Ooops!

When I wrote about visiting Debbie at her home, I said there was one more topic we discussed that deserved a post of its own.  What happened was that a few days before, while we were e-mailing each other back and forth over the question when I am going to stop wearing my wedding ring, Debbie accidentally forwarded the whole e-mail stream to somebody else. 

In fairness she was tired, so she didn't notice when the cursor apparently jumped back into the address bar where it didn't belong and interpreted one or two keystrokes as the first letters of another friend's e-mail address.  Consequently this long conversation, in which Debbie was trying to unpack how uncomfortable she felt about desiring me so intensely while I am still married to somebody else -- and during which we each punctuated our remarks with professions that naturally we would still love each other no matter how the discussion turned out -- showed up not only in my Inbox but in that of her friend Aimee as well.

Ooops!

That much I already knew.  And when Debbie found out what had happened (because Aimee had e-mailed her right away about it), she let me know that if it had to be anybody she was at least glad it was Aimee.  She said that Aimee is already someone with whom she has shared the depths of her soul, someone she knws she can trust with anything.  So (in effect) thank God it was her.  Debbie also reminded me that nothing we had said was bad in any way, and that much of it was rather beautiful.

But Sunday I learned more about it.  Apparently she and Aimee, though they live in different states, are part of some kind of professional work group that collaborates on projects every so often.  I didn't quite catch the details.  And there was a phone call the next day between Debbie and Aimee, and including one other woman as well.  Aimee asked Debbie's permission to talk about what had happened (rather than keep it behind the back of the third woman), and then explained how the whole thing had gone at her end.

First, she had scanned the e-mail, realized that it was intensely personal (and not for her), and deleted it.  Then she had talked to her friends, asking "Would you have read the whole thing if it had been you?" and every single one of them said "Yes, of course!"  And she found her own feelings quite conflicted.  On the one hand she was happy for Debbie at finding someone after all the trouble of her divorce and her loneliness thereafter.  On the other hand she felt kind of jealous, as if two of her best friends [two?] were whispering something behind her back that excluded her.

Fascinating story.  Of course, I said I didn't want to think of Aimee feeling bad over any of this.  Is there any chance that I might meet her some time?  Maybe so ... she's likely to be in our state for an event several months from now.  Is she herself alone?  Good heavens no, she has a husband and a family ... and in fact in earlier years Debbie had envied her those things.  But now of course Debbie is the one with the radiant NRE-glow, so it's only natural that Aimee should feel twinges the other direction.

I was also interested by the contrast between friendship and romance.  If I had anything profound to say about it, that would be the point of this post (not just the story).  The thing is, Aimee's feelings of exclusion look (from a certain point of view) almost exactly like what I used to feel whenever Wife would take another lover.  (See the three-part essay here, here, and here on this subject.)  But I don't think anybody really believes that Aimee is secretly lusting after Debbie's body (notwithstanding the article on female desire that D sent me once long ago).  So what is going on, then?  Why should Aimee feel so protective of her "relationship" with Debbie (if you want to call it that)?

In his last book, Allan Bloom talks about the differences between what makes a great lover and what makes a great friend.  He concludes unequivocally that they are different, but he does not come down in an obvious way in favor of either over the other.  Perhaps I should actually read the damned book instead of just ruffling the pages. and reading the dust jacket blurbs.  Maybe then I would understand better what has Aimee so upset.

It's a little small-scale drama.  Nothing on the kind of grand scale I used to see all the time with D.  But I still have to think that's a good thing.