My friend Kristen posted this.

It seems only appropriate to share, after my muttering and musing yesterday.

I spent a quiet evening at home, reading on the couch while the fireplace cycled on and off. I must say, a good book is far easier on the nerves than a preoccupied man.

One of the exceedingly minor characters, a young harlot who is wise as well as worldly, remarks to one of the major characters that the young man who has been her protector and is leaving to fulfill his destiny, is a man who truly likes women. The man to whom she is speaking remarks that he thought all men liked women. She tells him that all men like to lay with women (that may have been the case in the twelfth century; it is less certain now, even for men who are not attracted to other men), but that precious few of them, at least in her experience, truly like women.

Which led me to think about various men of my acquaintance. Some of them seem happiest in the company of their female friends. Others are wary of entanglement, profess themselves unable to understand us, and nevertheless treat us with impeccable and unvarying respect [and if they encounter women who inspire not respect, but fear and loathing, simply avoid those women as much as decently possible]. Still others are attracted to us but, I suspect, rather wish they were not.

When I woke this morning, I tried to put my guys into various buckets and gave it up as a lost cause, because I think there are at least three continuums (continua?) playing into it: desire and its absence, like and dislike, self-discipline and license. It’s not like Mendel and the beans and the four-space grid. It’s more like a logic puzzle that occupies three dimensions and is quite possibly printed on the face of a Rubik’s Cube.

A coworker asked, “Are you still dating Santa?”
“No, we’re just friends.”
“Are you sad?”
“Not anymore.”

And it’s cool, because I’m not. The time may come when I can sit down to dinner with him and wish neither to kiss him, nor to pinch his head off. I pray for him and his tribe, not in an “oh please, may I have him when I grow up” way, but because he is my friend, and I want him to be happy.

But I think that GreyhoundWoman was right, when she said he makes a better friend than a husband. I have heard her side of things for the much of the last 15 years, and it is both good and enlightening to hear his side of things. And at the moment, I want to pinch both their heads off, for entirely different reasons. [You can love people, and (mostly) like them, and still want to pinch their heads off; anyone who does not understand this, has never been a teenager. Or the parent of one.]

Today’s agenda? Restock the fridge and pantry, get Lorelai safety inspected, attend the convert baptism this afternoon, start the ribbing on sock #2, pay a few bills, finish the book I borrowed from BestFriend, enter changes into the computer at church for VT routes, putter a little around the house, practice on the recorder, and nap as much as possible.