Reverse Ontology

“Icame to you with a soiled philosophy of loneliness and you begged mefor an interview”

– LeonardCohen

Ifind that I cannot keep our conversations out of my head, which iswhy I prefer to put them outside for everyone else to judge andridicule. I find I am bad at judging everything. So I have decided toarchive this warped, one-sided romance for my audience of cyberstrangers. Perhaps it will sound more compelling this way. Perhaps Ijust want some sort of testimony to look back upon when this allcollapses to see why I did it. Perhaps I enjoy the honesty of baringsomething that matters too much to me and not at all to anyone elseand is therefore best stuck up on a glittering billboard to beridiculed outside of my temporal lobe. It feels a lot likeself-regressing, as if I were playing the Blue Danube backwards,hoping to somehow reverse the power of its intoxication.

Myencounters with N bring to mind something another cyber-acquaintancehas illustrated time and again in his blog: Elpis. I have followedthis particular person's online paradoxes for quite a few years now,almost always driven by the morbid curiosity I harbour for nihilismthat is manifesting itself much more clearly now. Although he alwaysworked to keep Elpis at bay, I find that I am desperately seeking herout as she runs screaming in the opposite direction. In the past Ialways read his accounts with a bitter, self-righteous defiance buttoday I have to yield to his superior insight regarding thisparticular theme. She really is a trite, cruel and fickle being.

Imade it a point not to dress up for the occasion because I knew alltoo well that he would pick up on it and comment. The only effort Idedicated to the event was to substitute my glasses for contactlenses. I entered the Ashmolean from the side entrance adjacent tothe Taylorian Library, this would allow me a chance to spot himwithout being observed. It would also give me ample time to come tomy senses if there was room left for that. He sat at the front stepsof the museum, cup of coffee in hand and looking…well, not entirelybored. He seemed to be scoping the crowd and I found thisencouraging, which I immediately realised was foolish (the pointwhere that infernal Elpis observation made its appearance inpassing). I was late. I had made it a point to be late, half in theattempt to see if he would care to wait and half hoping I wouldchicken out entirely. Apparently neither was about to happen. So Iapproached him.

Hedidn’t particularly react to seeing me there but he did flash apolite smile of greeting in my direction. The kind that means nothingbut is the indulgent courtesy that one reserves for strangers onstreet corners that accidentally catch your eye.

“You’renot wearing your glasses, was that for my benefit?”

.Sigh.

“Whydon’t you go ahead and assume it is,” I repliedsarcastically. It was my turn.

“Hmmm.So, you came. I wasn’t sure you would,” he said politely.

Iraised my eyebrows wearily and he did have the grace to manage aflustered laugh.

“Well,okay I was quite sure you would but I wasn’t entirely positive,”he indulged me.

“WellI suppose I feel all better now,” I said caustically.

“Right,so you’re thinking that being sarcastic throughout this encounterwill help you deal with …this. I suppose it is effective from yourpoint of view,” he mused, almost to himself.

Okay,so if I was going to play this …‘game’, was the only word for it(much as I loathe that term in this particular context) I suppose the only thingI had on my side was the element of surprise. I would forfeit. Icertainly wasn’t winning anything anyway if I went through withthis. Luckily, even I am not delusional enough to expect things whenit comes to emotional dependence of any variety. On that score wewere both evenly matched.

“Actually,I would rather not ‘be’ anything, if that’s possible and I amnot sure it is. However I was hoping I could try being as brutallyhonest as you,” I replied calmly, or so I hoped.

“Youwant to be a jerk too?” he asked, somewhat surprised andsimultaneously amused.

Icould honestly smile at that. “Sure, you make it look soeasy.”
There was that smirk again.

“Well,I make it look easy because for me it is,” he was giving me anout again.

“Irealise that and I promise to not let that escape my mind any timesoon,” I said quietly.

Hesounded slightly exasperated now. “So you are going to, what,Maria…pretend from now on that you don’t care about anythingeither?”

“No. I am simply going to try and behonest. Who says your nihilism hasn’t met its match in my perverseidealism,” I figured my false bravado would not be openlycontested.

Heseemed to think the same thing or so I supposed. “This shouldprove to be an interesting experiment then,” he almostsmil…no, it was still a smirk.

Weheaded out to find a place for lunch and he asked me if I had anypreferences. I decided that if I was going to be honest about this‘honesty’ thing then I should say Jamie’s. Jamie’s is arather pricey Italian restaurant owned by the BBC prize chef by thesame name. He asked me why that particular place and I told himbecause I couldn’t afford it on my own and if I was going to beberated I preferred the opposition to at least foot a considerablebill. He appeared to be impressed with my response. I was impressedwith it too. Perhaps that sounds narcissistic. I sure hope so, Idesperately needed a good dose of self-love to off-set my selfloathing and help me hold my own through this.

Over lunch we maderelevant small talk, he asked me about my taste in music and I toldhim I was a Dylan and Cohen fan. Apparently he approved, he said itexplained "a lot". I assumed this was some kind ofreference to my fore-mentioned idealism and let it pass. He onlylistened to classical music, which was easy enough to anticipate:lots of Bach, Wagner, Handel, Puccini. He asked me about my favouritebook this year and I mentioned that I had discovered Borges thisyear. He had no criticism on that score.

“So,really, why did you come today?” he asked.

“Ithink I have developed a very healthy respect for curiosity as anemotion. I think it is severely underrated how compelling curiosityreally is. Especially in a situation like this…”

“Meaning?”

“Well,on every rational, self-preserving note I shouldn’t be here. I knowI will get hurt, you have told me I will get hurt and yet here I am.So the only explanation I have left is curiosity. I am Alice as ofnow,” I said as honestly as anyone should have to under suchspeculation.

“Aptlyput, considering this is the city that gave birth to Alice,”he mused.

“Ohplease! Are you going to pull college rank on me now? You don’t goto Christ Church either,” I said indignantly.

“No,but Balliol outranks St. Anne’s any day,” he scoffed.

Ishould have stuck my tongue out at him. It would have been honest. Itook a sip of my coke instead. It seemed more dignified. It occurredto me quite suddenly that this was not as bad as I had feared until,of course, it became precisely that bad.

“So,how exactly are we going to do this?” he asked, pinning mewith a levelled gaze.

“Dowhat?” I prayed we weren’t actually going to discuss themechanics of this…whatever the hell it was!

“Well,you told me you haven’t really dated much and after what I told youlast time, I was just wondering how we were going to proceed withthis. You must have considered it or you wouldn’t be here,”he said, with what appeared to be some sympathy for my predicamentbut apparently not enough sympathy to avoid the subject entirely. Ihad neglected to mention that ‘not dated much’ meant exactlythree dates in my twenty-six year life span and two kisses. How didpeople do this?

“Ummwell, if I’m being honest…” I stammered.

“Areyou being honest?” he asked flatly.

“Youknow, I really do resent that. If anything, ‘honest’ is reallythe only thing I am being. It doesn’t come as brutally to me as itmay to you but the fact that I haven’t been put off by yourattitude should at least let me off on this score,” I supposeI said this angrily, despite all my efforts to the contrary.

“You’resaying that my brutal honesty doesn’t bother you?!” healmost laughed.

“No,of course it does…” he raised an eye brow in satisfaction. Irecall thinking that this was a truly warped thing to derivesatisfaction from.

“But,it is the brutality and the apathy that bothers me, not the honestyadmitting to them. Obviously I really do appreciate the honestyotherwise nothing would keep me here.”

He did seemto appreciate that. “My particular brand of honesty reallyisn’t the best thing for healthy relationships …I am told.”

Ihad to grin at that, “believe me, even I am not delusionalenough to classify whatever this is as in any way ‘healthy’!”

Helaughed.

Ihad made him laugh. I suppose I lost this bizarre tug –of –warright then. Women really are masochists. Suddenly I was very aware ofhow all my feminist colleagues would excommunicate me from the ‘fold’if they got wind of this. I had just joined that pathetic legion of‘nurture clan’ that needed to save all the 'others' that didn’twant saving. I was officially a cliché. I really didn’t mind itmuch.

Sigh.

Hewas kind enough to let the sex subject filter through the fissures ofthe remaining conversation. It was a sort of unspoken current thatradiated around us cautiously for the rest of the afternoon. A tacitunderstanding, on both our parts, of how all this would pan out. Hewould go his way and I would go his way and that was that. He wouldnot wait forever, he wasn’t even waiting now. Yet, somehow fortoday it was enough to simply talk about it and for me to get fullyon board with the concept of what this would be.

Fistof all nothing would happen, then perhaps it would happen a few moretimes and then nothing would happen all over again.