(Nota bene: This story was actually written on Valentine's Day, but mistakenly posted to one of our sister blogs. Must have been the chocolate.)
I once went to a guest est* seminar. I was waiting tables in Boston at the time. Management had decreed that we wear white shirts (my first one was soon stolen--wet!--from the John Lennon laundromat), black pants, and a black bowtie. My hair has always been thick and at that length, with that getup, I looked like a panda.
est was beginning to buy up real estate—it's a pity Scientology got to the old Transamerica building first, or I'd probably see a lot more of one of my friends—and they owned a building around the corner from the restaurant. So the "est-ies," as we called them, came in all the time, and I can report with authority that they were terrible tippers. Anyway, they invited me to their guest seminar and I went. Interesting. I was ready to leave and they wanted me to sign up for the full Monty and I said I thought I had something else I might want to do with that X-hundred dollars.
They asked me if I could come up with the money if my life depended on it.
Now, this was right around the time of Jim Jones. I immediately saw Jonestown in the back of my mind.
They said that my capacity to fully experience life depended on it.
So I decided I would have to forgo fully experiencing life. It’s been a pretty good ride, though, so far.
* * *
A friend, trying to be helpful, just sent me a link to a video that promised to reveal why men lie. Now, I also have another friend and, when I mentioned a self-help title to him one day, he told me that he just reads the titles and then he has a pretty good idea what’s in the book.
I should have taken his approach. Or even reread the article I posted yesterday about relationship experts. Did I do either of those things? Mais non. Hey, we’re talking about men here. I love men. Plus, it’s Valentine’s Day.
The expert promised to reveal what men think, feel, and want. God forbid you should ask one. No, no. That would never work, because he would lie to you.
The expert went on to say that every man you had ever met had lied to you. (This presumably would include my brother, and therefore is not news.)
So the men in your life—including your current sweetheart—are all lying, at all times. Except when taking this survey. (Where the truth serum was administered was not specified.)
Which is why I routinely tell my friends, “I make the mistakes so you don’t have to.”
Now, unlike the restaurant in Boston, the relationship expert’s video had no exit. Well, there is that little window with the X in it, but he promised relationship “superpowers” (there was even a cape, which really got my attention) and maybe he’s about to reveal an important secret, and . . .
But when he said, “The only reason you might not sign up”—right, the whole thing was a sales pitch—“is because you secretly don’t want to know, you like it when men--“ (followed by some drivel), the vernacular sprang to my lips and I closed the window.
“Wait!” he said, and offered an invitation I ignored.
So I’ll never know what all those men really think, feel, and want—or what they chose to tell him they think, feel, and want.
Guess I’ll have to keep dating.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
*erhard seminar training (always written in lower-case letters, perhaps inspired by
e. e. cummings), now called "Landmark Education."
e. e. cummings), now called "Landmark Education."
Reasons men lie to women:
ReplyDelete1. We often get punished for the truth. (That's the she's-at-fault answer.)
2. We are hiding something. (That's the we're-at-fault answer.) Why are we so often hiding something? Because we are all children, who want what we want, including too-expensive tools and too-young other women. Why are we children? Because our mothers coddled us. So this is really another she's-at-fault answer.