Just got up to date in Majorca Flats.. U are a great writer Nick. Characters are nicely drawn, likeable, and u make me care what happens to them.
Difficult for me to believe you can write that way about man to man tenderness, and you say you've not had it with the guys you've had sex with. You write so realistically, not cloying, just DTE.. You got a nice imagination!
I suppose empathy comes in to why i was so engrossed..as I can see myself potentially in some of them. Especially Cody... Makes me very glad I've made the decisions that I have.
It made me a little sad. Not because he praised my writings -- I love that. (And thank you, buddy!) I earn no money from what I write, so to have someone tell me it hits the spot is satisfying and pleasing. It encourages me to go on writing.
No, it was because it made me think. And the truth is that no man other than my father, and then only when I was a liitle boy, has ever held me with love. And you know what? Now, no man ever will. All the men who fucked me didn't love me. It was just sex.
Are men capable of love, real love, not just a rush of oxytocin as they come? Love when the man they love is sick or grumpy? Love when he's old and warty? Love, the love which conquers all? I must go on believing that it does exist, and yet .... yet I am starting to wonder. To wonder whether there isn't something in the male psyche, in our genes, which makes it hard for too many of us to love, dispassionately and selflessly. I know there are some men who love other men in this way. And they give me hope, but a general and impersonal hope, because there won't ever be one for me.
There's no point grumbling. It is was it is. And we must bear our burdens without complaining, and I do try to do that (believe it or not!) Other people endure worse. Yet love is so central to our humanity, to our sense of worth, to our happiness. Not money, not possessions.
Love.
I never wanted more from the men I loved. And I've never had it.
2 comments:
Believe it or not, men are just as capable of true, complete and unconditional love as any other creature. I’m a man. Some say a Man’s man. I’m cranky, crotchety, cynical, scornful and just chock full of my own self. But I do love, and get love. I love my wife. I love my cats. I love and care for them as the core of my soul and being. People I work with and casually know me think I’m a wonderful and caring guy. They're right.
I figured out a long time ago that the key to this is to understand that I can give love, and thus deserve get love. Being a man has nothing to do with it. Nor does being old, fat, unhealthy, bald or anything else in terms of outward stuff. (I’m a member of all those clubs, and it hasn’t hampered me.)
But you do have to ready yourself ready for love. Decide you are a good person, that you will offer wonderful things to a deserving. (Looking over your writings, I’d say that’s pretty obvious.)
Don’t say “there will never be one for me.” As smart and self-aware as you may be, you can’t predict the future, what will happen to you, or what situations the world will present to you.
What you can do is open yourself up for the possibilities. Chances are you’ll find it when and where you least expect it. That’s what happened to me.
Make yourself open and available to love. If you do, you’ll find it. If you don’t, not finding it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Jim, thanks for commenting. I know there are some men who love. Yet it seems to be a minority of men. So many men are focussed on the sex, not the love. I'm the other way round.
Many of my readers think I'm a woman because of the emotional patterns in my writing. I'm not.
Thanks for commenting.
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