Matters of Trust

I have been sick lately, the usual sinus crud, but it's been making me wish I could find a quiet corner to curl up and die in. I have stubbornly and foolishly been dragging myself through my regular routine, so by yesterday evening, I was to the point of shaking weakness and tears. Why, oh why, don't I just take the kind of advice I would give others? Go home and rest....

Anyway, sometime during the past few days, I was with a gathering of friends, and listening to a conversation about how men should treat women. One of the guys was talking about how to treat a woman, and his ideas included wine, firelight, and poetry. The other women at the table were pretty much astounded that any man could come up with something like that on his own since so many men seem to have no idea whatsoever that fire can be used for anything but destruction or food preparation and that poetry exists outside required and loathed coursework long forgotten. Even in my weakened and sickened state, I thought his ideas were pretty good, too. The guy in question is a real sweetheart. He's recently been treated about as badly as you can be by a woman, and yet he still manages to come up with something like this, so that's another gold star in the plus column for him.

At that moment, though, everything froze. A ghost entered the room, at least for me. I could practically see T., my ex, standing in the doorway smirking. He, too, knew about the value of poetry, wine, and firelight. He knew all kinds of things about what women like and how we work. In fact, he'd made it sort of his life's passionate study. He prided himself on it. The great downside to this, of course, is that he couldn't be bothered to please only one woman. There were far too many of us in the world who needed his tender ministrations....

The ghost was only there for me. Nobody else noticed, and since I was sick and largely just sort of sitting in the corner suffering anyway, I doubt my expression actually changed much. I just wonder if there's ever going to come a time when I don't have to look at guys and not think of the ghosts of the past.