12/25/2020
What is the best advice on choosing the right woman to marry?
[On the left-hand side, we see Michelle Obama, known for her intelligence and charisma. On the right hand, we have popular model Emily Ratajkowski. Both women have obvious qualities. But who would you choose ?]
SVENN
My friend Svenn is happily married, with one child.
When he first mentioned his future wife, he told me straight away:
“I met someone who I really like, and you will meet her soon. But I have to warn you in advance: she is really ugly.”
I was shocked.
Svenn always had had some bad luck with women, and I suspected that he kind of changed his expectations of that part of life.
And I think he was, and is, wrong: I think you have to have GREAT expectations.
Always.
He went for the mind, and simply ignored the body.
JOSH
Josh always admired the great mind of his wife.
She is fast, ambitious, and a woman-on-top. A very capable journalist for a rather big newspaper.
But over the years, he has decided that he does not really love her body anymore. It has become too well known. Trivial. “Maybe he never really loved it.”
So he took a lover who was “not as witty, but much more exciting.”
This was the eventual cause which stopped our friendship in the end.
(I hate cheaters.)
JERRY
Jerry loves his girlfriend’s body.
She is a fierce New Zealander who loves to dress in short skirts with deep cleavage, but she does not understand most of his thoughts (his words), and he has no problems with this.
“His mind can be satisfied in other ways.”
He is the dual of Svenn and Josh (although he is probably the most honest of the three: Svenn lies to himself, Josh lies to his wife, and Jerry tells her what he thinks).
All three of these men have the exact same problem: they cannot cross the bridge between the body and mind of their partners.
Either the bridge is interrupted, or it is too steep, or too far.
Or there is too much mist to cross the damn thing.
[Tay Bridge disaster, December 28, 1879.[1]]
If you are together with someone, you must respect and desire the mind and body of your partner.
You want to agree and disagree and find a solution, you want to enjoy your partner’s thoughts, you want to laugh at her or his jokes. You defend that mind in your dreams.
But you also have to long for her or his body, you want to admire it, and fantasize about its flesh and about the ecstasy it promises, you want to inhale its taste. You crave for its possibilities.
And if one or both fails, you can never cross the bridge.
And then there’s a tiny sound — a whisper in your ears, so silent that it hurts, because its meaning reaches your deepest self, if you have one …
You have made the wrong choice.