possibly be applied as a logical or beneficial arrangement for so complex a species as our own? I don’t advocate some collective societal who’-baggedness, be certain of that! I just... don’t see why it is that sex is so off-limits a thing between consenting adults who are otherwise attached.

Commitment isn’t about sex. It’s about laundry. It’s the conscious and constant decision that the other person’s annoying habits and eccentricities, taken in the greater context of the entire person and the enrichment s/he brings to your life when you couple with him/her.

Commitment is seeing your mate puke, and despite your own inability to view such things without fainting, diving in and gathering her hair back from her forehead and holding a cool moist cloth to her face while she worships at the feet of the great and malevolent porcelain goddess.

It’s what transcends the crushing loneliness of a vacant bed, even when your chosen partner isn’t physically occupying the space beside you.

It’s knowing the other person’s need for coffee in the morning, and then dragging your sleepy ass out of bed before him/her and pouring a cup, adding the cream and sugar in the precise proportions that he/she would do him/herself, tasting it to be certain it’s just right, and then delivering said cup, steaming and warm with love, to your still sleeping partner.

It’s arguing vehemently over the trivial bullshit du jour, getting angry enough to want to flay him open with the evil words that lie in wait to be hurled, dagger like, from your tongue, knowing full well that he deserves such treatment for what he has said/done/implied, and instead gripping the word-weapons in the iron clench of your jaw, allowing not so much as a single one to escape, and then marching up to your offending spouse, wrapping your arms around him tightly, and pressing your head into his chest. Because he’s yours. Because you chose him. Because he is the one and only person in the whole of the universe that you want drive you crazy until you both die.

Without a doubt, sex with that person can break the sound barrier, rend the very fabric of Time and Space. But let’s be honest, shall we? The snotty noses and what’s-for-dinners and honey-did-you-pay-the-mortgages, and when-are-you-going-to-mow-the-goddamned-LAWN-for-chrissakes!?!?es tend to reduce the frequency of those starburst lightning moments.

The chasing of kids, managing of checkbooks, prepping of meals, working of jobs, cleaning of homes, repairing of leaky rooves- those things have an insidiously unavoidable way of worming in between us and our Chosen Ones, so that by the time we actually carve out an hour or two of grown-up time, we’re so exhausted that we’re fortunate to muster the energy to go just through the motions, mechanically reconnecting with our Loves in a way that is horribly insufficient but still necessary because it’s what we have.

My Love and I have identified this vicious process, discussed it at great length and many times over the past ten years. What we have determined, through practice and observation and educated guess and careful recording of results is that the daily minutiae drains us of our life force. The general business of living, especially with the children we spawn and adore and often fantasize about killing (but only momentarily), those things suck us dry.

As though attacked by some omnipresent cosmic vampire, we find ourselves desperate and aching for the psycho spiritual and physical renewal we gain from basking in the glow or our Love’s mere presence, communing in the consummate embrace, our every cell bathing in the neurochemical soup that constitutes the collection of feelings and desires most of us mistakenly label as "love."

And, as anyone familiar with monsters and horror show atrocities will tell you, the vampire’s ultimate cruelty to us is that it robs our Loves likewise, so that each of us feels paralyzed, unable to give that we wish to receive. Neither of us feels able to initiate the cycle, the giving and getting back, the vital circuit that is the flow of electrical and chemical and spiritual and psychic energy, one to the other, returning to the first magnified and then magnified again as it circles back and forth, to and from our Loves, that exponential recharging of the living battery we call the soul.

Frankly, I think the divorce rate in the West would drop dramatically if, by some miracle, we as a civilization decided that SAFE, consensual relations between two people who are married or committed to someone other than the partner in question, were free to
1. Engage as they saw the need to do so in whatever level of intimacy they collectively deemed sufficient
AND
2. Not have to lie about having done so.
The caveats are relatively few: no lying, no deceit, no procreation with anyone other than the spouse/primary mate, and probably for most a few specifics like no co-sleeping with anyone other than Number One. How hard a thing could that possibly be?

I don’t find it so difficult to imagine, save for theVictorian prudishness so common amongst Americans. We deny sex and sexuality in our daily activities, we condemn the needs and wants of the phsysical shell that houses the divine within us as "sins of the flesh," when that flesh is undeniably and inextricably part of the very divinity it contains. And then we drool like rabid dogs as we are willingly and repeatedly bombarded with an unending barrage of photos, videos, and various other media presentations of all things sex, sexy, and sexual. The absurdity of it is maddening.

I believe people cheat almost exclusively for reasons y unrelated to the sex itself or the physical gratification it provides. I think for some, cheating is a way to maintain the separate-and-apartness that they lack, a way to feel like they are in command of their own lives when they might else wise feel overly controlled by a jealous or insecure partner. For others, it’s the excitement factor, the exhilarating fear of indulging in Forbidden Fruit, knowing that if the trespass is discovered, things will be VERY bad, but that the sweetness to be had is superior to any other, if only by virtue of its taboo status. That fear, and more importantly, successfully perpetrating the deception, are highly gratifying activities unto themselves for some. I sometimes hate that this is the case, but it is what it is. No sense in denying it.

Ultimately, however we feel the need to reduce these motivations to whichever base components we think comprise them, people venture outside of their primary relationships in order to be recharged. We’re all just a bunch of organic batteries, and the battery doesn’t care whence comes its source of renewal.

I’m count myself wonderfully fortunate as these things go. When Husband V 2.0 made his appearance in my life, each of had sustained severe damage at the hands of our previous spouses. Both of us had been defied, betrayed, and made to feel worthless and unlovable as a result. Granted, neither he nor I are without fault or responsibility for our own misdeeds, but the betrayal was huge, and we emerged from our respective "starter marriages" as defiled and incomplete people. Somehow, we each found our own way to healing, and after that, to each other.

He is not a jealous fellow, which is even after ten years a bit unnerving at times. Another man can look, address, and even touch me in an overtly flirtatious manner, and my husband looks upon the exchange as he would a handshake. If, on the other hand, anyone dares to insult/threaten/intimidate/disrespect me, the Y chromosome in my Dearest takes control, promptly establishing, in no uncertain terms, that such disregard for his wife will not be tolerated. It’s the strangest combination of traits, but only because it is so rare a thing amongst men in this country, and I’d bet in others too.

Jealousy is a fairly useless sentiment I think. Protectiveness is not only useful, but necessary, a tangible demonstration of a loved one’s placing you in a position of great value and esteem.

We’ve had the discussion, he and I, on countless occasions, about how each of us might feel if the other were to engage in any sort of sexual interaction with another. Our own ground rules are that each of us has veto power of potential interactees (ha ha- I made up a new word), that any, um, interactions are to be conducted with full disclosure to all involved parties (no Fatal Attractions, in other words), and that if at any time either of us feels slighted, the other is to immediately address whichever needs are going unmet.

What’s really interesting is, save for one occasion each of "stepping out" prior to exchanging vows, and despite the, uh, carte blanche privileges each of us possess to explore at will, we’ve not done so. Certainly there have been people to whom we’ve been drawn, and certainly we’d have perhaps made the most of any opportunity to know those people, but at some point, the draw seems to fade, and I realize how unlikely it is that the culmination of my efforts will end in any sort of gratification that even remotely measures up to what I get at home.

Likewise intriguing, each and every time that either of us has had an interest, we’ve disclosed it to the other, and have returned from the external partnership, unrequited or otherwise, recharged, our sexual energies overflowing, the very act of anticipating that most vulnerable of human interactions with another person having served to refuel the soul/battery. That new found store of energy places us in the enviable position of finally having the ability to initiate the aforementioned cycle, and I’ll spare you the gory details by saying only this: the results are Titanic (in the ancient Greco-Roman sense of the word, not the ship).

As it happens, my interest has been very much piqued recently. I don’t know for sure that he "gets" the sincerity in the flirting I do with him, but I suspect that he does. He’s bright in a way that is painfully rare, and we seem to share an eerie number of likes and dislikes. It will be interesting to see where it goes, if it indeed goes anywhere. Obviously, if pursuit of anything beyond the flirt would be damaging in even the smallest way to him or his family, all bets are off. Still, I emerge from the cocoons of the conversations I have with him feeling lighter than air, recharged and renewed, ready to take on... whatever. That is, in itself, entirely acceptable. Anything more than that is gravy.