Archaic

I'm a masochist. I work, lift, and run like a masochist. I'm also old-fashioned. However, I was unaware as to how these two might relate.

Today, I was listening to all these different versions of "Ain't No Mtn Hi Enuf". As I did, my desire to suffer, battle, and fight for a beloved became so clear. I was surprised. I didn't know I had this thing in me. I still don't know exactly what it's about. Its crazy.

Like many of my contemporaries I have suscribed to the post-1950's playboi identity. An easy-street savvy, smart, privileged, and self-centered man. For me, this image has proven unsatisfactory--unfulfilling. I found no soul there. In my early and mid-college years I did that--I don't think I can say I "lived" it.

In the process, I discovered the enormous generational gap between me and my parents, a couple who marched to the beat of the medieval spirit. My father was used to, enjoyed, and even sought out the underdog position. I, on the other hand, having grown up with the benefits of his spoils, grew to master the overdog position. I knew how to exercise it and exploit it. While on occasion, I still get a kick out of it and I appreciate the knowledge of that experience. I know it cannot be the central part of any experience.

I tend to pursue impossible people romantically. I dig them out somehow. I get turned off when someone is easily taken by me. Both with men and women. One of the first girls I nabbed who I thought was out of my league I met in a college club.

I saw her first at a party. She looked incredible. Dancing in a skin-tight plain black dress--her body, eyes, skin, and moves caught and kept me for a while. I didn't talk to her yet. Later, we ended up competing for the same spot for this club. I got it, and she still got in but in a corollary role. I didn't know it until our first meeting, when she loudly announced from across the room that she had initially wanted my job.

I was stunned, confused, and idiotic in my reaction. I just smiled, confidently, and said that I'm sure I would end up asking her lots of quesitons about the position. She didn't seem satisfied. Eventually, she caught on to my nervousness around her. She jumped on the opportunity and started overtly flirting with me at meetings and just in general around campus. It annoyed those around us. Suddenly, her status for me went through the ground. While I enjoyed her attention, I lost the desire to pursue her. She was confused too about my reaction. Oh well.

I'm scared that I will misinterpret what it means to fight for someone. What is the battle? How need it be fought? What's appropriate? What is the role of the Other? Even many women today hate being put in the "damsel" in distress position. I can't expect any thing less from an intelligent male. I have to be able to integrate this desire into a functional relationship.

I'm starting to realize that I now like situations in which the Other plays hard to get. It's happened often for me, and I suppose its grown on me. Part of my fear with Asian Boy is that his playing hard to get has been so intense, that I have made myself to look rather desperate. Perhaps this position is all part of the scenario. Is that what the Other enjoys--to see this strong and daring figure brought to its knees by the sheer presence and being of another rather than its strength?

Zeus was at the gym yesterday. Haven't seen him in a while. If anyone can put me in the position of the Other, he could. He's gargantuan.

I ignored him because he was with someone else and also just because he hasn't been around much. I realized I was rude and when the moment came, I passed by and didn't avert my glance. He immediately turned to look right next to me--he would only look at me with his peripheral vision. His reaction was so precise and so intense, that it was obvious why it transpired. Plus, although he aimed his pupils adjacent to me, he aimed a bit too close. Without anything else remotely of interest around me, and since whatever he was looking at followed my same trajectory, his intention was overt.

He continued his conversation and I sensed his awareness of me in the room henceforth. I thought about striking up small talk. I actually had a training question for him. But I refrained thinking, how can this enormous hulk be so reactive to me, and yet not make at least a half-ass move? Does he expect me to come to him? Is he so spoiled by the admiration that he gets from others that he never expects to take a single step out on the limb? Clearly he is in the dominant position between the two of us.

I heard a little about his past. He is most definitely a people person. Apparently, when outside the gym he is very gregarious and astute. I can't think of a reason for his timidness around me. I can only think--stop staring and talk.

Eventually, he took off his jacket to expose a string tank. I looked, and he immediately looked right back at me with a big sneaky grin. His defined muscle bellies were amazing. As usual, he was cut to the bone. I definitely wondered as to how all that hard flesh would feel under me if were to straddle him, or how I might feel pinned under all that muscle. But his sudden change in confidence when he took off his jacket, sort of blew the fantasy for me.

Jeeez, I thought, even if he were to come onto me, I think I wouldn't even look all that interested because of his wierdness. Would that then sort of resemble Asian Boy's reactions to me? Did I look this retarded in front of him? I need better armor. I need to look invincible even in my begging. Though a knight kneels before the damsel, he never loses his composure.