Before we go any further, I might as well tell you that I only hate boys in principle. In practice, I like boys and I like them all the time. When I like one enough, it’s enough to make me skip and twirl down the street. I’m not kidding — it happened this morning.
But here’s the thing, even though “boy crazy” is one of the gentler ways of describing parts of my personality (“brain-addled looney” may be more accurate), I’m actually not even sort of unusual. Both men and women value romantic relationships very very much, and only a true exception to the entire human race would want to go through life without ever knowing love.
So when I say I “hate” boys, I mostly mean, I hate the entire dating rigamarole. (I also hate every boy I’ve ever dated that I’m not currently dating, but that’s a separate issue.) Love is a kind of virus and it’ll make you sick, whether you’re falling in or out of it.
One of my life’s greatest ambitions is to inoculate myself: not to pleasures of love, but to its malignant side effects. This is not as frivolous as it sounds. Imagine a life without the pessimistic searching which precedes the discovery of a new romantic partner, the stupid, selfish sweep of early infatuation, the restless boredom of an entrenched relationship, that catastrophic sense of loss and loneliness which follows a long overdue breakup. I suppose you could say that these emotional peaks and valleys are what make our lives, what give them meaning or purpose or at least shape. But you could say the same thing about the weather, and many people are perfectly content living in seasonless climates. And I would gladly trade in my winter for a year without spring or fall.
But because I could sooner trash my snow boots and move to Palm Springs than talk myself out of having feelings, I’d propose a different approach to the whole problem of love: stop looking for it. Recreational dating can be fun for awhile, but there are more worthwhile hobbies and you’d be better off biding your time until you find someone worth the stresses and tortures of a relationship. Or, you know, throw caution to the wind and go twirling down the street with me.
Photo via Imaxtree
