Less than Zero

Reading your comments all I could think about was that movie that so well captured so many things from the 80's. I guess it could be trans-generational -and that was what Easton-Ellis wanted- or simply transparent. The ennui, the search for the holy grail in fun, the altered states, the sex. It's like what you talk about but in the faded colors of a Bangles video: you know it's happening but the sensation of deja-vu is still there. You are going to the same things we were going at the beginning of the 80's. Everything and nothing has changed in these twenty-something years. I guess I'm dating myself again here. But that is something we both know. Nothing to sweep under the rug here. So that was the first think I thought about when I read the 'less-than' line. But at the same time, it made me wonder about that search I was talking about.

That searchI wat talking about never ends, in a sense. Being sated -sexually or intelectually- has nothing to do with the search. I think that we differ in that I look inside and around myself for whatever I'm missing or lacking and you look beyond yourself for what you think you lack or want. Contrary to what your writings say, you seldom analyze yourself, you just jot down your impressions of what you think you're feeling when that outbound gaze stops for a second on whatever caught your attention in the distance, but never go beyond that. The person breathing and moving in front of you, the pot smoke haze through which you look at someone. You're watching, you talk about that and that's it. Nothing deeper. Where does that take you? Not too far. Maybe that's why you don't feel sated? Maybe that's why the search is never ending?

I try to look at the things that are either in me or around me and see how they can transform me or help me. That's why I was interested in knowing more about you, your family, your close friends -that you say are very few- and your life in general. You were close to me at a certain moment and you helped me in my transformation and helped me find things about me. There's where I look for answers to my queries, my searches: in the people I have near me. I guess I have found some answers with you -my voice, where my apparent rebelliousness comes from, what my dysfunctions are- but that comes from searching in the near-me (you, him, myself) and not from looking at the distance and voyeuristically observing what's beyond. That does not mean I'm sated: by finding my voice, I have been more vocal but I stillf feel is not enough, by recognizing why I rebel does not mean that I stop being one and by admitting and recognizing my dysfunctions they do not dissapear: I am still looking for answers. I feel I am not happy, but I want to know why. And what I can do to be happier with what I have or if that does not work, with what I can find around me. But I have not found answers to that when analyzing on my own my relationship with him. That's basically why I'm going to counseling in January: to find more answers because I'm not sated. But that doesn't mean I won't stop and see and reflect and appropriate when necessary if anything happens meanwhile.

On the other hand, I think you seldom actually seem to look at people near and around you. It's like an image from a film. You know it's there and you just take notes on what is going on. Maybe because the familiar or the mundane bore you? Because in the movie you've made of your own life there's no room for the everyday? Not many things I see actually go through and touch you. You see people and you talk about them but they never seem to change you in a significant way. I understand that you hypothesize about life and love -we all do- but I think your perceptions stay in the surface, never go deep into the way they affect you. Or why they affect you.

Is that where that desire not to become 'less-than' in someone else's mind comes from? I see an apparent oximoron there: you want to transcend but very little transcends to you. Me, your family, most of your friends seem to exist in a very utilitarian and mirage-like world: we are used when needed and glanced at when ennui blasts you. But still, you want to leave your mark in us, BE , and stay with us in a way we never do with you. You are detached from me apart from these posts. And sometimes it feels almost illicit, taking into account the way we act when we are together.

I am not afraid to admit that I enjoy your company or reading your posts. If you think that gives you some power over me, well, more power to you. But it's not that. Is that for me, you have trascended -yes, you already have- there is something from you that stays with me (the assertion that I can enjoy myself and be sensual and even intellectually -and physically- attractive) but it stays because of the way I let you in and how I took whatever you wanted to give at the time. I knew the risk I was taking from the moment I decided to go to that Prom. Oh, I had a very good idea of how you would react and what would come of of that decision of going head on against the established -you're too young, I'm married, etc-. But it was not meant to be an experiment where you observe and take notes, it was more of a venture -or ADventure if you want- into myself and the way letting somebody else into my life would change me or not. I meant to take the good and the bad that would come with my interaction with you. The fleeting nature of whatever we would share was embeded in the premise. We did not do anything to change that, so it stayed that way. But still, I learned. And keep learning from you. Because all these head gymnastics make me think. About you, about me, about him. And that's always helpful.

And still I think I did not influence you the way you did to me. At the end, I think I have gotten more of this 'relationship' than you -even if you are the one who has confessed to 'using' people- and I will keep gettting something even if we stop seeing each other and even if we stop commenting on each other's blogs. And I think that fact is due to the chance I took on you: I let you in, let you hurt me a little and learned about me along the way. And that may be like in the movie, then: love -from you or towards you- is worth it all. But that would make it then just life, don't you think?

Cheers, baby boy.