I’ve just about had enough of their self-serving, belittling attitudes. Things just don’t change.
I remember the cute, beret-wearing, goateed guitarist at the festival. His guitar work was spellbinding and I intentionally positioned myself to loiter within his orbit. A couple of my friends knew him from elsewhere and raised eyebrows when I whispered my intentions. I ignored their advice, and before I knew it, I was in his bed. He grew his own weed, and ‘tabs’ were often included in the party mix. Fun times, for a while, but I found him in bed with my girlfriend.
I took stock and tried to be more circumspect in selecting future partners. But the next special ‘other’ arrived at an end-of-year party. I had seen him in the corridors, and once or twice we rode the elevator together. Boozy parties were still my weakness; I fell into his clutches that December. His flowers arrived weekly, we ate out regularly at fancy restaurants and he was forever bringing me expensive clothes, perfume and jewellery. Tres-romantique but the cops arrived one night, and he went down for a string of home invasions.
Then there was the gym instructor. Muscle upon muscle and skimpy shorts suggestive of stimulating adventure. We moved in together and he organised and supervised my fitness program. His dietary demands were testing: I learnt to hate almond milk, lentil soups, and leafy green salads, but he did manage to wean me off ciggies. The booze and red meat were my undoing. He found the receipt for The Steakhouse luncheon in my purse. How dare he! We fought – him about my meat break-out; me about his bloody intrusion.
Other men tumbled in and out of my life but then, I turned 30! The biological clock gave a flicker, anxiety arrived at about the same time as Bruce. We were both post-grad students at Melbourne, me completing a post-graduate Sociology degree, him a Masters in Residual Rangeland protection. We clicked, sharing books, fine dining, bushwalking and camping.
We married, had two wonderful kids, serviced a huge mortgage and developed our individual careers satisfactorily. There were occasional flareups, but always patchable. But snide barbs started to be thrown. They were bitchy, targeting my studies, insinuating that I put them ahead of the kids, a preference for reading over shared intimacies, and coldness. I responded with a query about his incessant overnight work trips.
I took it for a while, assuming that his dandelions and weeds, or whatever it was he studied, were out of kilter, but his constant niggling was wearing thin. A close friend suggested I watch my rear-guard. I did and his affair came to light. He announced an intention to leave. I had his clothes, library, seed collection and camping gear on the nature strip by day’s end.
Is it me; my chemistry, or something else? I ponder life’s dealt hand. I reframe it and decide that, well, I mean, … oh men, they just work very differently than me!