Hear/Say

When ‘we’  were little, most of us had imaginary friends for a hot flash of a silly childhood phrase. I had an imaginary boyfriend.

Coincidentally, he was also the Red Power Ranger.

*ohmygod* he is so ugly out of costume

Oh, Jason. You coy, emotionally elusive man boy. We would argue. We would make up. Sometimes he would climb trees with me, but he was never there when I read the thirty books from the library in an evening, or when I was wickedly flirting with my other imaginary boyfriend Tobias (who also coincidentally was an Animorph).

Our relationship was on and off. I don’t remember when we finally broke it off (for our lengthy involvement– I will not divulge the magic number of months lest people assume the randy details of our private lives) but when we did, it was surprisingly clean.

And Tobias was just a fling. As I recall, he stayed in morph for too long and became a hawk.

Whatever.

I recently watched an indie movie called “The Freebie” which has to do with this married couple who freaks out about the inevitable decline of their sex lives (within the dungeons of monotonous monogamy…) and decides to give each other a “freebie” night for a casual one  night stand.

Needless to say, it gets complicated.

What infuriates me is the stubborn narcissistic neuroticism that sprouts up as some undefeatable roadblock in the relationship. Nonono, I should rephrase and reshape this:

1. Agree to have casual sex with others

turns into

2. Nervous sex with others

3. Hate each other

This is not a logical sequence of events. Okay, so the movie’s point was that you can’t ‘control emotions’ and that monogamy is ‘righteous’ and ‘morally trustworthy’… but you CAN control how you think about perspective. Intelligent animals are know for their capacity for empathy, right? It’s empathy that distinguishes the idiots who fight the reflection in the mirror rather than note the fake mimicry.  So why is it so difficult for intimate couples to step into each other’s shoes?

There is a lot in American culture that encourages the prudish, ideal romance of ‘One Love’, where you ‘belong’ to each other, and your bodies are each other’s ‘temples’; this sick idea of possession disturbs me more than a cheating husband does. The expectation that people absolutely must be willing to sacrifice their bodies and souls to each other ‘in the name of love’ is dangerously self destructive, delusional, and mostly retarded. While the best relationships are symbiotic, you don’t see animals who are monogamous *dying* for each other, or torturing themselves in order to reassure their husband or wife that they are “meant to be”– if that is the case, it’s one of the first obvious signs that it isn’t.

So when Brad Pitt falls in love with Angelina Jolie (or for cynics, he sees publicity opportunities and a rebirth of national attention as well as an erotic bod) he doesn’t do it to hurt Jennifer Aniston. Quite the opposite, because Jennifer Aniston doesn’t occur in his mind… at all. And who can honestly blame him?

And it’s not as if Angelina would be thinking about her, either. When the smug rats of the red carpet gasp and giggle and sneer at her as a “homewrecker”, they’re assuming her active aggression– or perhaps they just haven’t gotten over the fact that their last boyfriend left them for someone else.

What disturbs me about this hip indie movie trying to attempt the ‘progressive love fails’ approach is that they build up a new, complex frontier for a more honest relationship and then tear it down with a stubborn, short sighted and typical perspective. Marriage is an economical design, America. Crossing the threshold you’re suddenly faced with mortgages, shared bills, the off-spring/spawn which is easier with a shared name on each contract… but also, the impending weight of a sadomasochistic responsibility: only knowing one person intimately for the rest of your life. Not only that, what you would like to do with your body takes priority over your very own will.

Why has love become slavery? If it is positive and overcomes all obstacles, if it stops wars and heals deep wounds, why must we end up using it as a bloody whip against ourselves and the people we do ‘love’?

This is why Jason left me. HA/JK