2003-09-22 - 2:46 p.m. Love 7 Passions They were looking at each other from across the room when I whispered to my friend Erika that I though that they would look good together. One was taller and had broad shoulders, while the counterpart was slender possessing a spry tight little body. She didn�t know what I was talking about, but told me to finish my beer. When I said that I never thought anything would happen, but I suppose that I got the ball rolling. I went over to Bruce, the taller, broader one and told him that I wanted him to meet someone. Bruce was a friend of mine from back in high school. He was a great kid who was quick with a joke. He always seemed a little out of place in my WASPY high school, but he was very socially conscious, so no one ever really noticed his true awkwardness. Bruce and I were mostly social friends, being that we never really did anything together. It would be like we would see each other in class or in the halls and say �hi�. Or we would see each at a party we were both at and meet up and talk. But we never went to the party together. And we never left together. But I always liked the kid. He was one of those people on the periphery of your life that was a quality person to know, but not be forced to spend lots of time with. Bruce was a friend from college, who transferred in from a small little college that he didn�t get along well in. He moved into my hallway sophomore year and we hit it off right away. We moved in together later the next semester into this small dingy apartment 2 miles away from school with four other slobby guys. It was a fantastic experience as we would stay up later far to often, drink far too much, and eat pizza far too frequently. If you haven�t done it you really should. Bruce functioned as the house nag, bugging the sluggish mass of men into �doing something with your sorry existences.� He was the cheerleader leading the athletes to conquer germs with mops and sponges. I think sickness would have descended into that den of filth were he not so concerned about the oncoming plague. So then I introduced them. Bruce, this is Bruce. I hope that you can remember that. Coming off a few failed relationships Bruce, the slender one that I lived with in college, immediately fell for the hulking mass of meat that he sized my high school friend up as being. The larger, less slutty, Bruce was flattered by the immediate forcefulness of College Bruce�s come on�s but at the same time reserved since no everyone knew of his genital preference. But the night was young, and the keg had a lot left to be drank. After some time it was clear that Bruce and Bruce would be a couple, at least for a period of time. Erika later told me that I was such the silly matchmaker. She scolded me for putting the two gay people together as if it would automatically work. I still maintain that it DID work, and thus I made a good decision. She maintained that she hates it when the two single people at couple parties always get paired off as if they are expected to naturally fit together. I digress, Bruce and Bruce ended up going home together. I am not sure to whose house, but I figured it was most likely Bruce�s abode. HA! Actually since this name game creates obvious dilemma�s we did what most guys do and referred to the two of them by their last names, Duncan and Mike. Mickolvoc was shorten Ellis Island style, and most people renamed them this to avoid confusion. However, those two still called each other Bruce or Brucey. I suppose that�s fine since they wouldn�t get confused between each other�kinda like twins being able to tell each other apart. I am getting ahead of myself. Bruce called� sorry. High School Bruce is Mike. Mike called me first, which was surprising because he was my less good friends of the two. However, he wanted to thank me for introducing the two of them and told me that they had a wonderful time and that Bruce�Dunkin� was a really cool kid. He doesn�t use �cool kid� often, so I felt like it meant something. �Cool kid,� was his code word for �hot dude who I am totally crushing on.� Later in the day I received at phone call from Dunkin. He told my that Mike was really hot and a tiger in the sack. Dunkin was much more forward with information, maybe a bit too forward. I was kind of appalled that they �did it� on the first date. Dunkin maintained it was all Mike�s idea, but I am not so sure. He knows that I am going to be protective of Mike, but also won�t ask Mike to confirm or deny the story. Either way they were together like beer and football over the next few months, hanging out together all the time. It got pretty intense. They had pet names, theme songs, and inside jokes that you would think would take years to develop. I think they even went on a picnic together! They are in love and it make me happy to think of two of my friend this way. Erika always says though, that they aren�t in love yet. She thinks that love doesn�t happen this soon in a relationship. Love is the patcience to put up with things that are annoying about someone else, because you respect other things about them more. I didn�t agree with her. I thought of love as more of a passionate attraction. Like the way magnets attract and repel on another. Sometimes they just snap together. Erika, of course, told me I was a fool. I told her that it couldn�t be the case. I told her that if that was the case then love isn�t what they show in the movies or sing about in songs. She said that I was right. Love isn�t any of those things. That�s the commercialization of our desire to have a perfect love. I told her she was being bitter again. She didn�t take it well. But it got me to thinking. If I lived with my friend Erika, despite all of our differences, and lack of sexual attraction, we would get along. If I never got married, and me and her decided to live together as friends, we would end up acting like a couple. Picking up responsibilities. Living together grasping for a comparative advantage; I would kill the bugs, she would do laundry. I would cook, she would clean the bathroom. I would watch the game, she would get the beer. HA! It would be the sort of thing that we could actually do. So what does that mean? If I could spend the rest of my life with my best friend, but never have that sexual attraction, does that mean I wouldn�t experience love? Or is love confused with passion? Is love confused with duty? Bruce squared never really found love. Dunkin and Mike were great for a time when they were together for about a year, but like so many people do they moved in together. They signed a one year lease at this place in the city, and lived there for two months, until Mike showed up on my doorstop crying one afternoon in late October. Mike told me that it was over between him and Dunkin. I, of course, asked �why� and �what happened,� though I expected the answer to be that Dunkin cheated, as he often did in college. Mike told me that Dunkin didn�t love him, he just was attracted to Mike, and that in the end, this just led Dunkin to treating Mike like a piece of shit, over a piece of shit. I, of course, asked �what� and �why happened?� (hee hee) thoroughly confused at this point. Mike told me that he had taken a rather large poop. Something that I didn�t want to hear about, but he was in distress. He told me that this rather large poop has managed to clog the potty. Apparently, as Mike Described it, the smell was putrid and the toilet wouldn�t flush anything down. The actual unit of poop was one large solid unflushable log of reeking waste. Confused and upset over his clogging of the toilet he believed the only way that to �right the ship� was to chop the log unit into smaller more manageable units of compost. So he got a butter knife from the kitchen and did what needed to be done. The only thing I could think to ask was �what did you eat� to make a mental note to never eat that meal in my lifetime ever again. Incidentally, Eggplant Parmesan was the answer. Then I follow up with the question that was much more pressing. What did any of this have to do with the breakup? Mike then told me that his Brucy was such a clean freak that when I tried to relay the story all Dunkin could ask was where the knife was. Mike insisted that Dunkin just kept asking where he put the knife. Mike can be overly dramatic, but apparently fairly shaken up over his toilet Gynsu experience. He told me that all he wanted was comfort from Dunkin and all he got was a lecture about cleaning responsibilities. He felt like Dunkin didn�t care for him. He felt like Dunkin would never love him. It was obvious to me that they couldn�t live together. I did bring up the point to Mike that it is pretty gross to have an ass knife wandering around the house. Mike silenced me by simply saying that if Dunkin was concerned about getting sick from something near Mike�s anus, he would have to change his whole lifestyle. I didn�t press the issue any further. Eventually Dunkin contacted me realizing that this heated romance was all over. He told me that once they moved in the passion was gone and the only thing left was sex and bickering. Mike paid have the lease and I was convinced to move in to the location to pay the other half. It was a fun year living with Dunkin, but I lost touch with Mike, since he never called or came around. The whole thing was sad really. Erika told me that this is what happens when passions burn out. If love isn�t there to keep things together then the whole thing will just fall apart. But I am not sure I buy that. Dunkin and I lived together and laughed and respected each other, but we were never in love. So I am left at the end of my own story not know where lines being and end. Where is passion when love is gone? Where is respect without love? Is love an ember of wood that slowly looses heat? Or is it a cold business deal where two people shake hands and make a deal that neither are too sure about? I like to think of love as a picnic. It takes a lot of work to get everything together, but once you get to your isolated location nestled in a field or hill overlooking the beautiful sky and rolling earth and take out that cool tangy ham sandwich; its pure magic. | |||||||||||
