Friendships

I've been corresponding with an acquaintance about the nature of friendship. After one particularly dire email from him, I felt compelled to rhapsodize about relationships. Unusual for me to take such an optimistic slant to such things, but every time I re-read my response (I've read it a few times, hopefully not with an egotistical impetus) I believe more strongly that it's all true. I thought I'd share it:

I am fortunate enough to have some local friends I can count on for face-to-face time and affection (I am the annoying sort who insists on hugs and kisses hello and goodbye, somewhat out of a sense of my cultural upbringing, somewhat out of the enormous pleasure I get from physical touch). But it is difficult to find people with whom I want to spend a lot of time, and I have grown comfortable living on my own and being my own company, and I do find great comfort being on my own in my own space with my own thoughts and no need to try to explain my (sometimes crude) behavior. I do have a number of acquaintances for whom I have a sense of affection, and whom I find enormously entertaining (and for whom I believe I am a source of entertainment - I certainly have a role to play in their circle: the bawdy, brash, confident, highly sensuous woman who always has a ready wink and an innuendo to share. It's a I have made for myself and into which I slip comfortably when asked).

Today I've had some time to write down a lot of my thoughts, which have been centered on the nature of inter-personal relationship...and one of my more obnoxious conclusions was that I wish there was something as easy as economic theory that could easily be applied to how we approach relationships. Something along the lines of the fact that we can predict market response based on a select number of indicators and usually we're pretty close to actual market response. (Right, econ is not easy for most, but it's a philosophy/pseudo-science that tries to predict behavior based on fundamentally irrational human nature, and it seems to satisfy the need to understand human behavior in context of money. Why shouldn't it explain something as irrational as friendships/relationships/love?)

The two friends of whom I wrote are irreplaceable. They will always occupy a place in my life, they have already for many years. The nature of the place they occupy may certainly change, as it has over the years. But the fact that they are important to me has been consistent. To what degree and in what capacity they are important may change. I am no longer the most important woman in my one friend's life; that
role belongs to his wife. And the nature of his love for me over the years has changed, and it will continue to change (most likely becoming more purely platonic and I can imagine it decreasing in potency); my love for him has undergone dramatic changes, but it exists and barring some horrific incident where my love turns to indifference, I anticipate it enduring 'til I snuff it. My best friend Aleza has been a constant, despite the irregular communication, for more than half my life. I believe, earnestly and with conviction, that we will always be friends. Granted, we both make better efforts to keep the lines of communication open in these past few years, but there exists a sympathy between us that matures as we get a better grasp on life. I hope that sympathy continues to deepen and I do intend to see to it that I put forth that effort.

That being said, I don't think they exhaust my capacity or my need to care about someone else, or someone new. My need for closeness is not anywhere near
being sated. I've never been convinced that I had a limited capacity to care, and that I would have to divvy it up between a certain number of people and that my love for someone would diminish because I'd acquired a new friend and now they needed to some portion of my affection. I don't believe in a quantity theory of love. I can't. If my love were predestined to only grow to a certain amount, then that means that I am limited in everything. My potential, my understanding, my ability would have a preset limit...I would be bound by some finite number and infinity would cease to exist for me. I refuse to believe that. It comes back, again, to the nature of economics and the concept of making a bigger pie rather than having to reportion the pie.

There remains vast space for more people to care about. I don't know if I could ever
dispense the love that I want to be able to generate. But, one dose of reality continues to mar the perfect sentiment: my love may be limitless, my time, however, is not (a phenomenon everyone else also has to cope with...).

I hope that I won't create boundaries to friendship in the future. Friendship, without the component of romantic or erotic love, doesn't hurt. Friends fulfill needs, no one friend will fulfill all needs, and I think because it is impossible for one person to be all thing it makes it easier to accept those so-called "short-comings" that people in friendships create. Friendships of a riskier nature are a completey different topic.

I am also fascinated by the circumstances in which friendships end. I have several stories about my experiences with that. I am guilty of cutting people off without explanation. Twice in my adult life. There were immediate and distinct reasons why I cut them off, and I admit, I did not think about their feelings. I know it hurt them; I've also been cut off without explanation. I licked my wounds and tried to figure out why I'd been shut out (by a group of mutual friends, at that, all women). I still wonder what it would be like to run into one of them and gauge their reaction to me now.

But here's a question: how much effort do you spend to try to maintain friendships? I know that sometimes my laziness (distraction, preoccupation) puts the blame of extinguished friendship squarely on my shoulders. I've realized it takes effort, and yes, I am hurt that sometimes people don't see me as worth the effort... I've also realized that sometimes I'm scared to reach out and try to create something with someone new. I'm timid that they might reject me, or that I come on to strong, or that when I stop playing the entertaining, comic Ghela and become the more philosophical, quiet, reflective and observational Ghela that I might put them off - they might only enjoy one aspect of me (which is truly rude on my part, who the hell am I to assume what they like or don't like, etc.). And I realize it's my fear of rejection that dampens my enthusiasm for new people. And if I'm lucky enough, I set that aside and ask someone else for a little time and interaction in the understanding that it's going to require a little risk on my part to see if there is some mutually
satisfying relationship that can be built.

But again, I hate to think that I'm low enough on the totem pole that someone would rather sit in front of a telly instead of calling me up for a coffee or shooting me off an
email (I'm giddy when I get little messages that say "thinking of you"...).

Food Glorious Food

Oh the joys of Anthony Bourdain. I am addicted. The man’s travel show is delicious, to say the least.

What is it about a snarky, sarcastic, self-declared gourmand that makes stomach-turning food adventures sexy? (I have one quibble, Tony, a true gourmand doesn’t smoke. Um, I believe it has something to do with a dulling of the olfactory sense. No that doesn’t mean I’m a puritanical bitch, I do enjoy an occasional puff but no chain indulgence for me. I want to truly taste what I’m slipping down my gullet.)

I’d give anything to do what he does; most of it, anyway. Break out the passport, belly up to the bar, go local. Brilliant. And to share insights about what makes us all human: we all eat. There is poetry in that notion. We share a common need: fuel. We share common habits: eating together. We share common communication: through our hospitality at the kitchen table. There is nothing that makes people feel more welcomed, nurtured, cared for and respected than an offering to break bread.

For me food is truly a sensual experience. That being said, it is a truthful experience. For some of us still indebted to our senses for a confirmation of universal truth (epistemic stuff, for me, only comes through experience), food is gloriously sating. I’m talking about ALL five senses here, not just taste.

Food stimulates every sense. Preparing food is a truly sensual act. We touch. We feel the textures of the ingredients, the steel of the knives, the wood of the rolling pin, the coarseness of the spices. We hear the sharpness of the chopping, the clatter of the whisk, the breaking of the eggs, the farting of the kneaded dough. We smell the tang of the pepper, the sex of ground nutmeg, the warm earthiness of roast nuts, the yeast of the cider. We see the molten of the tomatoes, the lapis of the blueberries, the summers day of the lemon, the verdure of the spinach, even the white froth of the cream adds color all its own. And taste. Taste. Where to begin? The last sense is the most orgasmic. I cannot do it justice.

Why this rapture about food? Why not? I took the time this evening to do a pizza from scratch. Dough left to rise in the late afternoon. Onions and mountains and mountains of mushrooms chopped before rolling out the punched-down dough. Pecorino grated. Artichoke hearts sliced and sprinkled. Simple. Almost too simple. And yet I groaned in pleasure with the first bite; my heart mourned an empty plate.

Food is life. Life is pleasure. Sometimes is takes small rituals like making a meal to remind us of this. Sometimes it requires sharing the simplest of thing with others to bond us for life. Sometimes it takes a meal to break down barriers. I’m glad I can get a weekly dose of Bourdain as a reminder.

The Marketplace of the Heart

A friend wrote me telling me I should post a small piece on NAFTA and immigration and the economic repercussions of the latest debates on illegal aliens. She also mentioned I should write about the Phillips Curve (the inverse relationship between unemployment and rising inflation). I’ve sort of thought about it. I won’t admit I’ve thought about it a great deal. I have been otherwise preoccupied with matters less politic, more spiritual, certainly matters more nebulous and intangible.

My preoccupations are with love. What a boring and completely banal subject. So trite. So mundane. So pathetic. I am not in love. I am struggling with the notion of wanting to be in love. I am struggling with the thought of the vulnerability it requires and the recklessness that it demands. I am feeling too weak to try to fight for it. I feel to insecure to ask for it in return. And this is the subject I can’t get off my mind.

I want love to be as simple and straightforward as economics. What?! Economics aren’t straightforward and they certainly aren’t simple – but what economic theory does do is make an attempt to forecast an outcome based on the natural human response to a given stimulus in the market place. And really, although the outcome is usually surprising, there have been a number of instances where the marketplace has actually let scholars make predictions whose outcomes have been prescribed perfectly. The school of economic philosophy has allowed us to come up with indicators that narrow down the scope of behavior. People create the markets, people dictate the parameters of markets, people try to manipulate the market for their own profit. Markets are constantly driven by human nature. The quirk is that behavior isn’t necessarily logical and it isn’t necessarily easy to predict, but somehow, someway, analysts have been able to take the quixotic nature of human behavior in a particular arena and explain it – from the first rumor to the final result. Economics is a way to understand human nature and one of the most interesting deadly sins (greed – which interestingly enough is also called avarice, something close to "a vice").

So why can’t economics also explain one of the virtues? Why can’t it explain love? Why, damnit? Or maybe why can’t love be simple enough to be explained by an economic philosophy? Why isn’t it a question of finding the most satisfactory mix of qualities in a person (kindness, intelligence, compassion, curiosity, self-discipline) and then acquiring them as a partner, a logical thing to do in any marketplace. The first thing students are taught in an economic class is the concept of the right mixture of goods and services – or what we all choose to put in our basket. We have, for example, a limited amount of time to work, work earns us money, money buys goods and services. What we choose to purchase with our earnings is weighed against how long it will take us to earn that money. Our time spent working and our time spent in leisurely pursuits will determine the income we have to spend on goods and services…and of course what we ultimately choose to purchase will be determined on what sort of things we value most. (I have it boil down to what material goods are worth our daydreams and playtime, but that’s just me.)

So why can’t we apply the same sort of theory to our pursuit of love? Why is it impossible to explain why we reject certain people with certain characteristics who, if we were to rationally describe what we are looking for in a love-object, are simply not attractive options? Why is it also the case that people with the "wrong" mix of characteristics – people we would rationally reject – happen to be the ones to whom we are attracted the most? And worse, why are we continually drawn to the people who have tendencies to make us unhappy…and don’t give me some profound psycho-analytic explanation of a deep-seeded belief in ourselves that we are unworthy of love so we continue to care for people who only frustrate our desire to be loved
I want an explanation – a rational explanation – so that I can figure out how to better allocate my resources (my tastes, especially) so that I don’t end up frustrated with the people I chose to attract, be attracted to, and waste time obsessing over. I like my daydreams, and I’d love for them to be fulfilled…and sometimes the longing of a fantasy is better than the reality ever could be. I’d like to daydream about impossible dreams, ones that can never hurt me by possibly being realized. The sting of disappointment that comes from a dream grasped and then broken, shattered is more bitter than the ache of knowing that dreams are merely dreams and not something to be realized.

Why isn’t there some economic theory that would save us all from the volatile marketplace of the heart?

Am I in love? I don't know. Do I want to be? That, I really don't know.