The moth and the flame, continued

Approach, avoid continues, and I’m reminded of Poison – and my reaction to her. Poison, for those who missed her, is the woman who, years ago, set off the reaction that led to my understanding that I’m an addict.

When a woman shows interest in me, my body goes into overdrive. Almost inevitably – at least often – I respond to interest with need, obsession, compulsion. My usually clear-headed approach to desire evaporates, replaced with… something I can only describe as insanity.

I grow hungry. Famished. Ravenous. Starving. A hungry ghost, my stomach huge, my mouth tiny, inadequate to admit quantities adequate to sate my appetite.

My judgment disappears. I send desperate emails, texts. Anything I imagine might bring to a head the intolerable, unbearable sensation of my desire’s being thwarted. But somehow, my calibration is off. As often as not, my actions are unconsciously calculated not to activate, enhance, the desire in the other that initiated this process, but instead, to drive the object of my desire away.

I’m drawn to ambivalent women, to women to whom I represent a mix of desirable and threatening, who vacillate between approaching and avoiding. And together, we dance.

My body craves what it can’t have, what this woman can’t offer – full-throated, unambivalent desire for me. I need to collect that, to extinguish the ambivalence that made my desire so potent to begin with.

My fingers return, over and over, to the apps, the accounts, where I might find evidence of change, in progress, in my quest. The rest of the world recedes, unimportant, invisible, and all I can see, all I can think about, is the chimera of my object.

And that’s what she is – an object. An almost irrelevant instantiation of an opportunity for me to feel denied, rejected, abandoned.

[Note: please don’t worry – this song doesn’t reflect my mood. It’s just the ambiance for me as I write this post. I do love this song, though.]

Obviously, she’s more than that – a human, a woman, a person with her own issues, challenges, hungers, fears. I don’t mean to reduce her to an object.

But I do.

2 comments

  1. I know the feeling…
    And want to write enjoy it as long as you can, you never know what comes next, maybe complete, definite rejection, or, even worse in my view… nothing, a big void…
    And, completely unlinked to this : I’m very disappointed, because I cannot watch the video (blocked in my country) 🙁
    I do like the song, was hoping to listen to the lyrics again… and it does reflect my mood today!
    Guess I’ll have to look it up myself 🙂

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