nose-picking, groping, domestic space, books, muscles, and so forth

What do these categories have in common?

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You guessed it. They’re all points of comparison between Performer and SDF.

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Masculinity.

I’m trying to understand it.

Maybe I’ll have to be an octogenarian before I do, but I hope not. I’m ready now.

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MEN CAN BE YUCKY

Okay, so the first category for us to consider today is masculine bad habits. I remember a woman once said to me, ‘Every man has some disgusting habit.’

My ex-husband’s disgusting habit was not wiping his ass carefully enough. His underpants were full of what Erica Jong calls ’shit-streaks.’

Performer’s bad habit, as many of you remember well, was nose-picking.

I had known him less than two months when this issue emerged as a point of contention. To summarize: although I never exactly called it a deal-breaker, it would have been. He acknowledged that I was not the only person who had complained about it; some of his violin students had also. But his feeling was, Hey, that’s who I am and that’s what I do.

My main argument against it (aside from my personal feeling of revulsion, which didn’t carry much weight with him), was that
men of his class just didn’t do that: in so many words, I said, Educated professional males in this society don’t pick their noses in public.

What I especially had going for me is that he had singled out a man on a boat trip we were taking and said something like, Men who look like that always have voices like that. It was class snobbery (that I could sympathize with) that inspired Performer to make that remark.

I said, when the nose-picking issue reared its ugly head some time later, that he looked worse than the man on the boat.

Not right away, but sometime later, he said that that argument persuaded him, namely, that men of his class in this society etc etc.

And he stopped.

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I’ve meant to send Becky (the ex-wife he returned to, dumping me unceremoniously and abruptly) a message saying, So Becky! I’ve returned to you a man who no longer picks his nose! and who has learned a few things about sex! Wanna thank me??

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Unfortunately for all concerned I just haven’t had the time. Too busy answering blog comments.

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Speaking of which:

groping is SDF’s bad habit. For my complaint about that, and for his response, see the COMMENTS to the previous post. Just scroll down a bit, and you’ll find them.

SDF was not only not defensive. He was, as I had anticipated, immediately apologetic, acknowledging his inexperience in contemporary courtship, and expressing his wish to do better. As one of my readers wrote me in a private message, it was a ’sad/sweet’ response.

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DOMESTIC SPACE

My living room has been the site of two recent dating adventures, both covered in some detail in this blog:

On Sunday 16 December 2007, between about 5:35 pm and 9:30 pm (my message to Rolly was sent at 9:39 pm, so that’s how I estimate the time of ending), Performer sat in a nice semi-upholstered arm-chair that I inherited from my grandmother, with his legs resting on the matching ottoman, making himself entirely comfortable in a seat that did not allow proximity to me, and dumped me. For the details, see here and here and here.

I sat in a small, cheaper, modern upholstered chair directly opposite him. We had never sat in those two chairs at the same time that way ever before. It was a new positioning.

* * *
Because I have a photograph of my mother’s long-dead brother, a beloved uncle I never met, sitting in that same chair in about 1927, I felt the chair had been profaned.

I moved it out of the way for a while, and then I re-positioned it in a way that did not remind me of that extremely unpleasant final session with Performer, as the extent of his dishonesty and lack of integrity was revealed to me; and all, I must add, with not the slightest sense that I had any right to feel betrayed.

Au contraire, his attitude was that a divine miracle had happened and he was at last going to be reunited with his ‘real’ family.

* * *

The dancing-and-groping described in the previous post (just scroll down if you haven’t yet had the pleasure of reading it) also took place in my living room.

The making-out, which was of course consensual, though not as much fun as it would have been if the groping hadn’t preceded it, took place on the sofa.

The next afternoon my friend R visited me (the one who urged me to visit the ‘dating’ synagogue, which I think is actually a ‘rocking’ synagogue).
As we were sitting on that same sofa chatting, I felt that the sacredness of my domestic space was being re-established.

Or, to put it another way, I felt that the slight desecration of the previous night was being erased.

I think there are some mixed dead metaphors in that previous sentence, but I trust the meaning is clear: my living-room was ‘nice’ again.

Let me add, on behalf of SDF (whose character is I hope somewhat redeemed by that ’sad/sweet’ message pasted into the Comments), that he’s a very ‘helpful’ person. We had rolled the rug back for the dancing, together, but before he left, I asked if he would roll it back — himself. I didn’t feel like bending over.

He did so immediately — just as he had helped slice the tomatoes with no fuss.

I have a feeling I’m making him sound like a big little boy. Hmmmm…..

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BOOKS

Last summer, on my visit to his farm, I gave Performer a copy of a book I published a couple of years ago. I didn’t expect him to read every word of it, but I thought that because (he said) he loved me, he must want to get to know me better, and reading that book would be one way to do it. And parts of it make very lively reading.

He later gave me a copy of a book he had published, one about music, a spiral-bound book with a glossy cover, and his photo in the middle of it.

I kept it on the piano.

When, after a few hours on that memorable Sunday 16 December evening, I finally accepted that our relationship was Over, Kaput, Done with, FINISHED, I got up and in a kind of zombie-like way began gathering together things within reach that belonged to him. Stupidly I gathered a box of his favorite kind of cookies that I had just bought for him: why didn’t I save that to serve to someone else, company, my children, anyone? I guess because I wasn’t thinking that strategically.

Anyway, one of the things I gathered was his book, from the music rack on the piano.

I asked him to give me mine back and pack it with the robe, toothbrush et al. that he was going to leave with the doorman the next morning. He said something about wanting to read the book but I made it clear that I wanted it back. He said he’d buy a copy, but I know he hasn’t, because I can tell when the amazon.com numbers change.

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Even before he met me, SDF bought two of my books from amazon.com and moreover even read parts of them. During our first date, I recommended a particular chapter of one of them, and during the week between our first and second dates he read that chapter, enjoyed it, and emailed me comments about it.

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Perhaps you’re beginning to see why it’s so difficult to characterize SDF: there’s a lot of sweetness there, a certain amount of innocence, and genuine interest in me, all of which is difficult to square with the irritating adolescent groping, too much too soon and too impersonal.

MUSCLES

Performer could only complete the sexual act in one position.

That was not true of him in his youth, but he was 70 and almost 71 when we were together, if together is the word, and it may not be, and he had not had sex with his wife in three or four years (the number kept changing, as I tried to wrap my brain around his recent romantic history), and he was out of practice.

The first time we tried that position, Performer — I can’t figure out how to complete that sentence with Performer as the subject of the verb. Let’s just say that it wasn’t a natural position for me to be in, and I later realized that I must have pulled a muscle. That muscle is in the inner left thigh somewhere.

I didn’t realize I’d pulled it till I tried to sit cross-legged not long afterwards and realized I couldn’t without great pain.

* * *

I was too embarrassed to tell a doctor about it, and anyway, the last time I saw a doctor I could have asked, I was under the impression that it was getting better.

But it wasn’t.

It’s a little better now, but I can still feel it.

Oddly enough, however, it never bothered me during sex with Performer.

* * *
It crossed my mind that you might be curious to know just what that position was. With your prurient interest in mind, I’ve just left my trail across about thirty ’sexual position’ websites in an attempt to find it:

go to

http://www.beecourse.com/info.aspx?action=lovingkarma

The one preferred by Performer is called ‘Yab Yom’ — a sitting-up position that, in porn lingo, ‘allows for deep penetration.’

(I should add, so you don’t think I’m completely out of shape, that Performer is much wider than the man in the picture, and so getting into that position, especially the first time, was not easy. I also had to make sure I didn’t kick him in the face. In retrospect I think perhaps I should have. But at any rate, once I was in the position, I was fine, and on subsequent occasions I had no problem getting into it. It was just that first time…..)

* * *

So how did I injure a muscle with SDF? you must be wondering.

No, neither being-groped nor avoiding-being-groped was injurious to my health.

It was the dancing.

My dance teacher was only able to teach me one ‘move’ that I could master, at least in the 50-minute lesson, and I did it over and over and over practicing, and quite a lot while dancing with SDF.

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The next day, I realized I must have pulled a muscle, something on my right side in the pelvic area.

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So now I have men-related injuries on the left and on the right.

The old one, the one of the left from Performer, is much better. The one on the right is still sore. But it’s not too bad.

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AND SO FORTH

My Profile Picture

Performer (as you might remember) said that at first sight of me he was disappointed that I didn’t look ‘as perfect as the picture,’ but gradually he realized I — now I can’t remember his exact words. They’re in a post somewhere. At any rate, it was something to the effect that I had attractions and he was interested in me.

Considering that his ex-wife looks like a fat pink pig, and I’m not exaggerating, I think he was very lucky to have me to look at for six months. He even said that I was the only one of the women he’d ever been with (and that’s maybe 10 or 12) who could be considered ‘eye-candy.’

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SDF, in that late-at-night-on-the-sofa conversation, said that I looked much better than my profile picture, because that looked ‘as if it belongs on a book jacket.’

I hope to use it in just such a place some day.

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Members

And oh yes, since you’re wondering, and so long as I’m doing this detailed comparison of such important characteristics, SDF is about 10 times bigger than Performer.

Everywhere.

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But no links or photos; just use your imagination.

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But…

The thing is, I loved Performer, the more fool I, and I’ll never fall in love with SDF.

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