A Few "Bon Mots" from Diana: Love, Marriage, & the Road to Self-Awareness

BEING THE romantically unattached, international gadabout that I am, I often find myself intrigued -- nay, obsessed -- with the visceral entanglements of others. My dear friend, Diana*, who also claims academia as her home -- yet manages an openly "tough as nails" approach to her many lovers -- regularly provides me food for thought as she shares her own observations regarding love, marriage, children, and the like. She has been married twice, taken countless lovers of all persuasions, and yet insists that every love-affair (no matter now kairotically different the situation or the players) always ends the same: badly. I suggest, on occasion, that endings, are by their very existence, generally "bad." She scoffs and rambles on, leaving me to take notes and wonder.

Yes, I have collected these random "Diana-isms" for some time, yet lacking an outlet for extended rhetorical contemplation, these wise witticisms gathered dust, and never made it fully into my personal encyclopedia. Now that I have begun this journey toward public self-awareness (for what other "awareness" of self is there -- outside of our public persona?), I feel the need to reconsider these bon mots and, possibly, even begin to consider all the many ways in which I might begin to integrate their truisms into my own trysts.

Meanwhile, perhaps you will offer me YOUR insights, oh-pretend-reader (henceforth referred to as simply "P.R."**)? Will you read and share your own realities -- your own unique knowledge of such complicated human attachments?

Marriage/Sex/Love (Part 1), According to Diana:

1. All women become naggy on a long enough timeline. In fact, all women believe all men need nagging; some actually do, and for the rest, nagging makes whatever "issue" you were nagging over -- infinitely exaggerated

2. No matter how different the men, if husband #1 disliked your unavoidable, immutable "quality A," or if he found your annoying "habit B" less than endearing, then rest assured, eventually husband #2 will too

3. Sometimes sex is just sex; men inherently know this, and women will deny it -- indefinitely

4. Women cling so desperately to their belief that sex is always more than sex, that some will go so far as to marry inappropriate men just to prove that the "relationship" was more than "just sex"

5. Given the proper circumstances, most men will cheat

6. Given the proper circumstances, most women will too (see #4 for the way in which women, generally, handle said dalliance/s)

7. She who holds the remote and/or programs the TiVo, has the power; get it early and keep it

8. All women think all men will change when they get married; all men pray all women will not; everyone is eventually disappointed in this process

9. You should love your kids, and you can love your dog, but it is far better to LIKE your spouse

10. "Like" is an irrelevant issue for a love affair, unless said affair, is, indeed, of the nefarious sort, in which case, see #4, making this a moot point, as #9 trumps #10

11. All marriage involves compromise. Lots of it. Gauge your own willingness and/or ability to compromise daily (even when the compromisee in question is an undeniable dumbass), and you will likely have a good idea how content you will be in any long-term relationship

12. If your partner is unwilling to compromise when he/she is still safely ensconced under the label of "lover" -- he/she will be even less willing to compromise down the road

13. Children never "fix" anything; most complicate matters to the nth degree, in fact. Which is not to negate the value and greatness of kids, but few people are able to admit the very thing that most people, ultimately, must learn the hard way -- usually at the kids' expense


Remember, if you will, that I never claimed Diana to be anything other than a bitter and narcissistic woman, and yet she doggedly contends that all of these observations -- many of which I find "cliché " and disturbingly over-simplified -- are true. Can you corroborate even one, dear P.R.?

In the Cause,

T. Shandy, Ph.D.


*As with all pseudonymous adventures, I have, henceforth, changed my imaginary friend Chastity's name to "Diana" in order to protect her immutable make-believe status.

** Because I am lacking in creativity, and real readers, I have opted to openly appropriate Mr. B. Freret's use of the term "P.R." -- his original "name" for his "pretend" superaddressee (pre the cult-like following he enjoys today). http://freret.blogspot.com/ Thank you Mr. Freret. Thank you. YOU. COMPLETE. ME.