Tuesday, December 22, 2009

The Cynical Goody-Goody and Her Men


I suppose this is as good a topic as any for Christmas Week....

A new visitor to this blog might not expect this of the author of a blog with “erotica” in the title, but anyone who knows me at all is well aware: I am a total goody-goody. Yes, even about sex, which I really want to be wholesome and healthy all the time. While I’m anything but perfect (I could list dozens of faults for you, but that would not be Christmas-y, LOL), I am also a ridiculously upstanding citizen. I have fears of and/or aversions to drugs, drunkenness, breaking the rules (even jaywalking), sexual perversions, cruelty in any form, etc.

Meanwhile, I harbor no illusions that reality is a safe or comfortable haven for goody-goodies, as must as I wish it were so. You see, I grew up influenced equally by Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals and the terrible headlines of the late 60’s. I love books and movies with happy endings, but I’ve found very few people in real life who behave anything like the fictional characters I idolize. I spent 15 years married to a gay man who (understandably really) was unfaithful to me for all of them. Meanwhile, I am now married 15 years to a man who has been faithful to me for all of them.

Life has certainly sent me a mixed message.

I am not really changing topics now, as you will see shortly.

My regular readers know that I spent a lot of months quite devotedly fixated with Neil Gaiman. Certainly that wasn’t the only crush upon which I’ve expounded here, but probably the one you could most thoroughly study were you interested enough to go back to all the posts (and who would be? LOL).

So what happened with that? Well, as always happens, I eventually saw enough about him that I didn’t like, and my infatuation died. Don’t get me wrong, I still admire (and one might even say am still in love with) the genius qualities about the man. I certainly adore his work. but I couldn’t sustain the romance with those faults just so up-in-my-face. The emotions went dormant...they only come out occasionally when they are directed toward an utterly imagined version of Neil that is obviously all my concoction.

I recognize that it is neither fair nor reasonable for me to withhold my infatuations from less-than-perfect guys. I know all about real life and real people. But I just can’t help it. When the guy I crushed on all freshman year was snide in the way he signed my yearbook, I was devastated. I’ve reacted likewise to idols who have (1) gotten arrested for public drunkenness, (2) “defected” to another sports team, (3) been caught using drugs, (4) treated their fans coldly, (5) divorced their wives for other women, etc. (I’m not referring to Tiger Woods here, but you can guess my opinion of him.)

Christmas is a very romantic time to my mind. Just as we all strive to find the perfect gift, throw the perfect party, have the perfect family gathering, at holiday time I think about perfect romance. I get really sentimental about whatever celebrity I might currently be dreaming about. So more than ever, my demanding goody-goody heart cannot tolerate less than heroic behavior.

A few days before Christmas this year I glommed on to my holiday-time fixation for 2009. I saw singer/songwriter Ben Folds as a judge on the NBC show “The Sing-Off.” I can’t resist anyone who can talk intelligently about music, particularly in such an upbeat and good-natured way. I checked out his music more fully and found I really love it.

The Internet is a curse to goody-goodies such as myself. You can hold on to your illusions about a celebrity for only as long as it takes to Google them and read some biographies. Ben Folds’ “crime” is that he’s on his fourth wife. Now the rational, cynical, coldly realistic part of me says, “You can’t judge a guy (a) when you’ve never walked in his shoes and (b) when you don’t know him in the slightest.” My best guess is that Ben is like most people: really wonderful in many ways, really terrible in others, and no worse than average.

Still, my goody-goody self yearns for a man who can talk brilliantly about music in an upbeat and good-natured way, and also has no flaws at all. Yes, I know I’m a terrible person. Didn’t I mention that right up front? The best I can do is be in love with the part of Ben Folds that initially caught my fancy, and give the rest of him the benefit of the doubt. That sort of works, but not as well as I would wish for. Bummer, but that’s life.

That said, what keeps my goody-goody hopes alive is that not all my idols have done things to let me down. I’m sure they’ve got faults too, but they are not such apparent and glaring ones that I can’t overlook them, even with my insane standards. A couple of examples of my personal heroes who have not failed me in any respect are Guy Carbonneau and Les Stroud. Both of them are brilliantly talented in their respective fields, and seem also to be good, principled, disciplined men.

While I don’t necessarily fantasize about these two every night anymore (not that I’m admitting I ever did, ahem!), I can and do think of them fondly whenever they come to mind. I appreciate and treasure them for being in that tiny category of heroes that have managed to remain on their pedestals. And icing on the cake is that both have had actual personal dealings with me and treated me with great kindness.

By the way, there’s one more guy in this tiny, special category that I should mention: The one I’ve been married to for the past 15 years. I figured out pretty fast that David was a man of principles and integrity, and time has proven me right.

I may have a ridiculous way of crushing and uncrushing on people, but in the final analysis, I’m no dummy.

1 comment:

Cherie said...

Bravo!