I forget, too easily, the lesson Nancy Friday taught me in her (completely unedited) book, Jealousy. If you’re angry at your partner, it’s most likely envy. You want what they have. If you’re angry at the third, at the threat to your relationship? That’s jealousy.
I often am angry at my partners when they have trysts or affairs that threaten me, and I often read this anger as jealousy. But Nancy is right. Nine times out of ten, envy is the culprit.
I long for the ease with which Charlotte can conjure a little NRE, with which she can transform an unexpected evening with no plans into a hot date. I can’t do that.
I can’t sift through dozens of hot women clamoring to have a drink with me to salvage an unexpected idle hour. I don’t have a little black book with a dozen willing partners I can ping.
I can’t seat myself at a bar, confident that I can leave with someone I hadn’t met an hour earlier. (Sure. Sometimes that can happen. But it’s rare.)
For me, a first date requires hours, days, sometimes weeks of effort.
I wish it were otherwise. But it just isn’t.