Dissatisfied Man Finds Hope Online

There is a certain anonymous dating website that caters to people already in relationships who are looking for something on the side.  No names, no pictures.  Just people who are bored and require a change.

Bill, who had been married 10 years, had started to resent the predictability of his wife Nancy.  She never surprised him anymore.  And worse, he never seemed able to surprise her.  Even if he did the most insanely idiotic and damaging thing, like the time he got into a barroom brawl defending the honor of a woman that was not her—even then Nancy forgave him and found something positive to look at. 

“If you were willing to stand up for a total stranger, I can only imagine what you’d do for me,” she told him later that night.

It made him sick.  Show a little anger, he wanted to say.   I was attracted to her!  That’s why I defended her!   But he didn’t say that.  Instead the two of them made love and then Nancy went to sleep.  Bill stayed up a while thinking about the what ifs of life.

A month later he joined the dating website.  Just to see what else is out there, he told himself.  To prove to myself that I have it better than I think I do.

And for a week or so, the site did exactly that.  The profiles all fit into one of two categories.  Half of them were overly shallow, obvious advertisements for sex with no strings attached.  No relationship desired.  The other half of them were involved, detailed profiles that described all of the women’s hobbies, desires, wants, needs, aspirations, and shortcomings.  These women were openly unhappy in their current relationships and were just dying to find a reason to leave, but they also seemed cautious about actually agreeing to meet up with anyone from the site.  Bill found himself despising them all.  All the women in both categories.  Sure, he messaged a few of them.  But it didn’t even feel like communicating with real people.  It felt like a chat room from the 1990s where people could say whatever they wanted because it wasn’t the real world and there were no repercussions.  Then Bill found himself despising himself for considering cheating on Nancy for these chat room women. 

But his wife just kept bothering him, killing him with her kindness.  What happened to the naughty girl that used to manipulate her roommates into all being out of house at the same time so he could come over?  What happened to the girl who used to go out to the balcony and throw water balloons at pedestrians?  What happened to the girl with the big brown eyes with that mysterious glint and the untamable spirit?  What happened to the girl he married, and who is this woman that lives in his house and does anything he asks without ever needing recompense?  Of course, he never asked her any of these questions.  Nancy seemed so willing to please him.  How could he tell her that despite all her efforts he was dissatisfied?  How could he tell her that he wanted more?

So Bill gave the website one last try.  He was up half the night. He drank a six-pack and sent women message after message with no replies.  He walked to the corner store and bought another six-pack.  Then something happened.  When he was halfway through his 9^th beer, he found someone real.  Her profile read like this:

I love my husband, but lately something just seems to be missing.  There is no spark anymore.  We go out, but mostly for the change of scenery, not because we really care for the night’s activity.  Neither of us is trying to impress the other anymore.  It’s like we succeeded.  We got married.  Now what?  It’s like we don’t know what the next step is.  And we haven’t known for years.  I just feel stuck, but I try to be as loving a wife as I can.  My husband seems perfectly fine.  He never complains.  He tells me I’m beautiful.  But he really doesn’t say much beyond that.  What happened to the boy who used to stay up all night making inquiries with me about what made people tick, about what made the world turn?  What happened to the boy who was not afraid to criticize me for selfishness, who inspired me to care more about the people around me?  Who is this man that comes home and eats the food that I make then stoically heads to bedroom to perform his husbandly duties?  When did our relationship become a duty?  What happened to the fire?  I miss the fire.  I’m burning for a change.  If you think you’ve got the heat, then message me.

Bill spent the next week messaging this woman.  Sometimes they’d exchange several messages in the same day.  They really seemed to hit it off.  They shared almost all of their interests.  They liked the same music.  They’d been to many of the same places.  They had the same pet peeves.  And most importantly, they both craved a steamy romantic encounter that would make them feel alive again.  The things this woman wanted to do behind closed doors… Bill hadn’t been this turned on in years.  He particularly loved this one idea involving ropes, ice cubes, and an entire bed covered in feathers.  He almost couldn’t wait to try it—he even thought about asking Nancy, but couldn’t figure out how to begin.  In the end he decided against it.  He cared about her too much, and what if she took the suggestion as a sign that the sex they’d been having wasn’t good enough?

No, instead Bill set up a date with the online woman.  She agreed to meet him at a café in the next town so they wouldn’t chance running into their respective spouses.  He told her he’d be the mustachioed man reading a newspaper and drinking espresso.  She said she was a brunette and she’d be wearing a purple dress and heels.

Bill spent the better part of the day trying to decide whether or no to wear cologne, then which type of cologne to wear.  Once deciding, he experienced a brief surge of confidence before the question of whether or not to bring a condom popped into his head.  He didn’t know how these online dates worked.  Is the person looking for sex right away?  Does she just want to talk first and make sure I’m not a serial killer?  What if she doesn’t want sex right away but she sees the condom in my wallet when I go to pay and then she thinks that I’m shallow and too assuming, then ends it right there?

In the end, he decided that based on their messaging, sex was likely.  So he brought a few condoms, but left them in the car on the off chance that he was wrong.  He showed up to the café early, probably a little too early for his own good.  He downed a few espressos in short time and was getting jittery.  He tried to calm himself by focusing on the positives, on the potential of this woman.  She seemed perfect after all.  She was having the same problems.  She had the same interests.  He loved brunettes.  She had a wild imagination.  And all of the things that had been bothering him—he felt comfortable talking about them with her.  She gave him hope.  Hope that even well intro adulthood there could still be some magic, some fire in life.  One could still, after 35 years of living still have interesting conversation, still be excited for the future, still find novel outlooks on life in people that haven’t been entirely jaded and ruined.  Bill had just about made up his mind that if this woman was even remotely good-looking, his life was about to get a whole lot better.  It would be more complicated, sure, and laced with guilt, but at least he’d feel alive.  He and this woman would save each other from their failing marriages and increasingly dreary lives. 

“We will save each other, I swear it,” he whispered to himself.

Then the little bell rang on the front door of the café, and in walked Nancy in a purple dress.

The Importance of Being Earnest

I've been reading a fair amount of young adult literature lately (this is the designation for books written primarily for adolescents), and of the books in this genre, Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower struck me as particularly good.  But then again, I also enjoyed the Hunger Games trilogy and am presently speeding through The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing.  Why, you may ask, am I reading the same books that people half my age are reading?  Because they still have relevance.

There's something about this genre that appeals to all audiences.  It's why the Hunger Games are blowing up in popularity.  It's why people will never stop loving The Catcher in the Rye.  In a word, this magnetic quality of young adult literature is its earnestness.  The narrators in these stories are often so direct with their emotions, with their thoughts and feelings, that anyone can relate to them.  Combine that earnestness with the universal conflicts of adolescence (struggling to find an identity, striving to belong, craving love, and alternately fearing and longing for the future) and you've got a work that has the ability to touch anyone.  Because as we get older, these conflicts never really go away.  We just become a little more adept at handling them.

Few people in real life are ever so honest, open, and direct as the narrators and characters in this genre.  To be so directly engaged and allowed into another's world is immensely refreshing.  Even if the person we're connecting with does not technically exist.  That doesn't matter.  The conflicts exist.  The feelings exist.  The person that wrote the book exists.  And the experiences and events that inspired him or her to write in the first place... those exist too.  And all of these facts lead to a reading experience that, while fiction, can feel much more real than most works of nonfiction.  The ability to make a reader feel, to evoke a genuine reaction from us-- this is the mark of a good work of literature.