Lovelorn, Horny, Belgium, Whatever

Lovelorn: (luvlôrn)
adj.
Bereft of love or one's lover.

Faithful reader, as your humble scribe has previously scriven, I live in proximity to the horniest bass player in Christendom. Actually I am not certain of this. It may be that the quotient of horn is exaggerated by the proximity of the horn; however, the fact of the horn is there for all to witness. Hereafter for the sake of brevity I shall refer to this character as HB.

HB is, as defined above, bereft, and this does not fit comfortably with his open minded and lustful young nature. HB was in love, and now his love has pissed off and gone elsewhere. As is often the case with young love, it's nothing more than getting together as teenagers and coming apart as adults. HB is from a European culture that allows men to have feelings, and sadly, HB's are still somewhat bruised. We might say that the drawing out of Cupid's arrow caused more wounding to occur and that, though the wound was not mortal, the scar tissue is still forming. Consequently, HB finds himself wrestling with a variety of impulses, many of which are shared by young men in similar positions everywhere.

The first stage is self-annihilation. The ego's sense of worthlessness engendered by the parting seeks to be numbed, but is in fact reinforced by subsequent behaviour, including daily alchohol drinking, a series of late nights leading to physical exhaustion, and the company of depressed Belgians and Norwegian absentee sailors. It's not big, and it's not clever. It leaves stains and costs money. Thankfully in HB's case, it was short-lived, and caused only a series of appalling hangovers and the inability to defecate without large doses of coffee. Alchoholic constipation is a small price to pay.

The second stage is whatever. This word has become an expression of apathy, carelessness, and lack of engagement with whatever is being stated. We can best define HB's Whatever state as existential boredom. One set of values has been lost and rejected, and no other has come to take it's place. Therefore life is lived in the state of ennui. Now HB has never read Camus or Sartre and frankly, lacks the motivation to do so. This is because he is in the very state described by these eminent French intellectuals, which just goes to show how useful they are. Whatever.

The third stage is boredom. This stage cannot be avoided or ignored, and should not be seen as a negative state. It is more like a not-yes, not-no mu state. It is the fallow state of the mind and the heart immediately preceding interest. In HB's case, he has stopped beating himself up, has re-engaged with the world, and is looking around once again to re-orientate himself and reconstruct his life, bereft or otherwise. He doesn't want a "relationship" but he wouldn't mind some mindblowing high-octane sex to remind himself that he's a good lover and a nice guy. In the boredom stage, he casts around for a woman who will understand this and appreciate his talent whilst allowing him free rein to continue to be bored. He secretly wants love but he can't admit it yet, and it's useless insisting.

Dear faithful reader, at this point I wouldn't blame you if you suspected that HB was in fact myself, but this simply isn't true, and when I find the person responsible for this vicious rumour I will make my protest known. Indeed, I am at stage #53, floristry which means I have to be careful when to buy flowers. HB however is a real person (anonymous here for obvious reasons) made of flesh and blood and bone, who has needs and requirements of a human nature, and the proximity and scale of the horn is causing a sympathetic resonance to occur in those around him, like the strings of a tuned piano responding unhammered to a loud note sounded nearby.

It is simple. HB could use some help, and so, since I am bound to write on the theme of love until February 14th I have decided to put some of this energy into his assistance.

Previously I said I have been researching LOVE and so I have been. I have been examing the way in which internet dating sites (ab)use myths of love to create wealth. HB has agreed to take part in an event which seeks to do two things: fix him up with a suitable candidate, and see whether we can by this means move him on to the next stage of his recovery.

Let me reassure you that we do have his full enthusiasm for the task.

Vicarious? Certainly. Tasteless? Possibly but that never stopped me before. We can investigate, via this experiment, the nature of new love. Can it be artificially constructed? Can facts and preferences pumped into a database GIVE THIS MAN A CHANCE? HB certainly hopes so. No, he does. Really. He told me.

Speaking for myself, once I had become aware of her beauty and fine qualities, I shamelessly persuaded my own gorgeous girlfriend that I WAS THE ONLY ONE FOR HER, I wanted her that much. Was I wrong to do that? I was sincere and honest. I believed in what I wanted and in my right to get it. There was no deception involved, and there shall be none here. Lust may have fuelled the process, but love completed it.

Thus, dear and patient reader, I will shortly be asking for YOUR input shortly in order to help in this important decision-making process.

After all, it could turn out to be a match made in Belgium.