Fictionlet
“I dunno, mom, maybe you can tell me,” Brigid said. “Why do I have so much trouble with men?”
“As far as I can tell,” said Isadora, “you don’t have much trouble at all. You scoop them up and then kick them right back out again with amazing facility.”
“Ha-bloody-ha,” said Brigid. “I’m serious. It seems like every guy I get involved with is pretty much set up to be an ex- from the start. It seems like life would be easier if we could just skip the whole dating thing and go straight to being exes in the first place.”
“My poor child,” said Isadora. “I suppose your father and I weren’t very good role models in that department, were we? I daresay he was my one true love; but we were never happier as a couple than after the divorce. All we ever taught you was how to ‘still be friends’ gracefully.”
“Well, I dunno, maybe that’s part of it,” said Brigid. “But I don’t think that’s the only thing. Some of it has to be me, too. I can’t let go and accept people for the way they are, I guess. As soon as I like somebody, I start thinking about every little flaw they’ve got and how much it bugs me.”
“You can be something of a stick-in-the-mud, it’s true,” said Isadora. “That’s hard for men to live with, you know. They spend their whole lives trying to look good and ward off criticism from other men; what they want from women is to be told how wonderful they are, regardless of whether they are or not.”
“Yeesh,” said Brigid.
“Anyway,” said Isadora, in a lighter tone. “What do you want a man for, when you’ve got Greg?”
Brigid laughed. “Nice way to put it, mom. I’m sure he’d love to hear you said that.”
Isadora shook her head and rolled her eyes. “That’s not what I mean,” she said. “I mean, he provides you with a place to live at a reasonable rate, gives you someone to talk to, keeps the place tidy … he even makes you breakfast from time to time, and never once bothers you with sex. By some standards, he’s the perfect man.”
“Well, it would be nice to be bothered with sex once in a while,” said Brigid.
“I understand,” said Isadora. “Another reason I stayed friendly with your father.”
“I didn’t want to know that, mom,” Brigid said.
-The Gneech
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