Tuesday, December 9, 2008

A Decent Man

The Lively German has shown himself to incorporate the obligatory amount of German self-loathing with a love of cleaning, but combines this with a natural teacher's determination to encourage my abysmally poor progress in his mother tongue and, such a nice surprise, a militant cyclist's disregard for the idea of paying for public transit (IMAGINE!) that encourages my worst anarchistic tendencies for riding schwarz. Most endearing is his absolute dedication to the most important things in life like cooking for me and showering me with silly little presents whenever I will permit such aberrant behavior. Womyn, it is SO nice to be reminded that attentive, considerate men still walk this earth!

In addition, he's smart and thoughtful and we can discuss whether altruism is really hedonism (I think absolutely) and chew over the many possibilities for translating words with complex multiple meanings, between English and German and Spanish and French. I don't recall exactly how we started our discussion of "decent". When I moved into my current flat with a Portuguese woman who turned out to be an extremely unpleasant control freak, I remember her asking me to only bring "decent" men to the flat. I have, of course, violated her request, but it really made me think further about somewhere I'd been headed in my head for some time now. It's a fascinating word, isn't it? It ranges from the moral -- upright, respectful, full of integrity -- all the way to the sexual -- decorous, gentlemanly. I'm of course not interested in sexually "decent" men; rather the contrary. But the man who could manage to pull off sexual indecency in a gentlemanly way, now he would be quite the catch!

So let's examine the other extreme, shall we (with which I've had lamentably far too much experience)? I present Exhibit A. I met up once more with Mr. Too-French-To-Be-Believed, and that was enough to remind myself exactly how cold he leaves me. Oh yes, he’s classically handsome, and extremely (ahem) well-endowed, but he clearly has one turn-on, and only one, and that is, well, how can I put this, HIMSELF. He, M., the Great French LUUUVVVAAAIIRRR. Now the rest of this post is not for the faint-of-heart. Let me begin with a question. Is there some sort of French sexual humor the rest of the world has not been let in on? Because M. decided he would test out, what do I know, the shock value of recounting that his last "partner" (if we can even call it that) was 12 years old. But it gets better (doesn't it always)? I.e., he’d earned 250 euros for services rendered to an older “lady” (not this one -- I still haven’t arrived at that sad end)! Who knows if it was true; the point is he felt at liberty to say such things. UGGHHH. I felt like I'd been slimed.

Womyn, it's not that hard to figure out, is it? Because our bodies tell us all we need to know. And that's why a decent man makes me hot, and these pricks leave me cold. It's really just that simple.

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