savage emotions
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Savage Emotions
[3 minute read ]
Opinion
For a time, I was secretly in love with an exotic woman. I looked for clues that she secretly loved me back. Eventually, I concluded that it was unreciprocated love and I was getting close to psychotic in my fervour to recognise a favourable response from her. It isn't unusual to feel that way, I suspect we all have at some point in our lives. We have to know that we are savaging ourselves if we do it; to continue to seek love from where it has not germinated is a fools errand. We have to admit that we are not the sun to which all plants grow.
'I am in love with my friend but she doesn't feel the same way. What should I do?' I was asked by one of my customers in a pub after we had finished the job. I don't have the answers for those sorts of questions and I knew that whatever I said would be wholly inadequate and downright wrong. At best it would swerve his approach onto an entirely different tack that would likely have her ridicule him through her puzzlement and embarrassment.
'Don't be silly. We have been friends for years!' she might think, even if she never said it.
I told the, plainly inexperienced, man to vocalise it. The worst advice I have ever given. I used to wear a denim jacket with patches sewn on it when I was a boy. They had witty statements on them. I don't know if they were aphorisms or epigrams as such, but one of them said, 'Don't ask me I am lost too.' I should have kept that patch. I knew as soon as I said 'Vocalise it' that even though the pub didn't go silent in shock and disbelief, I didn't need to look behind to see the girls looking at the boys looking at the girls at the table they shared behind me; perhaps with secret questions in their minds.
Telling a long-term friend, whom you know is sexually active with other people but not yourself, that you are attracted to them is, I suggest, a risky move. It may be pertinent to separate lust from love here and that can be messy if the words are not exactly right. I am not the sort to spend much time adding in clauses that act as explanatory snippets. Quite frankly, I just expect everyone to feel the same as I do and have the original thoughts that I have sorted and condensed to make actual written sentences. If I was ever to be a writer I would definitely need to spend some time forking through my lexis and writing long passages to drive home a point. Tucking in and trimming, sawing and planing, stripping and polishing is not my thing. So, despite briefly and initially choosing that path I have turned from it.
'I like you.'
'I like you.'
'No, I really like you!'
'Oh, I like you as a friend.' She or he might be flattered and one night, confident that there won't be a rebuttal, and full of alcohol, there might be a regrettable encounter. It will end in angst or if they fit together, no regrets and consequent exclusivity. He or she, however, might need to be experienced to hope for exclusivity. Disappointing idea? Yeah.
In 1982 RCA Records released the Eurythmics second album, 'Sweet Dreams'. The opening track is 'Love is a Stranger'. During my crazy near-obsession with the exotic woman who didn't notice me, I choreographed some dance moves to that song. I never intended to dance in public or privately while she watched; I just listened to it so many times that I started to hear things, beats and instruments in it that became intensely familiar, so I danced. One of the verses in 'Love is a Stranger' goes like this:
'It's savage and it's cruel and it shines like destruction
Comes in like the flood and it seems like religion
It's noble and it's brutal, it distorts and deranges
And it drenches you up and you're left like a zombie.'
https://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/e/eurythmics/love_is_a_stranger_lyrics.html
Don't click on the play button on the site if you don't like Amazon. I just did, so I now have to clear the clipboard, delete the history and the cookies, and restart my laptop.
This link will give a snippet of the song so you can remind yourself of it or consider playing the whole song:
https://genius.com/Eurythmics-love-is-a-stranger-lyrics
The link for the whole song goes to an Apple site.
I use YouTube, even though it is owned by Google. Since I know I cannot completely deny them access to my computers I stick to just one data-pirate; Google
Something that I find alarming is that I accepted the chorus as being indicative of my state of arousal and thought it normal and acceptable under the circumstances. Once I considered it from a different and more realistic angle, however, I dropped the whole idea of ever impressing the exotic woman. Clearly, my intensity would foul any relationship simply because I had a head-start with it. Quite possibly the chap in the pub would meet the same problem.
'[Chorus]
And I want you
And I want you
And I want you so
It's an obsession
And I want you
And I want you
And I want you so
It's an obsession'
The song is really good at hiding how dangerous obsession can be.
Annie Lennox in the Eurythmics was, I am fairly sure, singing about requited love, being 'in love'. I rather think that even though it fits best with being in love, obsession could be applied to a number of other thoughts and feelings. I have to open the gates of my mind to let my thoughts tumble out while garrisoning them in a strong castle so they don't escape. We are not yet a species that is kind by default. I think William Golding (1911-1993) Nobel Prize for Literature laureate, and author of 'Lord of the Flies' would agree with that. I also think that Stanley Milgram (psychologist) who conducted experiments in the 1960s on how far people will go in committing cruel acts that go against their conscience, might agree. To be honest and realistic, they both might say we are kind by default but have the capacity to inflict intense cruelty on others. I am of a mind to say that we like order and our thoughts are running around willy-nilly until we wake, and then they are corralled into ranks and files with a lot of weeding out of the ones we don't like; completely automatically and sub-consciously. No matter, the point is made.
I should like to think that the chap in the pub asking for my stupid advice did get the girl, if 'get' is not too strong. Might he 'win' her? No, she is no prize at a carnival. It is just language used clumsily. Perhaps he allayed her fears of rebuttal and she felt confident to let her love for him flow and she showed it to him.
I should like to believe that the two girls and two boys sitting at the table behind me looked at each other with the right kind of eyes and woke happy in their chosen one's arms the next morning. Flowers and sunlight cast over my shoulder. A veritable fountain of love. I am a hopeless (hapless) romantic, I suppose.
My dancing to 'Love is a Stranger' at the time led me to believe that I might actually be able to impress someone with my dancing and I bought two Stevie Wonder CDs. 'Hotter than July' for the track 'Master Blaster (Jammin')', and 'Talking Book' for the track 'Superstition'. I kind of like funk. Now I am back to normal, I have given up on that idea as being one that would only reveal my moves to be wobbly; just like everything else about me.
Opinion