Untitled

January 11, 1995

"What are all those songs (in Japanese) saying?" asked the sushi bar patron of the sushi chef. "Boy, girl, love, boy loses girl, girl loses boy, like that."

I have tried to observe the kinds of relationships people in my circle are having with members of the opposite sex. The stories are all pretty much the same. The married ones are flat and non-committal. The unmarried women have about the same kinds of complaints about their relationships: they can't get what they want or are worried that the men are seeing other women, or that they don't treat them well, or that ... It is exactly like a soap opera, so I wonder why people watch soap operas when they could just hold a mirror to their lives. The men are bored or are searching for something else, they don't even know how to verbalize it. And on and on. I noticed that at least one individual with whom I have spoken about the human condition as regards men and women woke up to the idea that he had all along been thinking that women thought about things just as he did. Big mistake!

In the end, no one I know of is now nor has ever had a satisfying relationship; well maybe one or two, but it is surely a rare bird. And yet look at all of them, relationships and marriages, their beaming faces shine from the social pages and then what?

If it were of value to the human species that women retained their beauty and desirability well into their later years, they would.

The man referred to above made an interesting comment about my suggestion to obtain sexual satisfaction with a prostitute. He said he does not want to have sex without love and does not want to fall in love!! Kind of says a lot doesn't it?