For All The Girls I've Loved Before - Graduate School

I met C while I was flunking out of graduate school.

It was quite the opposite of my normal reaction to attractive women. I really, really liked her as a person and considered her to be a wonderful friend.

But.

But she was five feet tall, weighed perhaps a hundred pounds soaking wet and looked just like an adult version of the girl on the Wendy’s logo. I was six foot three, weighed about two hundred and eighty pounds and looked like an extra on America’s Most Wanted. Further, she remains the only truly sane human being I have ever met in my life while “a bit too tightly wound” would have been a generous description of my post-M mental state.

I think the huge difference in our bodies bothered both of us.

I know it bothered me: I already had issues about hurting people because of my relationships going sour. I was terrified of accidentally hurting someone I cared about because our relationship was going well. Think about King Kong and Faye Raye consummating their relationship and you’ll get some idea of how I felt about this.

Although I eventually managed to approach her, I think that subconsciously I sabotaged myself because of my fears. In any event, while she was unfailingly kind, caring and courteous, her heart was elsewhere. She eventually married S.

When they married, I went to my living room and meditated on the situation. It came to me that even if S should meet an unfortunate accident, C would only choose someone else.

S was not the problem.

I was.

Whatever C wanted in a man, I did not have it. And I would never have it.

And all I could do is accept that and wish her well, or be an even bigger jerk than I usually am.

As I had earlier recognized, I am a monster: a member of the population who is substantially different from the bulk of the population. And that there was not one thing I could do about it.

But I realized then that I did not have to be an evil monster. And that it would be a very poor thank you for C’s many kind gestures to spoil her happiness by essentially sulking and throwing a temper tantrum.

So I wished S and C well and tried, with varying degrees of success, to keep myself on the path towards being a good monster. This was when I started to heal from the damage I had inflicted upon myself through my obsession with M.

I also had a lot to digest, mentally speaking. The contrast between M and C was striking. While M was by far the better-looking woman, C was the better person. M could give the appearance of caring about people, but I suspect that the only person M really cared about was M. C, however, really cared about people and tried to help the people in her life in so far as she could.

I am reminded of a quote from Tuesdays with Morrie ( the movie )where Morrie says that love is the only rational response. I believe that C and Morrie were sane, something that is quite rare in this world. Like the mythical philosopher’s stone, their touch transformed the lead of other people’s lives into gold.

I suspect that many of the people considered to be saints were actually sane human beings ministering to the inmates of the lunatic asylum here on the third rock from the Sun.

Some years ago I tracked C down to thank her for what she had done for me. She graciously accepted my thanks, mentioned how much she had learned from me and chatted for about thirty minutes before saying goodbye and gently discouraging future contact. In the course of our conversation, she told me that she has two daughters. I am happy to know that she has reproduced and that my line, good monster or not, ends with me.

The world is a better place with her sort of human being in it.

Overall, I’d have to call this a moral victory.