I decided to write you a letter as a Christmas present, not only because it's more personal than the other things I've gathered up for you but because I have a few things to say that may help us along in whatever sort of learning experience this relationship will turn out finally to have been. (A word of caution, though: I know that you are very sensitive and easily upset. Please realize that what I say here is not intended to denounce or injure you but only to raise some issues that may actually help up to become closer. I have a tremendously high opinion of you, and I see great promise in your future development.)
It is time now for us to get to know something about one another, yet I'm having some difficulty feeling I can be myself around you. The past few times I've called you, you just couldn't resist trying to make me feel guilty for not calling you sooner. Marjorie, this is really a very low grade sort of manipulation for someone as deep as yourself to be toying with. I don't feel guilty for not calling someone just because they think I "should" call them: I'm not a mamma's boy. You should have figured that out by now. I call people when I choose to call them, and I expect them to be fully capable of calling me as well. There's no reason in the world one person shouldn't end up calling the other more often. Who's keeping score anyway?
Naked attempts at psychological manipulation can only make a person like me cold and angry, and even slower to reach out. Nevertheless, to the extent that this problem provides a platform for the inauguration of a deeper dialog it is more than welcome at this point in our courtship. People grow because they have problems that make living more difficult than they want it to be and which force them to look within and learn more about who they are and how their personalities really work. In the final analysis I love to face and talk about problems: a comradeship with the full spectrum of human phenomena has equipped me well to get further into life than almost everyone else I know.
I want our relationship to be a high-quality workshop in creative giving, but this idea that "he can't be interested in me if he doesn't call often" is strictly from 1960's dating guides and a delusion you should long ago have abandoned. My interest in someone is evidenced by my taking them seriously — by, for example, taking the time to write a thought-out letter. I'm seriously interested in several people who, for example, I've never met in person and communicate with once a year or less. If I thought you and I would get more out of our relationship by never enjoying each other's company, I would stoically accept that precondition. Quality for a person like me always takes priority over quantity.
There are all kinds of constructive ways of interacting with important people in a civilization as complex as this — being their lover is merely one of many. Many people need a therapist (a real one, not a quack) much more than a lover. Some have even acquired a need to help other people find mental health and growth. Once you take on the proud mantle of teacher or leader it becomes intolerable to give it up. The best relationships, of course, combine all these ways of giving, but it is much easier to live for awhile without a lover than to live without your creative identity.
In fact my interest in you has got to be merely tentative at this time, if only because I know so little of what you are really capable to giving to an important relationship. This is why I've tried to talk to you about what a courtship is really for, how you need to learn what the other person is all about — to see how they react to problems, to the creative challenges of life — before you can have any idea how to give to them and so help them be themselves more genuinely. You know almost nothing about me in this sense, partly because you have latched on to the premise that it's "lovers" or "nothing." You think that if you fuck me you have reached a pinnacle of psychological intimacy and generosity, when in fact the dim lights and soft music of romance as often as not merely postpone the need for real intimacy. You are so utterly different from the hostile female lawyer who called me after I responded to her New York Magazine ad and tried to intimidate me into playing-acting a scripted role in her fantasy-life, except in this one respect.
I know you had a weak moment when you tried to emotionally blackmail me last week, and I immediately wiped it off the slate, but it needs to be said: I don't have to think of you as my lover simply because if I don't you will relegate me to the category of "just another gay friend." I am nobody's "just another gay friend" and I herewith absolutely and unconditionally refuse to accept so tiny a place in your life. I am a living, breathing creative intelligence with something to say that is unique, unrepeatable and very much my very own. If you are unable to hear my voice it is because your own life is cluttered with the psychological thought pollution of an ignorant and immoral age, and because you have not yet sensed that what I have to say may be important for you to hear.
You have tried so hard in your life to free yourself of the entrapments of conventionality — your condemnation of "therapy addiction" eloquently attests to your capacity for entertaining radical notions — yet your image of what women and men are destined to be for one another is riddled with sexist assumptions of which you seem totally unaware. The problem seems a common one: although you are very bright, you have never learned how to gather data rigorously and objectively. You don't think about the world; you think about yourself. And you kid yourself into believing that one's knowledge of oneself is by definition complete, which it can in fact never become.
For example, because you have a feminine (in Paul's terms) personality, you think all women are feminine. When I asked you if you could sense that I have a masculine personality, you tossed off the following non sequitur: "Of course, you're male, aren't you?" To the extent that all men are masculine they are merely conforming to conventional social roles; if you look more closely you'll see that many men really want to live feminine lives — your father and your uncle in East Harlem come to mind. To insist that masculine women like your mother and you aunts must accept their "intrinsic feminine nature" places you squarely in the ranks of those who would deny to women a full and equal opportunity to explore their human destiny on their own terms and in their own way.
Marjorie, do you realize how your conversation is often strewn with the wreckage of superstition, prejudice and just plain ignorance? I wince when I hear you come out with stuff like "Four is my lucky number," or when you're more afraid of an AIDS test than of the actual behavior that puts you at risk. It's to get away from nonsense like this that I originally dropped out of mainstream culture and began studying the history of human civilization. I decided very early in life that the world was in a terrible mess and that I would not participate in the mass conspiracy of just trying to make the most of it and avoid searching for the kind of truth and right that could make a measurable difference in the degree of inner fulfillment people achieve in life. I now live far above and beyond the raucous music of ordinary discourse and try to think and speak the truth about the human condition in a genuinely scientific way. I think this is something you sense about me, because there have been several moments when, after I tried gently to correct one of your psychological oversimplifications, you looked at me and nodded affirmation.
I need your affirmation, Marjorie. I want you to be able to think about life much more deeply than you have allowed yourself up until now. Nothing less is really going to work for a person who has seen as much as you have, who wants to be as fully alive as you do. But to do this you will need much more psychological peace and contentment in your life than you currently permit, in a living space that is increasingly distant from the loud music and busy chatter of family and friends. If you were to become a deeper person, you would find the world much more beautiful than you are at present aware, and would not be victim to the false drive to achieve normalcy — with its attendant compulsive thought and action patterns — that robs you of your human worth.
I believe in you.
Here are the Christmas presents I got for you. Nothing special, but they're not very happy being cooped up on my bookshelf.
I'm sorry my letter upset you. Since you insisted that you wanted both of us to give this relationship our "best shot," I hope that one difficult moment will not be enough to defeat your confidence. Of course, if I did think that you were letting self-pity get the better of you, then I suppose I would offer the little speech I give to so many of my counselees and which goes something like this:
It's easy for people in a big city to give up on each other. "Just as I suspected, he's no good!" they harumph. "He'll never understand, so why should I waste my breath?" Or, "I know now that he could never be what I need." Hastily formed condemnations are convenient pegs on which to hang feelings of worthlessness. But these devices do nothing to make the next courtship any better, and resorting to them reduces the search for romantic fulfillment to a game of chance. You don't find what you need until you give the other person the right to be more than just that, even the right to be wrong once in a while. It's much better to teach than to condemn. When someone comes into your life and speaks with a candor that seems abrasive, getting frightened only denies you the opportunity to learn from experience. See what happens when you meet them halfway.
But I don't really think that's what's happening here. I think you're giving thought to the issues I clumsily tried to open up for discussion, and that you intend to respond in good time from resources that reflect the best in yourself.
I do want you in my life, Marjorie. You're a much more magnificent person than most of your friends realize.
Please try?