Things I've Learned From Women Who've Dumped Me - Ben Karlin [2]
No, instead, reading about all this learning reconciles me to the future, when I have messed this marriage up and I’m back on the singles circuit, aged fifty-nine, say, or sixty-seven, or eighty-two; the success of institutions like the University of the Third Age demonstrates that our thirst for learning remains unquenched even in our twilight years.
It is perhaps best not to analyse too closely what exactly it is that these writers have gleaned from their romantic mishaps. Andy Selsberg, for example, has clasped to his bosom the lesson that holding grudges is fun. (Well, der! What did he think relationships were for? Mutual support, raising children, looking after each other in old age? And how old are you, Andy?) Rodney Rothman learns that the girl who broke his heart doesn’t actually remember dating him in the first place. Dan Savage found out that he wasn’t interested in women. This is all useful stuff, but one can see that anyone doubtful about the intellectual value of romantic trauma might still need a little more evidence of its efficacy.
What strikes one about these essays is that many of the authors seem to have found contentment in their relationships since, and there is a suggestion implicit in the book’s title that through dumping came wisdom, and through wisdom domestic bliss. I’m not so sure. A good, if tasteless, comparison (but one I am allowed to make because of my nationality) is with Londoners during the Blitz: did bombs stop dropping on us because we had somehow learned enough to prevent them from dropping? I would argue not. I would argue that other factors, too complicated to go into here (but see Winston Churchill, The Second World War, volumes two and three), were responsible. The major, but vital, contribution of Londoners was their refusal to let their morale be broken by the relentless bombings. And then, one day in May 1941, the Germans took their firepower elsewhere.
Well, isn’t that it? It seems that the major, but vital, contribution of men to the war of attrition that takes place between the ages of thirteen and about thirty-five, if you’re lucky, is our refusal to let our morale be broken. Cheese-eating surrender monkeys would open a packet of char-grilled steak-flavored peanuts, crawl under our sports-themed duvet covers, and stay there until we were certain that the last sparks of sexuality had withered and died. We didn’t do that, mostly because we were too stupid. We ignored the air-raid wardens and ran up and down the streets waving torches.
In those formative years, we got creamed, mashed, pissed on (I’m speaking figuratively here, but there are, of course, some people who like that sort of thing, and it’s not my intention to judge them); we got told we were stupid, feckless, reckless, scared, boring, unserious, too serious, too bookish, nerdy, unattractive, too drunk, too stoned, too sporty, too couch-potatoey, too outdoorsy, too political, too insular, too angry, too drippy, too suspicious, too complacent, too ambitious, not ambitious enough, too poor. I know I got told that, anyway. (I’ll bet you that somebody, somewhere, got told he was too handsome, too successful, too kind, too thoughtful, and too good in bed.)
It is only fair to point out that we gave as good as we got during this time. We sent the RAF out there night after night to cheat, lie, and refuse to commit. Most of the people in this book, creative types all, were refused admission on medical grounds, although I suspect the contributors who were in bands were involved in some of the terrible carpet-bombing that went on during the twenties. (Indeed, some of the zeal shown by our fellow males made some of us