Another Crappy Boyfriend

I wonder if young men these days are as screwed up as the ones I got myself involved with. Tonight I'm thinking of a brief relationship I had with "Jonathon Hale" during the summer of '70. He was only one of several males I was dealing with about that time, but he did me the favor of writing me a long, self-incriminating letter, which I managed to keep.

I was 21, fresh out of college, and he was a mere boy of 19, tall and scraggly-bearded, the son of a teacher I adored. I was flattered when he started hanging around the house where Trish and I were living — and I was desperately in need of some lovin' affection.

As I piece together the bits, we had 3 sexual encounters, all of which culminated in his getting off and me remaining unscathed. And yet I enjoyed the attention a lot… at least until I got the letter. We'd spent an evening together and I think I left him sleeping on the front porch. The letter was on the kitchen table the next morning.

Susan —

I'm not sure of where to begin, but I know I must say the things that, at this moment, linger very haphazardly in my mind.

I am sorry for hurting you in so many subtle ways. I am inclined to believe that you won't see the need for apology, but for me it is most necessary. I am sorry for taking you up and literally dropping you on the ground. Selfishness possesses every part of my being at times, this past night and the last time I was with you are no exceptions. I am not sure why I do the things I do, why I came on so forcefully, so insistently and consistently sexual. The last two encounters between us have ended up like they did tonight. Almost premeditated it seemed, I have come in like a rainstorm, spilled myself all over you and left, all in the same instant.

As I type this in I'm thinking, hmmm, maybe this is just a young man who's heard the message that women are supposed to have orgasms, too. Maybe I judged him too harshly. But read on…

I don't know what makes me do things like this and there are probably many reasons. This biggest one is selfishness. Something within me (I know not what) drives me to come on this way many times. It must go and it's one of the most difficult, depressing and revolting aspects of my nature, one with which I have a great deal of trouble facing and doing something about.

Now he's sounding less sensitive and more classically Catholic… obsessed with the tyranny of his base physical nature.

I am a sick individual and while you may take it lightly, I am desperately serious. There is something definitely WRONG with me and the trouble is that I either refuse to address myself to the problem in favor of satisfying my bloated ego, or push the problem to the side figuring that I've got plenty of time to think about it; or, most typically, it goes totally unnoticed and people (you) get hurt in the process. You become the unfortunate recipient of my sickening selfishness. It is not fair to you because you are a beautiful person, undeserving of the sting of selfishness, especially my brand which is far more brutal because it's far more subtle.

Susan, I'm sorry I have been this dishonest and selfish with you. What I have written here is not an excuse for what I do and what I have done. It is an explanation, in very vague form, of what was going on in my mind during the long silence.

I am not worthy of your concern or love as a person. I have been far too cruel for you to risk something so delicate as love toward me. When a man is slapped in the face twice, he has no other cheek to turn. I have slapped you twice and you have not deserved the insensitivity I have cast on you.

You counsel me to convince myself that I'm OK. Well, that moment must wait for a long time until I apologize to you and others whom I have treated so inhumanly. You will never know fully the deep regret I feel when I realize what I have done to you.

I do not ask your forgiveness, nor do I ask you to understand or accept me. What I do ask is that you help me to see what I am doing to you and to other people because I alone am far too blind to realize it. Even this concern I do not deserve.

I only hope that you never meet anyone who does to you the brutal, dishonest, selfish and insensitive things I have done. You, least of all people, deserve such things.

Love, Jonathon

Hell, I didn't need all this angst! I needed to fool around. In the time it took to flagellate himself in this letter, he could have diddled me to a fine jolt.

But is it angst or is it a kiss-off? Look at me, I'm such a bad boy and look at how anguished I am but I'm not going to change so pity me as I go off into the night to do the same thing to someone else, you're too good for me, bye-bye.

I have the draft of the letter that I sent in response. It's pathetic. I was trying way too hard to keep him on my hook (the first clue being that I labored over a draft). Plus, my writing is enough to make me gag:

It would be a waste of time to patronize you and perhaps cruel of me to guile you into self-satisfaction. I'll try to deal as honestly as I can with the problems you face. Since honesty & even the simple art of expressing accurately my feelings are also difficult for me, writing this letter should be helpful to me as well as (perhaps) to you. Forgive me if I lapse into incoherency — it's my style.

Ha, ha, ha! The friends I hung out with were always saying someone was patronizing… the ultimate put-down, especially if the someone didn't know what patronizing meant.

Not going to guile him into self-satisfaction? Obviously, I was pissed off and not about to tell him that his coming in my hand was my ultimate thrill. But instead of blah-blahing about my own honesty, why couldn't I just come out and say it? I did try:

Regarding insensitivity, perhaps it's best to consider what I said last night — that anguish over when or how to be sensitive may cause you to pass by opportunities for sensitivity.

But then I back off into a lot of self-effacing bullshit:

This sounds like I'm condescending to deliver you a sermon but it's actually a case of "Do as I say, not as I do." I have to listen to my own words & try to put into practice my own theory.

I tried again to be blunt:

While I'm on the subject of selfishness I might as well destroy you by saying that constant introspection and relentless self-flagellation is an advanced form of selfishness. It may be called "Hugging One's Problems."

But once again I turn on myself, maybe stretching to make a point that we were kindred spirits.

Unfortunately, I speak from first-hand experience: I've unconsciously (but deliberately) over-developed my super-ego to provide an excuse for inaction. The "need to retreat" in order to "work things out in my mind" constantly badgers me and I never learn my lesson. Too often I have retreated from situations or dilemmas and found that instead of destroying a problem I enshrine it.

My long retreat in college apparently also led me to spout this kind of pompous bullshit. The whole letter is oblique and academic and apparently did nothing for my cause of having a summer romance because I don't think I had much to do with Jonathon Hale after that.

What makes this so hilarious to me now — what pushes it beyond the tortured lack of communication between 2 socially immature young adults is a follow-up letter I received the following winter from my buddy Trish.

In February of '71 I moved away from Chicago, sick to death of underemployment and unceasingly entangled relationships. Trish was finishing up college in an experimental program. Jonathon Hale was in the program too. On March 12, Trish wrote:

I just talked to Jonathon Hale. He wants to come and visit. Guess who's horny. I'd say I was being unfair but he asked if I had anything to drink. That to me spells MAKEOUT. What the hell. I just may be in the mood…

Trish was more socially adept than I was. She recognized hypocrites faster than I did. She knew instantly if someone was patronizing. Her letter continues the next day:

Hi — it's tomorrow. Jonathon came. You may translate that statement either way. I was right. While he was going through his big build up about… "You must hate me because I haven't been to see you, I know what you must think"… I said, "I'd probably hate you if I was in love with you — I'm not. As for what I think, I think you're here because you're horny." He started to deny it but changed his mind quickly. It was worse than I'd expected. I guess I'm getting fussy.

So was Jonathon a sexual compulsive… was his torture genuine? Or did he simply have a technique… a way of getting himself off without having to stick around? Was he innocent… a college guy not ready for commitment and not in control of his dick? Or a budding sociopath… starting out a lifetime of manipulation under the guise of a weak will?

1.21.00

Illustration: Dogon bronze from west Africa (Susan-Jim Collection)