Pickpockets in Athens

NOTE: I am back-dating this post to the month and year where it belongs. But in reality I am actually writing it more than five years later, the evening of January 13, 2023. I think I've got most of the details right, however.

Two weeks after I visited Debbie while on a business trip to Sticksville, Marie and I went to Greece.

Neither of us had ever been to Greece, and we wanted to go somewhere together. And I've wanted to visit Greece since I was a little kid. So we decided, We're grownups and we're neither of us tied down by other commitments—let's go! (It probably helped that I went to Peru with Son 2 a few years ago … helped break my mind out of a rut, if nothing else.)

The trip lasted a little over a week. We spent five days in Athens, a day taking the bus to Delphi, then a couple of days in Delphi before coming home. It was a lot of fun. We did touristy things and ate well. Most of the photos show one of us or the other, so I won't include them here. I will, however, absolutely endorse George the Famous Taxi Driver for his firm's wonderful service: one of George's drivers took us from the airport to our hotel, by way of a beach where we stopped to swim in the Aegean Sea, and a restaurant where we had the best lunch. Worth every penny.

I could write a whole post just about the food, but I won't. And many of the sights we saw were normal touristy sights that you could hear about from anyone. But I'll tell you a couple of stories that are maybe a bit more personal.

One of them happened on Ohi Day. We spent the day wandering around Athens seeing parades and crowds, and finding a lot of places closed. By the end of the day we found ourselves at a national museum of antiquities, and immersed ourselves for a few hours. (Incidentally, the next time I go to Greece I want to spend less time with antiquities and more time in bars or restaurants.) By the time we left it was evening, and we wanted to get back to our hotel. We found our way to the nearest subway stop, and there was a train already boarding. So we joined the crowd to make our way inside.

The crowd was bigger than we guessed, however, or something. Once we were there I felt myself lifted up off my feet and pushed into the car. Then it felt like someone was grabbing at me, and I heard a voice shout, "He went that way!" (In retrospect I should have been suspicious at hearing English, but I wasn't thinking.) So I wrestled my way back off the train to look for a fleeing suspect; Marie saw me leave and bolted as well, to stay with me. Right away the train pulled away, and of course there was nobody on the platform running anywhere. I checked my back pocket, and my wallet was gone … on the train, obviously, in the hands of someone cleverer and more devious than I am.

Well, shit.

Marie's purse was safe. She said someone had grabbed for it too, but it had an odd zipper mechanism that made it impregnable when it was on her body, and it was strapped to her almost like a backpack. So that was good. It was just me who had been robbed.

What to do? It took me a few minutes, standing there on the platform, to clear my head of all the emotions and realize that there was nothing else we could do that night expect go back to our hotel. So when the next train came along, we got on it. I was taking hold of myself and walking through the logical steps. What was in my wallet? About €200 in cash, my bank card, a credit card, and my driver's license. (Thank God I had emptied out the slips of paper with all my accounts and passwords before we'd left home!) Clearly the cash was gone. The driver's license could be replaced; but since we weren't driving in Greece, I wouldn't worry about it until I got back to the USA. That left the bank card and the credit card. Fortunately, Marie had brought her laptop computer on the trip, in case she wanted to do some writing, and the hotel had Internet access. I was able to go online and report my credit card stolen. When I tried to do that with my bank card, I got the password wrong (just because I was so rattled); but I called the service number, identified myself over the phone, changed my password, and reported that card stolen as well. When that was all done we told the concierge at the hotel (who doubled as the owner), and he gave us a long, sad story about how pickpockets haunted downtown and preyed on tourists, and we had to be very careful. He also told me that the next day I had to go to the police to file a report, even though the odds were that I would never get the wallet back. (And I did so.)

Marie paid for everything for the rest of the trip. I asked her to keep an accounting, and we settled up after we got home. I was kind of dazed for the rest of the evening—stunned, shell-shocked. I think I managed a couple of feeble jokes. And then the next day we were back doing other things again.

But it's interesting … Marie said (some time later) that in a strange way, she was glad it happened; or rather, that if something bad were going to happen she was glad she was there to see it. Specifically, she said she was glad to see how I reacted to a crisis like that. She said she knew plenty of people who would react by losing it: by yelling indiscriminately, and by blaming everyone around them irrationally. And I did none of those things. It made her feel much more comfortable and secure about the relationship.

I'm glad she feels more secure. It's certainly not because I'm any kind of saint that I act like that. It's just that, when I feel truly threatened, I shut down every extraneous reaction so that I can focus on what to do; and I step myself through the situation rationally because I feel completely lost, so that logic is the only tool I have left. I suppose it's some sort of fear reaction, rather than any grand virtue. Or whatever. Anyway, that's what I did and what I do.

       

Visiting Debbie

You all remember that it was a good three years ago — more, really — that Debbie broke up with me. It's been over a year and a half that I've been with Marie (though we still live a thousand miles apart). All that is a done deal. 

But I never got fed up with Debbie, the way I did with Wife or D, and from time to time I drop her a quick note, wishing her a happy birthday or the equivalent. And a month or so ago, I got a note back telling me she had recently moved (to be near her daughter and son-in-law) to a town in the next state over from Sticksville. "Stop by the next time you're in the area."

I'm writing this from a hotel in Sticksville right now. I'm here on work. But I built my travel schedule so I'd have time to visit as well. Marie knew I'd be visiting Debbie, and I had promised her nothing "unseemly" would happen ... by which I more or less meant we weren't going to fuck, or do anything else she had grounds to be jealous of. She didn't complain, though she did thank me for telling her right away and not hiding it.

I drove out to Debbie's place yesterday morning (Saturday). I got back to my hotel today (Sunday) about noon. I just finished sending Marie an email about what I did the rest of today, which I closed with the following paragraph:

As for my visit with Debbie, I'm treading a little cautiously just because I don't know how much you want to know. Certainly there was nothing unseemly, ... as promised. A light, chaste kiss when I arrived, another when I left — the kind of kiss your grandmother could give you and not attract attention — that's about as steamy as it got. The conversation could all have been printed in the newspaper without embarrassing anybody. We saw the sights and caught up with each other's news. I could spin the story out longer if you wanted — I'm sure you have confidence in that! 😀 But maybe you're not interested in more, knowing that the fundamentals are safe. You tell me.

And as far as it goes, that's more or less true. Which sounds a little remarkable. Really? Ex-lovers getting along like civilized adults and keeping their hands to themselves the whole time? Gosh, how mature we must both be!

And ... yeah. Sure. All of that.

Well, OK, strictly speaking there were maybe one or two more kisses than that, but they were all perfectly chaste. They may not have been quite grandmotherly, just because your grandmother probably never kissed you on the lips; but other than that they were perfectly demure. A light hug or two — well, yeah, but lots of people hug. None of the physical contact could ever have led any farther; we were both too careful for that. 

"Too careful" .... At one point when we were out and about we were standing next to each other and our hands gravitated automatically to each other ... and both of us twisted them out of the way just before they clasped. That told me we were both very conscious of Not Doing Anything Sexual. And of course we could never have been so conscious of deliberately avoiding any sexual signaling if we hadn't both been thinking about it all the time. (I know I was.)

True, I spent the night ... but I slept in a guest room. Besides, the drive from Sticksville to Debbie's place was three and a half hours each way. It would have been crazy to do the round trip in one day.

True, we spent the afternoon visiting covered bridges in the area — covered bridges that have become a major tourist attraction for lovers (like Niagara Falls used to be). But that's just because that's what's there to see. Those bridges just happen to be local. 

And true, one of the bridges had a guest book, where Debbie wrote; "Debbie and Hosea were here. We came from [my home state, 2000 miles away] to see the bridge." Then she laughed and said, "Well, it's not quite true, but close enough." But you don't have to interpret that romantically. Do you?

And all that is little shit. It gets more serious, because we cooked dinner together. We washed dishes together. In the morning we meditated together and then fixed breakfast together. There's intimacy for you. Who needs sex to be intimate, when you can work together in the same kitchen, picking up and handing off tasks smoothly and conveniently?

When I left, Debbie said she had really enjoyed my visit and we'd have to do it again next time. I agreed, and this time my voice didn't catch in my throat. I gave her a hug and a kiss and drove away as she left for church.

None of this diminishes my relationship with Marie in any way. The people who preach emotional exclusivity just have their facts wrong. I used to be one of them, so I know it's not easy to see. But it's so.

We're not lovers any more, Debbie and I, and I assume we never will be again. But I'll always love her.

Sent from my iPhone

The function of the orgasm

I just posted something new over on the Patio. See it here: https://hoseaspatio.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-function-of-orgasm.html.

Longtime readers will recognize echoes of the trilogy that starts here: https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/adultery-and-betrayal-1-what-is.html, but of course I really have in mind Part Two, here: https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/adultery-and-betrayal-2-meaning-of-sex.html.

And I suppose there are also hints of this one: https://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/promiscuous-but-choosy.html.

The new post isn't as long or as lyrical as any of these others. It's late and I'm tired. But it's my attempt as an unlettered layman to take on the entire field of evolutionary biology and say they are all wrong. Typical Tanatu humility, huh?

Hope you like it.
    

Rage

Just this morning something clicked for me, and I really don't like where it points. It's about my relationship with Marie.

Once upon a time I had a fantasy that I would post our emails online here, in which case I could just link to them. But that was too much work and I'm too lazy, so I never did it. All of which means that I have to pause now to give you some backstory.
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I. Last year, when Marie and I were first courting by e-mail, I explained that technically I am still married to Wife. I said the topic of marriage wasn't a big deal for me, by which I meant Debbie broke up with me because I wasn't going to divorce Wife and she didn't want to be involved long-term with a married man; but I don't see a problem with it because the marriage is just on paper at this point.

Marie, however, took me to mean, Marriage? Either way is fine. Sure, hell, why not? Then as the discussion progressed she realized that I have no intention of divorcing Wife, and that if Wife suddenly dropped dead I would have no intention of ever marrying anybody again. Been there. Done that. Got the bruises. No way.

Only it turns out (what I didn't understand at the time) that Marie had fantasized about marrying me ever since we knew each other in college. That she had always wanted to be Mrs. Tanatu. And that she figured now, in her fifties, was finally her chance to fulfill this lifelong ambition. Right up until I made it clear that it would never happen.

And Marie went ballistic. Thank God it was over e-mail and text messaging, but she said things that made me want to slap her. Or else cut her off permanently. Fine, I was overreacting too and I didn't do any of those things. I waited until I could be calm, and then called her and we discussed it patiently over the next week or so. Crisis averted.
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II. Another time the subject of sexually-transmitted diseases came up, and I said something which made her realize that I didn't worry too much about them. I haven't fucked that many women, and for the most part I think those women have been reasonable choosy about their partners. (Wife was becoming less choosy there at the end, but she and I had long since stopped fucking at that point.)

Now it's not like Marie herself had always been ultra-careful about condoms during her previous relationships. But she'd had only two male lovers in the 34 years since I had known her in college, each for a matter of weeks (well, maybe months). And she'd spent a lot of years in love with a woman who fucked other guys, but she and Marie seem to have gotten naked together maybe once or twice. So for all practical purposes, Marie had lived her adulthood celibate.

But she had these friends, see, who were a practicing non-monogamous couple and who explained to her the elaborate rules they had concocted to conduct their amours by. Anyone new had to provide a current medical test. All physical contact was mediated by latex until then. On and on the rules went. And so Marie somehow got the idea that this was normal. That everybody who ever fucks other people besides one single spouse follows the whole protocol. That any other behavior is by definition "high-risk".

So again, out of the blue she sent me this email that she was going to call her doctor right away to say that I was amazingly high-risk, and something something something. She went on, but I don't remember the rest. Again, I waited until I could be calm (which was a bit of an effort), then called her back and talked her down off her high horse. We both went to get STD tests. Mine came out completely clean, while hers showed positive for herpes. To be sure, my doctor said that was a meaningless result, because anybody who has ever had this or that kind of a cold will test positive for herpes. But Marie was a lot quieter on the subject after that. And we don't use condoms.
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III. Marie is very political (she's a left-wing Democrat) and so got very wrapped up in the 2016 election. She was one of the crowds of people who thought the world was going to end in a blaze of fire within 24 hours after the election was called for Donald Trump. And it turns out that her brother voted for Trump.

My point of view is that people have a lot of reasons for voting for whoever they vote for, and for the most part I try to stay out of other people's business. You will notice that I don't discuss politics very often on this blog, and I tend to assume that whichever party is in power will end up doing some things OK and will screw up others because that's pretty much been my experience. There are some people whose speeches I enjoy more than others, but there's a difference between being able to talk well and being able to govern well.

But Marie sent her brother a savage note demanding, "If I kill myself will that make America great enough for you?" She didn't tell me this. I heard it from her sister, who contacted me urgently asking if I thought Marie was genuinely suicidal. Their father blew his brains out when Marie was 12, so this family doesn't joke about suicide. So I called Marie, talked her into a calmer space, and then reported back to her family. And since then, her simmering hostility towards her brother (based pretty much entirely on his politics) has been unavoidably part of my business too.

Recently she told me that she had started to distrust her brother -- to think of him as an enemy -- ever since they were teenagers. She told me something about it and it seems that his biggest sin at the time was to stop playing with her and to play instead exclusively with his male friends. And I couldn't help thinking, ... ummm, ... isn't that kind of normal?
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IV. For the last few months we've had a long, lingering conversation about religion. Marie was brought up Catholic, spent a little time in her teens as a Born-Again, and then reacted violently against all religion by becoming a strident atheist.

Of course you know that my own point of view on religion is a lot vaguer than that, that I focus less on doctrine than on lived experience, and that I can feel something recognizable behind very different religious traditions. (See, for example, this post ... or just click on this filter.) And so we've been talking intellectually about the differences.

Until last Wednesday, when I sent her a note that included (among other things) the casual, flip remark that atheism is as much a matter of dogmatic faith as belief. I also called Richard Dawkins a Fundamentalist, and said that "trying to fight Scripture with geology is just as idiotic as ... [trying] to fight geology with Scripture."

And Marie lost her shit again. I won't quote from her reply. But I sent her an answer this morning saying that I was sorry for having hurt her, but that we also had to talk about her rage. What the fuck is going on? No other topic of conversation matters at this point.
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V. The thing that disturbs me -- to get finally back to the opening of this post -- is that I think I might know what it is. When I realized that her rage was sparked equally by the four incidents above (five if you count her experience with her younger brother in adolescence), I also realized that they could be reframed or restated as follows:

Marie fell into bouts of uncontrollable rage when:

1. I failed to comply with the script she had written for me as her future husband.
2. I failed to comply with the script she had assumed implicitly for me based on what her friends told her about how to protect against STDs.
3. Her brother expressed political opinions different from the ones that look right and obvious to her, and voted for a man she loathes.
4. Her brother ignored her as a teenager and went to play with other kids instead.
5. I denied her self-proclaimed identity as a follower of scientific empiricism, and insisted that her atheism is just as much a faith commitment as that of any Fundamentalist.

You know that I used to read The Last Psychiatrist blog. You know that I still read the archives. And his single biggest theme is Narcissism. What I've learned from TLP is that the five sentences above are all textbook tells for Narcissism.

Holy shit.

Not this again.

Memo: As TLP points out more than once, if all your relationships fail the same way (read: if all your girlfriends turn out to be narcissists to one degree or other -- and I still have to write how or to what extent that applies to D and [a lot less strongly] to Debbie), then the only common factor is you. The problem isn't the relationships, but You.

Why do I keep choosing these women?
    

Fun with projection

The other day I got bored and started bingeing through the archives of The Last Psychiatrist. This used to be a great blog and I've quoted it before; this blog (well, along with dating D) is a large part of what helped me understand what a narcissist is (and then realize that both Wife and Father fit that description too).
 
Part of what is so fun about TLP is that he introduces so many subsidiary topics in the process of making his main points: you can get a full meal just on the appetizers and garnishes. And so in the course of a post about why education has become such a boondoggle, he refers to the psychological concept of projection and then explains what it is. I quote at some length, both because it's relevant to what I'm going to say next and because he is way more entertaining than I am: 

It sounds like you project unwanted feelings onto another person, which is both wrong and impossible. It's not an action, it's a problem of perception. The unwanted feelings don't make sense coming from someone like you, so you conclude they must be coming from the other person.

To use the frequent example of "homophobia": a guy feels gay impulses and can't "handle it" but he doesn't get rid of them by putting them onto someone else, he confuses them as coming from someone else. He smells gayness, "Where is it coming from? Me? Impossible! Jesus washed my feet. Must be that guy." Sorry, wildman, whoever smelt it dealt it. Projection is the most primitive of defenses, circa age 2, and the description should make it clear it is a narcissistic defense: one's perception of the world is inextricably, concretely the result of one's inner states. There is no "objectivity" possible.

The purpose of projection is not to get rid of the feelings, but to explain their presence, to defend the self against a label: "I'm not gay..... even if I have gay sex once in a while." The point isn't to avoid gay sex, the gayness isn't intolerable to them-- e.g. observe the high hat Christians caught in various rest stops across our land-- but even though they've committed the act, it doesn't affect their identity.

 

What I find fascinating about this selection is how perfectly it reflects a conversation I had with Father late one night, several years ago, back when he was still alive. It was late at night and he'd been drinking — well, probably both of us had — and he was complaining about being fat and out of shape. At that point I was exercising regularly, so I asked him why he didn't just go to the local gym and work out, even if he started very slowly?

Father: Well I was going for a little while, but then I really had to stop.

Hosea: Why?

Father: Because it was such a major gay hangout.

Hosea: What do you mean?

Father: Well all the guys there were gay except me, and they used it as a pickup joint.

Hosea: You mean they were actually having sex in the shower?

Father: No, nothing like that, thank God. They weren't doing anything out in public. But you could just tell.

Hosea: Well did they stop you from using the equipment?

Father: No.

Hosea: Then why couldn't you just work out and ignore them? What's it to you what they do when they leave the gym?

Father: [swallowing and speaking with great difficulty] Because if I keep going to the gym while they are there too, they might think I'm one of them.

Hosea: But they are strangers. Who cares what they think?

Father: [in such a small voice it was almost inaudible] They might ask me to join them.

I stopped the conversation there, and changed the subject. Later I kicked myself for quitting then, thinking that there were two other things I ought to have said: first, So if they invite you why not just say No? and second, No offense but they are looking for someone fifty years younger than you are and in a lot better shape, so I think you're safe. But I let the opportunity slip away, and maybe saying those things would have been unkind.

But now I reread that conversation in the light of TLP's remarks above, and it looks obvious to me what he was saying. I assume that in reality it wasn't that the other guys there were flirting with each other; if they had been, that would have made this gym very different from any other I've ever been to. What makes far more sense is the idea that it was Father who was attracted by all the naked bodies there, who was appalled at his own attraction, and who quit going because he couldn't deal with the psychic stress.

To be clear, Father never said anything overt about being attracted by other men. Quite the reverse. On the surface he sounded very hostile to homosexuality, even as he also said, "I'm not homophobic. Don't be ridiculous! I'm an actor — some of my best friends are gay. It's just that ...." But he brought up the subject at the damnedest times, in ways that could sound obsessive. He spent years before Brother and I were safely paired off with women (Wife for me, and any of Brother's girlfriends for him) warning us about the risks of deciding to be gay. He had this theory that he repeated — again, at the damnedest times — that some guys decide they are gay when they really aren't, just because of a "formative early experience." The key to this theory, for him, was that these guys shouldn't let themselves get confused by their "early experience" or "youthful experimentation" because the risk is that they prematurely assume they must be gay and therefore never take the time to discover that in reality they are straight.

Of course this theory is crazy. I've never known anyone it describes ... unless of course it actually described Father himself. Unless it was autobiographical. Unless he himself felt a powerful attraction to other men — possibly reinforced by "youthful experimentation" of his own — and it scared the shit out of him. So that all his hostility was a wall he built up ... partly to keep himself from acting on his attractions and partly to keep anyone else from guessing.

He was way too smart for these beliefs to have been simple stupidity. This theory makes much more sense.

Sent from my iPhone

Banking

Met with Wife at the bank today: to take my name of our joint checking account, to close our joint savings accounts (both of them), to close some other miscellaneous accounts we don’t need any more, and to take my name off the safe deposit box. We checked it first: the only stuff in it is hers: her family Bible, some negatives of photos of her ancestors, and a few other ancient keepsakes.

 

Two accounts we can’t close right now. One is a line of credit in both our names; the only way to take my name off it is to close it completely and then let Wife reapply for a new one. They are going to get her some information about which credit products are available. The other is a savings account for Son 1 that really should be changed into an adult account (since he’s no longer a minor) but that requires him to be there. Some time this summer.

 

It was a “long lunch” … I guess I was gone from the office a couple hours. But it sure wasn’t hard work. We got to sit down the whole time, in a nice, air-conditioned office. We were pleasant to each other. Distant, of course, but pleasant.

 

Why am I so tired?

 

Must be getting old ….

 

 

Why isn't this a thing?

We all know there's a popular tradition that you celebrate your twenty-first birthday by going out with friends and getting hammered. (OK, that's not how I spent my twenty-first birthday ... but I know there are people who do. And the idea is sure out there.)

So why isn't there a corresponding tradition to celebrate your eighteenth birthday by going out and getting laid? Isn't it interesting that we as a society see the two transactions so differently?

Of course I can think of reasons, lots of them:

• Where would you go? Ummm ... a brothel? True, some states don't allow them. But Nevada does, just for example. So is there a tradition like this in Nevada? Not that I've heard of.
• With whom would you fuck? (Another eighteen-year-old? Disaster! A forty-year-old? That sounds creepy.) Right, but you have to start somewhere, with somebody. That somebody will have some age -- older, younger, whatever.
• People get more embarrassed about sex; the birthday celebrant is more likely to feel ashamed at specifically "going out for sex" -- and, if she's a girl, is likely to worry about getting a reputation as a slut. Yeah, but people do plenty of shameful things when they are shit-faced drunk: throwing up on their friends, wetting themselves, whatever it is. That's not enough to kill the tradition of going out for drinks now that you are "legal".
• Some people have a notion that sex should be reserved for when you are "serious" about someone, that it is too important to treat so cavalierly. And yet plenty of people treat sex just that cavalierly. Stereotypically one hears about frat boys fucking any girl that will stand still or that they can knock out. And girls get just as horny just as often; if they are (generally) choosier than their male counterparts, it's because the scene can get more dangerous for them. (Think of date rape drugs, physical abuse, pregnancy.) But notice also that if you went to a licensed, regularly-inspected legal establishment, none of those risks would apply. Would they?
• It's all the fault of our Puritan heritage! And that heritage had nothing to say about drinking? For that matter, the Puritans were all in New England; are the customs more libertine in the South?

And so on.

It must be possible to trace the history of attitudes towards sex and booze respectively, and thereby to figure out by what paths we got to where we are today. But I'm not convinced that the really fundamental distinction we draw makes that much sense.

What's more, ... follow me for a minute while I think this through. What if brothels were to sell "Eighteenth-birthday packs" -- a package deal that includes three sessions maybe a week apart with the same person, a professional who has prepared for exactly this job. The first session would start off with, How much do you already know?

• Do you know your way around your own body? Mostly the answer to this is likely to be Yes, but the depth of knowledge probably varies a lot. And if anonymous college surveys are to be believed, there are college-aged girls who don't masturbate successfully, which means that for those individuals (at least) a guided tour of her own body back when she's eighteen might have been helpful. Oh ... you did understand that I'm running this thought experiment for both sexes equally, right?
• Do you know your way around a partner's body? Implicitly this means "a partner of the opposite sex," on the assumption that you've already covered how to make love to a partner of the same sex with the previous question. And naturally if this were a common thing, a numerical majority of customers would want to know about the opposite sex anyway. Since one should never take anything for granted about the future -- in either direction -- knowing both is probably useful for everybody. [For myself, no, I've never needed to know what to do with a man who wasn't me. But it's notoriously hard to make predictions about the future, and plenty of people have had the "I never thought I'd --" experience.] 

Once that's out of the way, it's time for a guided tour of whatever the Birthday Celebrant doesn't know yet, including helpful tips on what a partner is likely to welcome in reality (as opposed to what s/he might have learned from pornography, for example). And then from there it's a question of practice and refinement. How far the Birthday Celebrant gets in the first hour will vary from person to person, but that's why the package includes a total of three visits.

Maybe the idea is crazy, but somehow it sounds almost sane and rational to me. Of course it's the kind of thing that would exist only on Beta Colony, but that's another matter. Maybe our society here and now is the crazy one.

Thoughts, anyone?