Women: Prologue

I am surrounded by women, in nearly every aspect of my life. Now, I'm not saying that to be all "check my shit out, bitches, now suck my dick," or to proclaim that I'm some kind of Casanova...

(me and Romeo ain't never been friends/
now you know how much I really love you/
let me say it to you time and time again/

WHAT is THAT doing in my head?)

It has always been this way, as far as I can remember. My life has been filled with interesting women, which, in and of itself, is both a blessing and a curse (thank you, you ancient Chinese fucks).

Right now, for example, the office in which I'm working, there are 7 women (two in my age range, the rest are probably at least 10 yrs. older than I), and one man. This guy is the Medical Director of our deparment, so I rarely get to see him, let alone have any kind of meaningful discussion about anything. So, in effect, I am working with women solely, a fact that extends itself beyond my office and into the rest of the hospital at large.

(More about them in a later post, hopefully.)

As I mentioned, it's always been like this. I find that striking friendships with women to be generally smooth sailing.

I'm sure a good portion of this can be traced back to The Formative Years. Simply, I didn't know any different.

I mean, in the ten years in PR, my dad was around for maybe a third of it. When we reached Denver, dad was in Germany, and my uncles, being swell guys both, just didn't know what to do with me. In Germany, let's just say that the relationship between my dad and I wasn't exactly ideal (as it would remain until a little over a decade later).

When the family arrived back in Colorado, I was about 13 yrs. old. My uncles had more of a clue this time around, but their advice and influence in matters gender related consisted of introducing me to porn, and urging me to learn the art of cunnilingus, for if I did that well, everything would be fine.

All well and good, I suppose. But in terms of day to day, getting along with women, etc. there wasn't much there for me to get. At least from that half of the species. The fact that I wasn't exactly Mr. Popularity during these times, and that I would usually spend my free time at home (when I wasn't rehearsing) watching TV did nothing to alter the situation.

And so, on weekends, when other kids would be at the movies/hanging at the mall/what have you, I'd find myself bored with nothing to do. My mother would usually have her girlfriends over during the weekend, and more often than not, I would gravitate to the dining room and listen in on their conversations.

I really don't know what they thought of all of this, outside of my mother's fear that I was gay. However, it would be the girlfriends who'd include me in the conversation. "Honey, don't you ever do that to anyone. Promise?" "Always bring a gift to a date, it doesn't matter how small." "Call if you say you're going to call." "Be romantic, write a letter, let her know how you feel." "Never ever ignore the person you're with."

Good advice? Great advice. For someone in a relationship. The kind of attention they encouraged me to lavish on a woman is just antithetical to starting something out. This latter type of advice just wasn't forthcoming.

But, the advice they gave did come in handy: Whenever one of the uncles would bring a date down to meet our fam, it was nice to impress these women with the kind of attention they weren't getting, though I wasn't aware of this at the time. (One even confessed to me, by whispering in my ear [shudder], that if it weren't for whichever of my uncles' being there, and my mother's strict christianity, she would teach me a thing or two...fueling at least a month's worth of masturbatory material, and adding to the list of reasons to hate christianity.) I do wish someone would've defined this as flirting at the time.

Another benefit of hanging with these ladies: It taught me how to commune with women. I became adept at the flow of conversation, gossip, and how to listen when it was appropriate.

They taught me to be Mr. Sensitive. Not Mr. Well Rounded, or Mr. Confident, or even Mr. Let's Go Fuck, but that wasn't their job.

I am eternally grateful for the wisdom they imparted.

[Click here to go to the next in the "Women" series.--tbo]