Mark

Mark’s in love again. I tell him it’s stupid, but only because he asks me what I think, not because I think it will make a difference. He’ll make his own mistakes, as always. The tragedy of it is that he’s a smart enough man to realize what an idiot he’s being.

I don’t think love’s stupid, by the way. It’s just that the way Mark loves is stupid.

I think he does it out of self-loathing, or because he likes to suffer — which is the same thing, really. He’d never know how to live with himself unless he had someone around to make his life hell.

And that’s what she does. What Claire does for him.

She makes his life hell.

Of course, that’s not what initially attracted him to her. The promise of misery is enough to turn attraction into love, but the attraction has to be there first. There’s something sweet in attraction that promises happiness, after all — and even the most self-hating of men cherishes at least some little fantasy of future happiness.

No, the love comes later — love is when you spot the pointed canines in the smile between the ruby red lips. But for that the smile has to catch the eye, now doesn’t it?

But I’m not talking about a literal smile, not really. No, what I’m thinking of is that ideal every man carries in his heart. Who knows where it gets picked up? Maybe it’s the mother that does it, or growing up, or maybe it’s something inborn. But every man has his own ideal, and the closer a woman comes to matching that ideal, the more willing he is to put himself in her power.

Or to walk into her trap.

Now, when I talk about an ideal I don’t mean something like “beauty.” Beauty is a much too broad category — too objective, really, although we’re not supposed to admit that these days. But the ideal is something personal, deeply personal. So personal, in fact, that most men aren’t aware they carry it within them at all, or if they are they’ll just think they’re imagining a pretty woman. Not many become aware of it, not explicitly — because it’s hidden in the mind, one of those images from dreams that only rarely surfaces.

So it’s intensely personal, as you can see, but also highly specific. Just as an example — and before I go on I should just let you know that the ideal does include things like physical appearance, but much more than that as well — let’s say a man’s ideal has green eyes. If he meets two identical women, both perfectly matching the ideal in every respect, but one of them has green eyes while the other has brown — well, the brown-eyed girl may not even awaken a glimmer of a feeling of the ideal in him.

Which isn’t to say a man can’t be attracted to a woman who doesn’t match his ideal. We live in permissive times, after all, and a man can have a lot of fun with the ladies. But a man like Mark is only really ever in danger from a woman who does awaken the ideal.

Ask any man. If he’s honest with you, he’ll tell you the similarities in all the women he’s ever loved — ever really loved, not just played games with till she got sick of it. You’ll find they’re all approximations of a basic physical type, psychological type, etc. In Platonic terms, emanations from the same form — or “idea,” depending on how you translate the Greek.

Every young man falls in love with the first decent approximation of his ideal he finds. And because he’s young and stupid (and in this respect most men remain stupid all their lives, although Mark’s not stupid in that way) he can’t separate the ideal from the woman he loves. He thinks she is the ideal, and the moment he realizes she’s not the ideal he’ll stop loving her. Not because he’s bad, no, and not because she’s bad, but only because he’s young and stupid and immature.

But Mark… he knows better than that. Oh, he’s still stupid enough that he gets Claire mixed up with his ideal whenever he gets worked up. There’s not a man on earth who isn’t stupid in that way.

Mark, though. He knows himself well enough to know when his ideal’s been awakened. And he knows himself well enough that he goes on his guard any time a woman offers him even the faintest glimpse of his ideal. He doesn’t know himself well enough to know that putting his guard up only makes it impossible for him to look away from her. With half of him attracted and half of him desperate to get away, the jaws are already closing around him — he’s too fascinated to get away from her.

To get away from me, of course.

In case you haven’t already figured it out.

But Mark. Oh, poor, stupid Mark. He knows himself well enough to recognize his ideal and to be afraid of it — but he knows very well indeed I’m not his ideal. His sweet, kindly, smiling little ideal.

You could say he loves me for all the ways I’m not his ideal.

You can only imagine.

(Or if you’re lucky, you can’t.)

Don’t get me wrong, though. I look like her. Talk like her. Even act like her — most of the time.

But there’s always that gap. Isn’t there? That lets the warm love come bleeding through.

Mark, you poor bastard. Mark, you poor, stupid man. Mark, you Platonic form of self-annihilation…

What can I say? It’s so sweet that he loves all my little imperfections!

And I’ll have him eating out of my hand soon enough.

With a leash around his neck.