From 30 years ago, learning to be angry
Frontal Assault
My own theory is that moods are like the weather, beyond our control, somewhat unpredictable, yet somehow orderly when viewed from afar. My psychologist acts as my weather satellite. I visit her placid, floral office every week to receive forecasts and warnings. Once she even used her legal notepad to draw me a sort of emotional map. My mother forms a cold front stretching iron curtain-like across my life, precipitating storms whenever she runs into a warm spot.
My sister Rose maintains a stationary front, just powerful enough to deflect any other weather from entering her domain. I seek her out often to calm my inner instability.
My friends, lovers, and acquaintances produce cloud patterns unique to themselves, dropping their shadows all over my heart, mind, and soul. Once in a while they cause untold millions in damage when I fail to take shelter. Some of them earn titles, like Tropical Storm Ariel or Hurricane Charlie.
People often laugh when I tell them these things about my life, but belief-systems do help one to navigate, whether they make sense to others or not. Would you rather wander blindly through the chaos, or try to make some sense out of it?
Mothers are especially good at creating chaos, at least my mother is. Years ago I was beginning to live with a man I felt deeply in love with. Mother had been giving me advice since I clawed my way out of her womb, so of course she advised me that I was too dependent on Michael, too acquiescent to his demands. Advice like that can't help but fuel fights.
Whether I did act "too" dependently can never be proven or disproven, but I immediately began to notice how dependent my behavior had been. I struggled for more independence, went to Europe without Michael for six weeks, and came home to find myself single once more.
I didn't realize this immediately. When I returned, Michael dutifully picked me up at the Raleigh-Durham airport where I kept staring at the Americans. Americans are so fat! Their clothes impossibly bright, their hair too long, families so ridiculous looking, the children don't even look related half the time. I wanted to get back on the plane.
Michael drove us to our dilapidated little house in his beat up old Sirocco, threw a couple burgers on the front porch grill, and began to tell me about the affair he'd had with Gregg's boyfriend, and how Gregg (our best friend!) wasn't speaking to him anymore, and about how lonely he'd been while I was gone, and about how he'd had to prove that he was still attractive to other people (etc., raise your hand if you've heard this before).
Silly, stupid, dependent me, I figured, "So what? Now I'm home again and everything will be fine." I leaned over to kiss Michael and grabbed his crotch.
"Pervert!" he whined. His penis had never felt so small. Michael had been raised a Catholic, and he was riding a major guilt trip. "I was thinking," he began, "maybe we should just be friends."
Sometimes I wish I had the Law on my side. When my straight married friends have problems with fidelity or emotional turbulence they have the terrifying process of divorce to balance things out. In the gay world, a simple argument or bad mood produces, "I think we should just be friends." And the relationship is over. I don't remember ever seeing just-be-friends getting back together. It's not anything like when the wife runs to mother's house, the husband gets drunk with his friends, they both tell everybody how despicable their spouse is, was, and forever shall be, and then a week later they are sharing a bottle of Chablis and staining the family room sofa with their love juices.
I'm currently involved in about five just-be-friends relationships. Once in a while they create pleasant, flirty, sunny times. The rest of the time they piss me off. I'll go out to the Oar House or the Anvil and feel like I am at an ex-boyfriend convention. I'll see just-be-friend # 3 talking to just-be-friend # 5, and instinctively know they are talking about me, comparing notes. I'll see just-be-friend # 2 trying to pick up a new boyfriend and wonder, "Why are you going after that, you told me you hated him?"
Just-be-friend # 1 will walk up to me and say, "I had a great day at the beach, want to see my tan line?" while hiking up his shirt, pulling down his shorts, and forcing me to admit that he looks even better now than he did while I was going out with him. I still want him, and it pisses me off.
My psychologist, Dr. Andrea Roberts, tells me that I have problems with these "friends" because we are all avoiding our real emotions. We never expressed to each other those moments of anger which real relationships require. We never took part in any rituals of closure when we broke apart. We remain frozen in a state of unexpressed antagonism, avoiding each other as much as politeness will allow.
After I had Dr. Roberts repeat this a few times in smaller words, ("you need to learn to get angry, Bug") I went home, thought for a while, and said to my sister, Rose, "Why?"
What good would getting angry do? I don't want to become somebody else's storm front. I try to be a nice guy, so that people will like me. This is called "acquiescence", "dependency", and "repression." I am told to be more "expressive" and "assertive."
Once I dated a guy who intentionally tried to piss me off so that I would stop going out with him. I couldn't sleep at night I got so angry. I didn't yell at him, though, I simply asked what was wrong, and he said, "I just want to be friends." Dr. Roberts says I should have yelled at him to "let my feelings out" as if they were imprisoned inside my brain. It wouldn't have done any good.
Surveys tell me that at least 50 % of Americans have affairs. I'd agree with that. Almost every couple I know contains one person who has told me they've cheated on their loved one, or that their partner has cheated on them. This stuff, when discovered, usually produces profound scenes of verbal, emotional, or even physical abuse between lovers. Dr. Roberts says this is normal. She asks me why emotions scare me so much. I ask her, why don't they bother you? Maybe she is used to them, working in her little office of tears, collecting $95 an hour for telling people that anger is "normal". I want her to earn her pay. Teach us how to keep from getting angry in the first place, Doc.
In ninth grade I read a book for English class. I actually liked this one because it was short, simple, and written in modern prose. The main character went at life like a stone shot from a sling, banging against walls and contradictions, becoming progressively more befuddled and emotionally paralyzed. Finally he learned to treat life as though it flowed through him no matter where he stood. He stopped chasing, and the storms went away.
I want to stop fleeing.
My own theory is that moods are like the weather, beyond our control, somewhat unpredictable, yet somehow orderly when viewed from afar. My psychologist acts as my weather satellite. I visit her placid, floral office every week to receive forecasts and warnings. Once she even used her legal notepad to draw me a sort of emotional map. My mother forms a cold front stretching iron curtain-like across my life, precipitating storms whenever she runs into a warm spot.
My sister Rose maintains a stationary front, just powerful enough to deflect any other weather from entering her domain. I seek her out often to calm my inner instability.
My friends, lovers, and acquaintances produce cloud patterns unique to themselves, dropping their shadows all over my heart, mind, and soul. Once in a while they cause untold millions in damage when I fail to take shelter. Some of them earn titles, like Tropical Storm Ariel or Hurricane Charlie.
People often laugh when I tell them these things about my life, but belief-systems do help one to navigate, whether they make sense to others or not. Would you rather wander blindly through the chaos, or try to make some sense out of it?
Mothers are especially good at creating chaos, at least my mother is. Years ago I was beginning to live with a man I felt deeply in love with. Mother had been giving me advice since I clawed my way out of her womb, so of course she advised me that I was too dependent on Michael, too acquiescent to his demands. Advice like that can't help but fuel fights.
Whether I did act "too" dependently can never be proven or disproven, but I immediately began to notice how dependent my behavior had been. I struggled for more independence, went to Europe without Michael for six weeks, and came home to find myself single once more.
I didn't realize this immediately. When I returned, Michael dutifully picked me up at the Raleigh-Durham airport where I kept staring at the Americans. Americans are so fat! Their clothes impossibly bright, their hair too long, families so ridiculous looking, the children don't even look related half the time. I wanted to get back on the plane.
Michael drove us to our dilapidated little house in his beat up old Sirocco, threw a couple burgers on the front porch grill, and began to tell me about the affair he'd had with Gregg's boyfriend, and how Gregg (our best friend!) wasn't speaking to him anymore, and about how lonely he'd been while I was gone, and about how he'd had to prove that he was still attractive to other people (etc., raise your hand if you've heard this before).
Silly, stupid, dependent me, I figured, "So what? Now I'm home again and everything will be fine." I leaned over to kiss Michael and grabbed his crotch.
"Pervert!" he whined. His penis had never felt so small. Michael had been raised a Catholic, and he was riding a major guilt trip. "I was thinking," he began, "maybe we should just be friends."
Sometimes I wish I had the Law on my side. When my straight married friends have problems with fidelity or emotional turbulence they have the terrifying process of divorce to balance things out. In the gay world, a simple argument or bad mood produces, "I think we should just be friends." And the relationship is over. I don't remember ever seeing just-be-friends getting back together. It's not anything like when the wife runs to mother's house, the husband gets drunk with his friends, they both tell everybody how despicable their spouse is, was, and forever shall be, and then a week later they are sharing a bottle of Chablis and staining the family room sofa with their love juices.
I'm currently involved in about five just-be-friends relationships. Once in a while they create pleasant, flirty, sunny times. The rest of the time they piss me off. I'll go out to the Oar House or the Anvil and feel like I am at an ex-boyfriend convention. I'll see just-be-friend # 3 talking to just-be-friend # 5, and instinctively know they are talking about me, comparing notes. I'll see just-be-friend # 2 trying to pick up a new boyfriend and wonder, "Why are you going after that, you told me you hated him?"
Just-be-friend # 1 will walk up to me and say, "I had a great day at the beach, want to see my tan line?" while hiking up his shirt, pulling down his shorts, and forcing me to admit that he looks even better now than he did while I was going out with him. I still want him, and it pisses me off.
My psychologist, Dr. Andrea Roberts, tells me that I have problems with these "friends" because we are all avoiding our real emotions. We never expressed to each other those moments of anger which real relationships require. We never took part in any rituals of closure when we broke apart. We remain frozen in a state of unexpressed antagonism, avoiding each other as much as politeness will allow.
After I had Dr. Roberts repeat this a few times in smaller words, ("you need to learn to get angry, Bug") I went home, thought for a while, and said to my sister, Rose, "Why?"
What good would getting angry do? I don't want to become somebody else's storm front. I try to be a nice guy, so that people will like me. This is called "acquiescence", "dependency", and "repression." I am told to be more "expressive" and "assertive."
Once I dated a guy who intentionally tried to piss me off so that I would stop going out with him. I couldn't sleep at night I got so angry. I didn't yell at him, though, I simply asked what was wrong, and he said, "I just want to be friends." Dr. Roberts says I should have yelled at him to "let my feelings out" as if they were imprisoned inside my brain. It wouldn't have done any good.
Surveys tell me that at least 50 % of Americans have affairs. I'd agree with that. Almost every couple I know contains one person who has told me they've cheated on their loved one, or that their partner has cheated on them. This stuff, when discovered, usually produces profound scenes of verbal, emotional, or even physical abuse between lovers. Dr. Roberts says this is normal. She asks me why emotions scare me so much. I ask her, why don't they bother you? Maybe she is used to them, working in her little office of tears, collecting $95 an hour for telling people that anger is "normal". I want her to earn her pay. Teach us how to keep from getting angry in the first place, Doc.
In ninth grade I read a book for English class. I actually liked this one because it was short, simple, and written in modern prose. The main character went at life like a stone shot from a sling, banging against walls and contradictions, becoming progressively more befuddled and emotionally paralyzed. Finally he learned to treat life as though it flowed through him no matter where he stood. He stopped chasing, and the storms went away.
I want to stop fleeing.