Lifetime Curse

I have written elsewhere that most of my problems in life have generally stemmed from three sources, which on occasion have overlapped substantially:

• my total inability to accept authority figures and/or their pissy little rules
• my stubbornness and refusal to respond (positively) to ultimatums
• my love of the female of the species

The first two are pretty self-explanatory, but as for the third… well, it has various layers.

My infatuation with the female sex was documented at an early age.  In first grade I became infatuated with a lovely Jewish girl named Lynette, and tried for ages to get her to kiss me, but to no avail.  With that abject failure to guide me, I left off any kind of physical approach for years thereafter, but the infatuation for for the opposite sex stayed with me.

I kissed a girl for the first time at age 13, while on our annual summer holiday on the Natal north coast.  (Thanks, Ingrid!)  That a very attractive blonde Dutch girl allowed me to kiss her, nay even to French kiss her, made me realize that maybe just maybe things weren’t going to be horrible and I wasn’t going to end up, in today’s terminology, as an incel.

At age 14, my housemaster referred to my attitude (correctly) as “cherchez la femme ” — I wasn’t even aware of it, but he obviously saw the signs:  longing glances at the few female teachers at our boarding school, and the fact that I was one of the first guys in my class to actually have a steady girlfriend (hi, Ethne!) who nearly got me into serious trouble when a teacher caught me making out with her not clandestinely but right out in the open at a school rugby match.  Luckily for me, he was a cool teacher and just told me to stop doing that (as opposed to shopping me to my housemaster, which would have ended badly — caning, suspension, you get my drift).

I once faked an injury to avoid playing a weekend sports match against a rival school, just so that I could skip school and go to the movies with my girlfriend — as I recall, the fourth or fifth after Ethne (hi, Althea!  or was it Bridget?).  Sadly, I was busted by another teacher who saw me holding her hand at the bus stop;  and guessing (correctly) that I didn’t have a “pass” (we called them an exeat ) to leave the school grounds, he turned me over to my housemaster who promptly flogged me and “gated” me (kept me at school over the weekend) for three full weeks.

I’ve already told about the time when, in my final year at high school, I was found to have entertained my girlfriend in my dorm room — as it turned out, quite innocently in that there was no romantic activity, but which very nearly got me expelled.

And on and on it went over the years thereafter:  a catalogue of romantic catastrophes, broken hearts, failed relationships, infidelities, divorces etc.

All driven by my insatiable infatuation with women.  Fortunately, as I’ve got older, the problem has become milder (thank gawd) but I still love women, even though the actual interaction with them has softened to merely flirting (a constant source of irritation to New Wife, who is blessedly aware that it’s quite harmless).  Here’s an example (and it’s quite harmless, as you will see).

I was shopping at the supermarket some time ago, and as it happened, on the list was a female-oriented product which I was unable to locate.  (Not sanitary protection, of course — I know where to find that — but it was something like a sewing kit or maybe needles.)  Because I’m a man, I don’t ask for directions and in any event, the store people were nowhere in evidence and I wasn’t going to go searching for a specimen.  But there was a woman shopping in the aisle, so I walked up to her and said, “Excuse me:  I’m sorry to bother you but you are a lady — a very attractive lady, by the way, but that’s a topic for another time — and so you probably know where I can find [this product].  Can you help me?”

Of course, this being in the South, she was properly appreciative of the compliment and didn’t think I was oppressing her or trying to rape her or whatever the Modern Delusional Woman thinks when confronted with this kind of situation.   Instead, she smiled (dimples!), thanked me for the compliment, and told me where  to find the thing.  And that was the end of it.  (By the way, she wasn’t very attractive, but hell, it cost me nothing and might have made her day, so whatever.)  Just an innocent encounter, with no ulterior motive whatsoever.  (Had this happened when I was in my twenties… well.)

This behavior has persisted even into my advanced years.  I call it Vestigial Testosterone Syndrome (VTS):  vestigial because it’s not the raging forest fire of my youth, but yet there are still a few embers glowing amongst the ashes.

I can’t even stop looking at attractive women when I’m out and about.  The habit is completely ingrained at this point, and I’ll probably never stop.  On my deathbed I’ll doubtless be flirting with the nurse.

It’s not some kind of leering silliness, either.  I appreciate the female form in all its beauty and wonder, much as I appreciate a nice-looking car, or a painting.  It’s beauty — sometimes flawed, sometimes exquisite — and I love it, all of it.

If this causes some people to have the modern-day apoplexy at my gall in having male tendencies, I don’t care.

Which, come to think of it, may well be a fourth trait of my personality to cause me trouble:  my total indifference towards other people’s opinions of me and my actions.