New Frontiers

(But Can't We Still Have Sex???)
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "Dear to us are those who love us. . . but dearer are those who reject us as unworthy, for they add another life; they build a heaven before us whereof we had not dreamed, and thereby supply to us new powers out of the recesses of the spirit."

He must have written this AFTER he came down with Alzheimers. In reality, rejection is only good if you think you are immortal and I don't, and if Alzheimers has anything to say, neither was Emmerson.

Nor Lake and Palmer for that matter.

In the last 2 months nearly everything I have yearned for these past few years came to be and I've safely lived to tell about it. The dangling carrot was gobbled and it was unfulfilling. The story is nothing unique, however from my nihilistic viewpoint it may be worth recalling. For some reason I am attracted to type A women, though I am more like type Z myself. The incompatibility issues finally led to a bloodless pact followed by your standard attempt to continue practicing procreation and the slow withdrawal into a state of powerful touch hunger that can only be ameliorated by lack of visual contact. But peaceful nonetheless, until of course, another man answers the phone.

For me love is a mental thing that takes time and experience. The initial infatuation is fun but patently illusory. The fact that she doesn't realize this is a gross turn-off for me. Many people I know would look at me like a nutcase if I told them that romantic infatuation was developed by natural selection to coax humans into procreating, generally against their better judgement. Sometimes I forget that this is even a point of contention, but then again I may as well be from outer space. A handful of biology classes around the age of 20 are absolutely invaluable for preventing years of side-tracked brainwashing in any of one's endeavors.

The deeper love was never there, but it was coming. In fact it was beginning to blossom just as the romantic love entered it's death throes. At the Oregon caves she sat in the 109 degree heat waiting for the next tour through the 42 degree ice-melt chilled cave. We wore pants and sweaters around our waists in 109 degrees waiting beneath the beating noon sun. I wandered off inside the shade of a shop and she didn't follow. I could see she was disinterested other than friends. We already knew this, but the sex hadn't stopped. To me this is ideal- a best friend and sex partner. What could be better?

I don't believe in romantic love, so I couldn't care less whether it was there or not. But for her it *has* to be there, like in the movies. There has to be tension and drama and bursts of irrational testosterone to make the juices of pointless Darwinian yearning take their natural course on this cosmic hamsterwheel to nowhere. She doesn't understand this yet, though she is older than I am and possibly more intelligent. Maybe to understand this clear fact is to be humanly dead. That is my worst fear. I'd like to think it were any other way, but romantic love gives me the creeps. It's just fraudulent- exhibit A in the evidence against God. She would never accept such an assertion and I mostly keep it to myself. I feel it when it's there, enjoy it, but see it for what it is. Could be I'll run into this problem time and again because for whatever reason I am attracted to these types of women- you know, the ones with fine asses and tits, cute faces.. you know the type. The ones whose self-image is so molded by appearance (completely unknown to themselves) that it takes decades to see there is no real privelige. The angle of a lip during a smile, an elegant posture, a shapely chest, a 3:2 hip ratio- if powerful enough can take even the wisest potential human and make them into the butt of the cosmic joke once gravity has it's say. Ha ha, and here all this time you thought it was some special attribute you cultivated so hard, some spiritual soul quality or some shit gifted by lifetimes of karma. In a rational world I'd complain. In the real world I just lick, suck and squeeze everything as often as possible, then think how much of a damned darwinian robot I am for two minutes a day sitting on a cold ceramic ring. And the moral of this story is, I am more of a nihilist than ever. Human nature has never seemed more transparently absurd to me than now. Most thought these experiences would have the opposite affect for me. I knew they would not. Perhaps I avoided these experiences in part because I was terrified of becoming even more nihilistic. Actually, I know this to be true. The fantasy of what could be is more protective than what is.

Of course, I'm "too nice" for her. The nihilist, the godless atheist- too nice. He always tells the waitress the food was fine even when it sucks. But she just works there, she doesn't give a fuck and has nothing to do with the food so why fuss? "You have to walk like you own the earth" she says. And I can see an image of Charles Darwin forming in the curl of her ear, a hanging lock his beard. We met on a secular/atheist website as this is our criteria for friends/dating. But it's not enough to just know there are no personal deities. Any idiot knows that. You also have to know where your biology comes from so you can at least pretend to have free will.

I'm sure there are plenty of assholes in shining armor left. The cosmos must be teeming with them.