Writing as Jeremy IX
Infidelity
Sometimes I feel it is important for us to do terrible things to each other, or to ourselves, in order to gain a better understanding of who we are and what we are capable of. Once I purposely shortchanged a customer in the bookshop in which I worked - I only shortchanged him a pound, but I felt so guilty about it afterwards I could never bring myself to do it again. But, of course, I can now say that I know where my line is drawn. Before that I was always under the uncomfortable assumption that the only thing stopping me from stealing from friends and family was fear of being caught, and if I managed to overcome that fear I would become the worst kind of thief. 'Don't leave your small change on the kitchen table when Jeremy's around'. Now I know for sure that the guilt would be unbearable for me.
That said... I've never really tried stealing from friends and family, only strangers. Have I missed a trick there? Maybe it feels different stealing from people close to you. Maybe it doesn't feel quite as awful. I remember stealing a classmate's computer game when I was about 8, and quickly becoming so terrified of being found out that I threw it into an abandoned car by the traintracks. If I'd defeated that fear, like a triathlon runner breaks through The Wall, I could have been a different person.
What I have done, more than once, and may even continue to do if I wasn't such an ugly old bastard, is to mercilessly cheat on girlfriends and boyfriends. I can't think of much detail that needs to be delved into here, I think it speaks for itself. I have been in any number of trusting, adult relationships, and countless times I have traded in that trust for what amounted to, more often than not, a quick, ecstatic fumble in the dark.
Reasons, then. First of all, infidelity ran in my blood. My mother cheated on my father, and I knew about it, and I was old enough to understand what it meant. My dad was boring, or she wasn't getting enough, or getting it good enough at home. Or simply her life had become a unstimulating, windowless room, and sex with another man was like taking a trip out into the open for the first time in years. I never really judged her for it, when perhaps I should have. Perhaps it isn't healthy to be so cynical at 15 (the age I found out about her affair) that you accept dissatisfaction, and infidelity, and lying, and filthy, illicit sex, as normal parts of adulthood.
Secondly, I am a very sexual person. You know, besides myself, the only other people I've ever heard using that sentence are horrible, awful people. Girls generally, who mean only one thing by it - "I'm a terrifying lay, and I will use sex to degrade myself in front of you because I think I'm disgusting and worthless. I will also get emotionally attached so quickly you'll have to hack at me with a chisel to get me off." (I don't mean 'get me off' get me off. Although, then again...)
What does it mean when I say it, though? Well, I find that if I say it enough it acts a pre-emptive excuse for when I use someone for sex despite loathing them completely, or when I eventually leave you because I'm exhausted by all the Emotion. It's a rephrasing of that old line about not being built for monogamy, too. Except I always sort of know that I was built for monogamy, by virtue of the fact that the rest of the human race seems relatively fine with it all things considered thank you very much. I was just too lazy to deal with the demand on my time and emotional resources, and too spoilt (by myself more than anyone else) to truely understand why sometimes it's in my best interests to deny myself things that feel good. Even now, whenever I buy a packet of biscuits, I still eat the entire packet in one sitting. Biscuits taste good. Part of me still believes that is justification enough.
The feelings after I've cheated on a partner are dense and complex. It was never just guilt. Immediately post-orgasm, now there were some moments of pure guilt - lying there, spent, sweaty and panting, and realising the release I had just experienced could quite easily have been recreated alone, in the comfort on my own armchair or, god forbid, with my partner. But then again, I got that feeling regardless of who I was with. The fact is, there are people in this world whom it is more satisfying to sleep with than it is not to, and all the more satisfying because by rights you shouldn't be having them at all. Finding a £10 note on the street is infinitely more fun than earning it, you know? That's true for everyone, isn't it? It's beautiful, I think, that almost every human being will find that there are some lips that just have to be kissed - that feeling of gushing, thirsty lust is electric, it's life affirming. Lips that just have to be kissed. But there are more than one such pair of lips.
The real feeling of unease, of distrusting my own wanton impulses, came with this revelation - I can be in a relationship Person A, and sleep with Person B for a long list of reasons (their gorgeous hair, their taste in music, their walk, their smile, etc); but if I was in a relationship with Person B instead, I would probably want to sleep with Person A for similar reasons. Ridiculous. I came to that conclusion whilst seeing a guy who was flatmates with a friend, a girl. He was beautiful and smart and funny, but she was... well, simply put, she was also there. Her glorious, tight curves brought my heart into my throat whenever I saw her. The difference between the two of them was merely that I'd seen him naked - I'd seen what was beneath his layers of intelligence and wit and affection. But I hadn't undressed her yet. Needless to say, if had met her first, I would have wanted him for the same reasons.
This is a useful thing to know about oneself, I think. That I am vulnerable to distraction by the shiny and new, or by the unexplored, or by the clothed. But I could never easily just switch my desires around, refocus them towards my partner, like my friends could. They would meet someone in a bar, and rather than go home with them they would go back to their significant others and relieve their sexual frustrations with them, closing their eyes and picturing Strange Boy or Strange Girl as they took it from a familar face. That's normal and healthy, so I'm told.
I could never do that though.
It felt too much like cheating.
Sometimes I feel it is important for us to do terrible things to each other, or to ourselves, in order to gain a better understanding of who we are and what we are capable of. Once I purposely shortchanged a customer in the bookshop in which I worked - I only shortchanged him a pound, but I felt so guilty about it afterwards I could never bring myself to do it again. But, of course, I can now say that I know where my line is drawn. Before that I was always under the uncomfortable assumption that the only thing stopping me from stealing from friends and family was fear of being caught, and if I managed to overcome that fear I would become the worst kind of thief. 'Don't leave your small change on the kitchen table when Jeremy's around'. Now I know for sure that the guilt would be unbearable for me.
That said... I've never really tried stealing from friends and family, only strangers. Have I missed a trick there? Maybe it feels different stealing from people close to you. Maybe it doesn't feel quite as awful. I remember stealing a classmate's computer game when I was about 8, and quickly becoming so terrified of being found out that I threw it into an abandoned car by the traintracks. If I'd defeated that fear, like a triathlon runner breaks through The Wall, I could have been a different person.
What I have done, more than once, and may even continue to do if I wasn't such an ugly old bastard, is to mercilessly cheat on girlfriends and boyfriends. I can't think of much detail that needs to be delved into here, I think it speaks for itself. I have been in any number of trusting, adult relationships, and countless times I have traded in that trust for what amounted to, more often than not, a quick, ecstatic fumble in the dark.
Reasons, then. First of all, infidelity ran in my blood. My mother cheated on my father, and I knew about it, and I was old enough to understand what it meant. My dad was boring, or she wasn't getting enough, or getting it good enough at home. Or simply her life had become a unstimulating, windowless room, and sex with another man was like taking a trip out into the open for the first time in years. I never really judged her for it, when perhaps I should have. Perhaps it isn't healthy to be so cynical at 15 (the age I found out about her affair) that you accept dissatisfaction, and infidelity, and lying, and filthy, illicit sex, as normal parts of adulthood.
Secondly, I am a very sexual person. You know, besides myself, the only other people I've ever heard using that sentence are horrible, awful people. Girls generally, who mean only one thing by it - "I'm a terrifying lay, and I will use sex to degrade myself in front of you because I think I'm disgusting and worthless. I will also get emotionally attached so quickly you'll have to hack at me with a chisel to get me off." (I don't mean 'get me off' get me off. Although, then again...)
What does it mean when I say it, though? Well, I find that if I say it enough it acts a pre-emptive excuse for when I use someone for sex despite loathing them completely, or when I eventually leave you because I'm exhausted by all the Emotion. It's a rephrasing of that old line about not being built for monogamy, too. Except I always sort of know that I was built for monogamy, by virtue of the fact that the rest of the human race seems relatively fine with it all things considered thank you very much. I was just too lazy to deal with the demand on my time and emotional resources, and too spoilt (by myself more than anyone else) to truely understand why sometimes it's in my best interests to deny myself things that feel good. Even now, whenever I buy a packet of biscuits, I still eat the entire packet in one sitting. Biscuits taste good. Part of me still believes that is justification enough.
The feelings after I've cheated on a partner are dense and complex. It was never just guilt. Immediately post-orgasm, now there were some moments of pure guilt - lying there, spent, sweaty and panting, and realising the release I had just experienced could quite easily have been recreated alone, in the comfort on my own armchair or, god forbid, with my partner. But then again, I got that feeling regardless of who I was with. The fact is, there are people in this world whom it is more satisfying to sleep with than it is not to, and all the more satisfying because by rights you shouldn't be having them at all. Finding a £10 note on the street is infinitely more fun than earning it, you know? That's true for everyone, isn't it? It's beautiful, I think, that almost every human being will find that there are some lips that just have to be kissed - that feeling of gushing, thirsty lust is electric, it's life affirming. Lips that just have to be kissed. But there are more than one such pair of lips.
The real feeling of unease, of distrusting my own wanton impulses, came with this revelation - I can be in a relationship Person A, and sleep with Person B for a long list of reasons (their gorgeous hair, their taste in music, their walk, their smile, etc); but if I was in a relationship with Person B instead, I would probably want to sleep with Person A for similar reasons. Ridiculous. I came to that conclusion whilst seeing a guy who was flatmates with a friend, a girl. He was beautiful and smart and funny, but she was... well, simply put, she was also there. Her glorious, tight curves brought my heart into my throat whenever I saw her. The difference between the two of them was merely that I'd seen him naked - I'd seen what was beneath his layers of intelligence and wit and affection. But I hadn't undressed her yet. Needless to say, if had met her first, I would have wanted him for the same reasons.
This is a useful thing to know about oneself, I think. That I am vulnerable to distraction by the shiny and new, or by the unexplored, or by the clothed. But I could never easily just switch my desires around, refocus them towards my partner, like my friends could. They would meet someone in a bar, and rather than go home with them they would go back to their significant others and relieve their sexual frustrations with them, closing their eyes and picturing Strange Boy or Strange Girl as they took it from a familar face. That's normal and healthy, so I'm told.
I could never do that though.
It felt too much like cheating.