Open Writing

(An athletic man in his fifties, trim and fit, sits in a chair in a pool of light which shows that he is good looking and presentable. He speaks to the audience in the bedside manner of a doctor.)

I’ve heard it said – and it’s true, I’m sure – that the worst vice is advice.

No matter, open your ears and your minds – and close your hearts – and listen to this recommendation from me:

Do not fall in love. Repeat – Do Not Fall In Love.

If you think you are in danger of this catastrophe, find a good book – a meaty trilogy, preferably – and go to bed with it and read until the love thing goes away.

If you feel you’ll burst unless you love somebody, why not love yourself: a worthy object of your affection and the only motivation is enlightened self interest?

Now I want you to think about what I’m saying here, and test it against modern experiences among your friends.

Remember that really pretty doctoral student in anthropology who fell in love with the geologist. The last time you saw her, there were stains on her blouse where the breast milk was oozing out of her. She carried a three month old baby, and there was a toddler in a filled nappy clutching at her skirt.

Her svelte figure had gone. Her hair needed attention.

“Lassie, what have you done to yourself?” you said at the time.

She blushed, “I’m fulfilled.”

Love had simply blinded and neutralized that brilliant mind. In the background, skulked her skinny guy, who looked broke and shattered. We know why he was broke and we can guess why he’s shattered. He’s bonked himself silly.

You’ve probably heard the joke, what’s the difference between a handsome blonde male athlete and a beautiful blonde female athlete? Answer: the female has the higher sperm count.

That is so sly, isn’t it? But you must have noticed in the fun runs – the city to surf, or round the bridges – how the girl is in front, eyes gleaming, full of life, and the guy is dragging, slightly listless.

Experience shows that sex empowers and energises the female but can absolutely shatter the male.

A few years ago, I was running in the City to Surf and was about half way up the Mount Street hill when I caught up with a woman in her thirties, who I knew from previous runs. She was struggling on the hill.

Full of the love of running – the run had only just begun – and full of affection for my comrades, I made a suggestion to her: Don’t fight the hill. Just dance up it. I told her my mantra for running up hills, where I repeat in my head:”This hill is my mother and at her bosom I draw my strength.”

Her response astonished me. “You ghastly pervert,” she said. “Thoughts like that should be kept to yourself.”

Nonplussed, I ran on.

Remember how Italian soccer managers banned girl friends on the eve of the big game? They knew what they were doing, those guys, and their teams usually triumphed.

So why is love such a trap, such a disaster, such a catastrophe? Does it have to make you blind? Yes, yes, yes because it’s all part of a devious scheme by Mother Nature, who knew no female in her right mind would choose motherhood as a career.

Look at the job description – nausea and loss of figure in the first nine months, the pain and drama of childbirth, life-threatening even when all goes well, anxiety and sleepless nights, 18 years of continuous care, longer if the kid goes to university, loss of income and the huge cost in terms of cash outlay and forgone opportunities. What woman is daft enough to do that? Look around you – this room is full of them, led astray by love. We’ve learnt nothing.

Some of them have even spent their life’s savings funding their darling boy’s divorce.

If you think love needn’t be sexual and that it could be simple affectionate love for your fellow men and women, think about this scene:

You open the office door for the new female manager. She rounds on you in a swirl of padded blue shoulders and Calvin Klein scent and demands, “Are you suggesting I can’t open the bloody door for myself?”

Or you might be playing bridge with one of those assertive western suburbs women, who mentions that she fancies a cup of coffee. You suggest that you will order one for her.

“I’m quite capable of ordering my own coffee,” she snots back at you.

Just make sure you keep the anti-venene in your hip pocket when around these toxic typists.

Men who love other people get very confused sometimes. Men are hard-wired to be caring but it seems a lot of modern people don’t want to be cared for. It’s actually hard to love some people.

Take the young guy on the bus going out to Curtin University the other day. There were no seats, so when an elderly man boarded, the youngster rose and offered him his seat.

The old guy went off his trolley. “Are you saying I’m an old man?” he roared.

“Please take my seat, sir,” the young man said.
“I’m just down the track a bit – I’m not an invalid,” the old guy yelled.

To everybody’s relief, he took the seat and sat down and shut up, silly old git.

So think about these things if ever you’re tempted to give up your seat, buy somebody a coffee, or open the door for a busy woman. Who gives a cat’s fart what you think, anyway? Just shut up and keep out of the way.

A friend once said to me that he had given up on relationships. His wife had walked out on him 20 years ago and he had decided that if he wanted pure, unconditional love, he’d get a dog.

He’s now the servant and creature of this yappy little terrier, which goes everywhere with him. He follows it with adoration and with a supply of yellow plastic bags for picking up its defecations. You’d be amazed at how much comes through such a beast. Some of them eat better than their owners.

Personally, I prefer cats and have a cat which idolizes me – follows me around, keeps me in sight all the time, and is most uncomplaining about my not being shaved and my dragon’s breath first thing in the morning.

The cat is always underfoot, of course. Jumps into bed with me, the moment I slip under the sheets.

There can be a downside to adoring pets. They get jealous, for instance – yes, even a little cat.

I had met this really nice woman and we were getting along quite famously. We had tea at my place and then later we went to bed. I gave her an old tee-shirt to wear as a nighty, and allocated her an unused toothbrush from my stash in the bathroom.

Things were moving quite nicely in bed, when into the room came my cat, a small female, who sprang on the bed alongside my visitor. “Ah, the competition has arrived,” the woman said.

An ugly face of love is jealousy. The bloody cat was jealous of the new woman and immediately bit her. I cleared the cat off the bed, sprang up and treated the wound with a disinfectant and an anti-biotic ointment.

Unfortunately, the incident marked the end of a beautiful relationship, because the woman wouldn’t stay overnight. Would you?

Cats and children are notorious for interfering in relationships. I was once enjoying a woman enormously in a session of sheer lust. It was a really hot day, love wouldn’t wait, and we were going at it on the cool lino of her kitchen floor, Beethoven’s sixth in the background, and I’m thinking, “ this is the life.”

Suddenly, her little cat sprang on to my back and began purring in my ear.

Sometimes, that sort of thing can be very off -putting to a new lover.

It was an elderly cat and had been to the vet’s recently for the extraction of some infected teeth, so she tended to dribble.

I was acutely aware of the cat’s saliva dribbling down the back of my neck between purrs.

“She loves you,” my friend said from down under me. “She clearly approves of you. That’s an unsolicited honor.”

Here’s a thought: have you ever considered yourself as a symbol? Because if you are a senior male and have just paired up with a pre-loved female, you may find yourself running the gauntlet of her gimlet-eyed single friends.

You think it’s about love and sharing lives, but it’s not. She’s making a statement –“See girls, I’m still an attractive woman and can get a new man for myself. Here’s one, still alive and breathing.”

In some age groups, there aren’t enough men to go around; also a lot of men have simply given up. They just don’t care and won’t make any effort, other than with a corkscrew.

You are trotted out at a social among all these worn and fading females, paraded for their inspection. Hence the new woman’s interest in your clothes – those socks are wrong, you can’t wear that tie, and you should wear a proper after shave, not that Home Brand stuff.

What’s all that about? It’s about you as a symbol. Were you daft enough to comment on her scent, she’d round on you and say, My sister gave that to me. It’s a beautiful scent.

She doesn’t realize why her sister gave her the scent in the first case: because it’s just wrong.

Now any man who has been to a Freemason’s Christmas party will understand this concept immediately. Their presents tend to be awful – a totally unwearable tie, probably handed down from last Christmas, or a jar of low-calorie jam.

Gifts presented in the name of love have to be suspect. Something useful is far more appropriate.

I once drew up a list of specific criteria for the perfect lover for me.

Must be educated, like reading, movies, eating out, must like walking in the bush, crossword puzzles, scrabble, sudoku, etcetera. I stopped after 23.
I hadn’t realized it was so complicated to pick a suitable partner.

Pleased with myself, I read the list to a friend. He listened carefully, nodding his approval from time to time, then when I got to the end, he said, You’ve missed something.

What? I said.

You haven’t mentioned that it should be a female, he said.

So there you go, just when you think you’ve got the problem by the throat it eludes you.

So what does the Church think about Love? You know they’re against sin. You know what happened to Jesus Christ who loved the world.

What does the Government think about love? You’ll soon find out when you pick up with that widow: Centrelink can’t wait to cut her pension.

So don’t speak to me about love. Been there, done that, and wept into my tee-shirt to prove it.

If you must have a relationship, why not base it on respect – a far more useful and reliable platform for building a future together?