When I was a younger woman, my needs were complicated. I needed individuality yet a co-dependent partner. I needed the independence of a modern woman yet the comfort of being ‘kept’ in the manner my parents had supplied. I needed education and fun and seriousness and beauty and fitness and happiness and fulfillment and world peace and to save the spotted owl and the cute little baby sea turtles. I needed Dior dresses, Coach handbags and Prada shoes and a hybrid car and a career that satisfied and saved the world yet left me with weekends free.
Now, I have some of those things and would still like all of those things, but the only thing I really need is my man.
When I was younger, I needed to impress my man by appearing worldly and educated and deeply passionate about the ‘important’ things. I used to try to educate myself on world affairs and would spend hours researching Iran and why it was unstable.
I have since accepted that I’m not going to figure it out for several reasons: 1. I teach English and am more comfortable in the political intrigues of Mr. Darcy and Hamlet than the modern ones. 2. I lack the super-high security clearance Hot Navy SEAL has and 3. I just don’t understand the whole international chess game of politics. This is why we have people like SEAL boy, the CIA and Tom Clancy. They worry about Iran. I worry about, well, other stuff.
I need to worry about other stuff. It’s important stuff, like Jennifer’s lisp, Kathleen’s obsession with Rice Krispies, the hard-water-ring around my toilet bowl and why grown men wear shants out in public (you know shants: they’re too long for shorts, too short for pants and ‘shan’t’ be worn because they’re too hideously gross).
This is probably why I work as a high school English teacher, spending 7.5 hours a day trying desperately to get teenagers to care about commas, Shakespeare and compound-complex sentences. Not only am I actually geeky enough to be passionate about those things, I also realize that, in reality, we’re all more interested in how many kids Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are going to have.
Sure, people who worry about world affairs usually drive cool sleek little sports cars. So what? I don’t need a fancy car. I drive a baby-blue Dodge Grand Caravan. I win. After all, my minivan has two sliding doors, captain’s chairs so Jennifer and Kathleen can’t hit each other, a DVD player, surround sound and 10 cup holders. What more does a modern mom-on-the-go need?
Besides regular sex with Matt Damon, that is.
Last night, tho, I needed more. In fact, I was at my most needy. Stu was working, of course, so I sought to fill the void by fetching ice-cream, putting on my comfiest nightie and clicking on the TV.
Holy Shit. The Bourne Identity. Mom-Porn!!!!!
I’ve never really understood the attraction of watching two naked people bang away at each other to cheesy music, but put Matt Damon on the screen in a tight black tee-shirt and I’m good to go.
And all HMMs need porn. Or, let me qualify: all Moms who have husbands who are frequently gone need Mom-Porn. Women have needs. These needs do not disappear after children. They may change, as mine did (really, who needs Prada shoes anyway? They’d just sink into the grass at soccer practice). But the basic need for your man does not always understand Grave Shift or Working Late or Business Trip.
Those of us left alone often at night need something to fuel our fantasies and fill that empty, aching, hollow void. Some women turn to affairs, but affairs are a very bad idea…for SO many reasons (really, need I list them?!?) Beyond the horrible betrayal, one of the big ones is that an affair, by its definition, is the epitome of game-playing between men and women: the lying, the sneaking, the wondering and questioning and inherent dishonesty…
I do not like playing games.
Board games, card games, ball games, they all suck. One of the reasons I had two kids was so that they could play Candyland for hours together, thus absolving me from acting interested and entertained by being stuck in the stupid gumdrop mountains. again.
Most of my friends like to have 'game night'. Due to my social neurosis (and need for adult interaction of any kind), I attend. And drink heavily. And then try to distract everyone from whatever stupid-ass, humiliating, childish version of 'charades' we're playing by being funny, tempting them with food or taking my clothes off.
The last one is 100 percent successful, if a bit mortifying the next morning. Still, better than miming that I'm a fucking duck or something to get people whom I used to love and respect to say the word 'cracker'.
I do like watching games. I love attending any form of professional sports. And why not? The food is heart-attack-inducing goodness, the alcohol is expensive but somehow yummier for being served in cheap plastic cups (invoking fond college-kegger memories perhaps?) and I am guaranteed some awesome tight-ass man candy...baseball is my favorite. I like to sit down by the outfield and ogle the left-fielder's ass. Football is OK, but I'd rather watch the cheerleaders’ bouncing breasts than the center's bouncing belly.
I also like watching the games men and women—or girls and boys—play. It is endlessly fascinating to observe the drama, the fights, the pure intensity of emotion and twistedness of the human sexual drive.
However, I thank god that I’m not dating. I understand there are all sorts of complicated dating rules. Things that involve math (dates must be requested 72 hours before the actual date, phone calls cannot be made until 48 hours have passed), money (he pays first, she pays second, ‘going dutch’ is something which, apparently, does not involve wearing wooden clogs) and sexual expectation (the number 3 seems to be magical…something I thought was only true in hotel-room porn).
I don’t think I’d be good at the dating game. I met my husband at a drunken college party when I was 18. ‘Dated’ him at more drunken college parties. At some point, I stumbled back to his apartment instead of my dorm room and, bam!, a relationship that blossomed into a successful marriage was born. I didn’t worry about rules about calling—my roommate was always on the phone, anyway, so I would just find him after class. Texting didn’t exist—in fact, I didn’t have a cell phone (GASP to my young readers who can’t imagine such a pre-historic hell). Sex was easy and fun without rules beyond the basic one which we still follow: “do not play with others”.
I wouldn’t be good at the games now. If I want to talk to someone, I call them. If I want to send them a quick message or let them know I’m thinking of them, I text them. If I want to see them, I invite them out or go to their house.
The games all just seem elusive and silly and deceptive. For that reason--and the obvious I'm-not-a-whoring-bitch-slut-homewrecker--an affair is out. Instead, as we all know, sometimes I fill my ‘needs’ with my vivid imagination (thanks, Crushes!). Sometimes, I reach into the ‘goody drawer’. It’s the top drawer of a very tall dresser, so I have to stand on tip-toe and reach in blind…kinda like a kid picking a prize out of a basket...pretty fun to see what my hand closes on. Ooooh, pink or purple tonight?
However, that’s only when my ‘need’ is pretty desperate. Usually, I fill my needs with Matt Damon. He always satisfies. After all, the man sings. He dances. He went to Harvard, won an Oscar, has only been married once and has tons of kids. And it helps that he is yummily gorgeous, self-deprecatingly funny and will never leave the toilet seat up, the bed unmade or his nasty workout shorts on the living room floor.
Because, you know, he’s a fantasy. And in my fantasy, he saves me from bad guys, sings me love songs, draws me a bath, rubs my feet…
And then I go to sleep, still needing my husband but with vows unbroken. Because in the Game of Marriage, I’m playing to win. I need to.
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