Ah, desire is a strange thing!
We are motivated from different places within ourselves. There was a time in January 2000 I was physically hurting from the stress of having to give up one woman. Why? Because I genuinely loved two. (Never mind the merit of such a situation; this is just about how I felt at the time) I wanted both women, too, in all ways. The cerebral part of me knew this was not workable. But the part of me that made me feel good thinking about both didn't silence itself. Being happily married was good, but I could not accept not having the other. And giving up my wife was emotionally impossible.
This was a conflict between what my objective brain and cultural conscience were telling me- "This can't be and won’t work" and what two other subjective and less-than-logial parts of me were saying- "Sex! Woo Hoo!" and "Gimme all that romance and longing and love!" Quick aside here: Love is too difficult to discuss well briefly. Suffice to say, “If it feels like love, it’s love enough.” This is why people (including me) have pooh-poohed puppy love or infatuation. Sure, it’s unreasonable and has little likelihood of success. But while it’s tingling in your soul, puppy love feels so desperately good, doesn’t it?
If I were to go back to 1999, I’d not do what I did. But something in me has changed, too. What precisely? Well, that brings me to the crux of this piece. I seem unable to care much about any one woman. Even though I still like women in general and enjoy female friendship, I neither love in that high-voltage, endorphin-soaked way any one woman nor care much if I ever do. How’d I get to this deplorable condition? I’ve been legally and morally free to do what I want with any woman for two years. And now I’m not sure I want any woman at all, not like I did then.
So I ask myself, "How'd you get from sincerely loving (or thinking you loved) two women down to not really caring about even one?" And I get just a mental shrug for an answer.
I had a great experience with a very terrific woman about a year and a half ago. And, still, something seems missing. Logically, one might see this as a deficiency in her because she didn't meet my emotional requirements. But it could also be a deficiency in me because I’m not capable of commitment that takes me to that ethereal and wonder-inducing state of desperate emotional need. Which is it? Again that mental shrug.
The cerebral part of me tells me that she’s got lots of terrific qualities- she’s smart, funny, sexy, and very capable. But something in me won’t let my heart fly away to that romantic stratosphere. In a tender and lucid moment, she told me that we got together too soon and we went too fast in our relationship. Maybe she was right. She's very good about knowing these things.
So I must conclude that desire is strange. And like Bizet's lyrics tell us, "inconnu."
Seems that the next question could be, "What's wrong?" But it's neither right nor wrong. Desire is amoral and not subject to “right or wrong” classification.
