Summer Reading

Although I should be spending my free time preparing for classes this fall by reading books like The Public and Its Problems, by John Dewey, my heart is enlivened with the quest to understand a few other things, central to my personal life. In the past months upon my return to the United States, I have met a few men who seem to be excited to have met me and plead that they want to see me again in the future, the excited feeling being mutual. But in all of the few cases where this has happened, the man seems to fade into non-existence with dispassionate text messages or nothing altogether. I then implore my guy friends to help me understand how a man can lead me to believe, for hours in a night, that we have a chemistry and that this guy is truly inspired to court me, as I just might have been the “smartest and sexiest woman [ they’ve] ever met”, only to completely abandon this notion and turn into a schmuck, by impersonating an overgrown, naïve school boy. Most tell me that the cu de grace is that the guy may only have wanted to know you in the “now”, like tonight, if you know what I am saying!

I say this with the most earnest attempt at understanding and compassion, but come on Fellas, how can a simple one-night-stand with someone impressive and cognizant fulfill your desires? I would say you need to expand your horizons as you, my friend, are a victim of low, low expectations, for there is oh so much more she has for you. But that is okay, our friends will reassure us that, though you seemed to be the real deal, you actually did us a favor in never calling or even lamely “friending” us on facebook. It means as much also to say that I never believe it when someone says that men are pigs, expressed by this case in point, where one might hypothesize that this “chemistry” lasts only so long as I go along with the one-night-stand plan. I mean not to demoralize the entire stratum of men, in the romantic, courtship context, as my few, cherished boyfriends past are the utmost in what it means to be a gentleman and a man. So I shall take a break from these love affairs in Neverland and go back to my summer reading list.