Twenty women I loved in my twenties :: Zoya

(“disintegration is a precondition for new life”

Srečko Kosovel, the subject of my thesis.)

Most relationships are about role-playing. The underlying mechanism being: I will play the role you want me to play as long you fulfil my needs. It’s tiresome to play a role. It’s hard work to keep it up. The role-playing becomes strenuous, more artificial, it collapses, the relationship becomes vicious. Some quit the role-playing and evolve into something bigger, some just quit the relationship and move on to a new kind of role-playing with someone else.

We evolved. We chose to be 100 percent honest to each other. It goes from unimportant confessions like ‘I’m horny and want to fuck the next beautiful girl I meet’ to more important and more difficult and more humbling confessions like ‘I did nothing all day, I played a computer game all day’

The basis for our relationship, is that I find you, that to my eyes you are, the most beautiful woman. You may label that as a very superficial basis, but it isn’t. There is something in your bone structure I find tantalizing, mesmerizing, I never grow tired of it. It’s an image I have internalized. Will I still think you’re beautiful when you’re 64? It’s highly likely. I’ll see the young you in the human clay that will have lost its elasticity. For starters, if you hadn’t been so beautiful I would never have bothered to get to know you. How caring you are, considerate, patient, funny, how you almost never raise your voice, how sweet you are, without being fragile, how determined and stubborn when you set a goal for yourself, how disciplined, how you never set out to harm somebody, how sensitive you are, how well you read people, how at peace you are with life, how good you are at being alive, how very Buddhist you are, without being a Buddhist, how hot you are in bed, how exclusive you are, how loyal and committed and how supportive and how you are always looking for meaning and depth, how unassuming you are, and how much you like and appreciate truthfulness.

In all honesty your beauty is the basis from which all else is possible. I can be honest about other women, because I’ll never leave you, I’m never looking to replace you, there’s no hidden gem lurking round the corner. Aesthetically speaking you satisfy me completely. And if I want to have you by my side, you ask full honesty. Hemingway once said: ‘lies will kill love, but honesty will kill it quicker’ I’ve always believed that, but it’s bullshit. I find it surprisingly easy with you. What make it possible, I think, is that I know better doesn’t exist. And you are not the most beautiful woman I think I can get. No, you are the most beautiful woman. Period.

When a woman feels treasured as the most beautiful certain things happen. It becomes extremely easy to be with her. There’s no viciousness, no psychological games, you are never out to punish me for things I didn’t do, you feel you are enough for me, you’re not out to make my life a living hell for subconsciously activating your insecurities. And I’m glad. We avoid the wars that go with couples. If every man who wakes up tomorrow, next to a woman who he doesn’t think is the most beautiful sight he’s ever looked at, would leave, a lot of passive-aggressive violence could be avoided.

I’ve grown completely tired of the subject women. I can’t stand to hear about one more tactic to seduce a girl. I only hope I’ll remember to tell my sons the only dating advice they need: If you love a woman she can only love you back.

You have me, all of me. I won’t promise you much more than that. I give us a very good chance. And you will frown and ask: just a very good chance? I know you are convinced we’ll even be together over the edges of life. I know. That’s fine with me. To the edges of life is more likely in my non-religious mind.

You know, I never planned to get enough ‘material’ to write an alphabet like this. Today, with you, I’m more like I was when I met my first girlfriend. I never planned to jump from one woman to the next. I never thought I’d have threesomes. I didn’t think I could do it. And if I did it was mainly to get back to the feelings I had for my first girlfriend. And now with you, and with more experience, I can. There is no more role-playing, no more game. My first question has become: how can I contribute in a positive way to society? And how to avoid doing things to feed my ego and to do things just because they are worthwhile? You, my opposite in so many ways, much wiser than me, and far more unburdened by the demands of ego, are the only person I have ever met who can guide me through a mature life. One of those billion glimpses in the universe. Only with you by my side does my hungry glimpse stand a chance at shining brightly, without burning a hole in the canvas.

The trouble is that I don’t know if you exist.

I don’t know if I will ever meet you.

And if I do meet you, I have no certainty that you will want me.

THE END