my personal benchmark for stupidity

Do I think I'm all that and a bag o' 40%-less-fat Cape Cod chips?
Yes--and with clam dip*, too.

But that is only because, when I feel like a dork or do something really moronic or say something that makes everyone stop talking and slowly turn toward me with solemn faces like some horrible scene in a Swedish movie, I can reflect on the absolutely imbecilic behavior of my early twenties.

Then I feel all wise and shit. Comparatively, I mean.

When I flunked out of college and moved to Boston to figure out how to be a grownup, I fell in with a kind of hippie set. They were pretty fun, and only moderately self-righteous. It was a very Rainbow Gathering crowd: iconoclastic (we thought), and about as political as 1986 got. There was a good deal of congregating at the food coop, potluck dinners at group houses, and dancing at the Friday Night Free Dances. Free Dance was a bunch of hippie-sensibility folks getting together in a big dance space to dance, badly. Children and awkward, colorful, ill-fitting cotton clothing were welcome.

It was at the Free Dance that I met C and his wife A. I was at the time dating an earnest vegetarian young man who quickly bored me with the earnestness of his vegetarianism--and this in spite of the fact that I lived with vegetarians, that almost all of my friends were vegetarians, and that I ate next to no meat myself. In any case, I unceremoniously dumped him when C and I became mutually infatuated. It's hard for me to say, in retrospect, what I found so compelling about C. He was very tall, and florid, with cystic acne and fluorescently white skin. To be brutally honest, his face was ugly in a kind of attractive way: heavy-browed, craggy, cheekbones and all. He was ungainly, and playful, and manically energetic, full of strange schemes; and he was one of those people who, when they focus the argon beam of their attention on you, can make you feel as though no one has ever quite paid any attention to you before. So, I fell for him; and the beauty of the situation was that he was in a Nonmonogamous Marriage, so it was all as cool as can be, right?

Oh, I already mentioned, didn't I, that when I met them, A was six months pregnant?

It seemed (but only to someone as extraordinarily naïve as 22-year-old me) that we were all 'on board' for the great adventure of the nonmonogamous relationship, so wasn't it strange that A would instigate some sort of huge blow-up every week or so, which was always about how I was terribly, terribly at fault (but not for screwing A's spouse--no, not that--for some other complicated reason), and always ended with A insisting that she was fine--just fine--with our relationship. Ah yes, we were all going to be so happy together.

Their child was born; the situation in all its inherent unsatisfactoriness staggered onward; and then, finally, C left A, and a bitter divorce ensued. C and I moved in together, and set about forming yet another in the endless string of group households that were de rigeur in impecunious Boston social sets (rent was high). Were we a happy couple? If people who have insane fights every couple of weeks are happy, we were ecstatic. Years after I finally left C, I described our intractable, horrendous, screaming disputes--never about anything, yet always about everything--as a tornado seen on the horizon: you definitely had warning that it was coming, but "resistance was futile"-- its arrival was a foregone conclusion. These upheavals became the norm to me, though they were so disruptive as to cut into everything else--was there anything else, really?--in my life. Between intermittent housemate problems (and believe me, in retrospect I pity them for having to put up with us, too) and the endless adrenaline spike of my relationship with C, I never had much time to reflect on where this was all leading. What would my life look like in 5 years? in 10? I can't say I ever had a moment to seriously entertain any notion of it.

Not long after C and A split, C became involved with yet another person--just in case I got the idea that the non-monogamy ball was going to be dropped. This time, though, C's choice was R, a 55 year old man. He moved in with us, too. He was a social activist veteran. Like C, he was energetic, but in a different way: he was an indomitably cheerful, Can Do, Project kind of guy--a control freak, who managed to always have things his way in group situations simply by doing everything before anyone else had a chance. He had a jolly kind of image: he was stout, and bearded, and grinned a lot. Apparently, he once was a caterer; however my most vivid memory of his cooking involved an experiment with putting peanut butter in what would have been a perfectly nice marinara sauce.

At this point, we were on the verge of putting together yet another household. R and C's dream was to create an urban, spiritual commune. I signed on, but with doubts about the spiritual part. Because normal, rational people tended to back away slowly when C, R and I tried to recruit them in this project, we started quite small: an old friend of R's joined us and eventually we found a fifth person--a blind woman who was an ordained minister, though I forget what her livelihood was--and the Great Project began.

But at this point, three years into the relationship, I was tiring of the endless maintenance (in the 80s, we called it 'processing') that nonmonogamous relationships took. Or possibly I was just tiring of C himself, who over time revealed himself to be endlessly and inventively emotionally controlling. Between him and R, I was feeling as though all my autonomy was gone, and I was only 25 years old.

So, I left. It took me 2 years to get over the folly of it all. The first six months or so was a blur of everyone I knew saying some variation of 'Thank God you finally are shed of that loony.' For months after I left him, whenever I made some decision--something momentous, like shaving my legs--that I knew C would have disapproved of, I felt as though someone were looking over my shoulder.

I got a slightly better job; went back to college part-time; and, eventually, my perspective seemed to take a more definite shape. I decided I'd go to graduate school after finishing my degree. On my 27th birthday, my parents came to Boston to take me out to dinner. At that dinner I told them, "Soon, I'll meet the person I'm going to marry."

Seven weeks later, I met Howie. Two years and two weeks after that, we were married. Nothing about the relationship described above describes even a moment of the thirteen years we have had together.

I truly regret the role I had in destroying C and A's marriage.
But Jilbur, they were responsible for their own actions, too.
You bet. But that doesn't let me off the hook.
It's not as though they were likely to have had such a great marriage. And if it wasn't you, wouldn't it have been someone else?
Maybe so. But, selfishly, I still wish I hadn't had any part in the whole thing. I wish I had taken stock of the insanity of the situation, and just walked--early, and fast.

Nothing like being a dumbass for a while to make you really frickin' smart.

*Clam dip
1 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened (get organic if you want to feel virtuous about eating the whole recipe in one sitting)
1 can chopped clams in clam juice
Tabasco sauce (only McIlhenny's will do)
Worcestershire sauce (again, I'm fiercely loyal to Lea & Perrins)

Open the can and use the lid to drain the clam juice into a cup, squeezing hard to get the clams as dry as possible. Reserve clams and juice.

Add a few dashes each of Tabasco and Worcestershire to the softened cream cheese and mix well with a fork. Then slowly add clam juice, about a tablespoon at a time, to cream cheese until it has the consistency of sour cream. Discard remaining clam juice. Stir in clams. Serve with potato chips (or, if you are weird, crudité).

Serves 1,
or,
6 or more normal people

Comments

[Jo]

Glad you got out of that one. You've earned every atom of your smarts, you lovable dumbass.

Let me address (read: butt in to) this bit here:

"I truly regret the role I had in destroying C and A's marriage.
But Jilbur, they were responsible for their own actions, too.
You bet. But that doesn't let me off the hook.
Nope, sure doesn't. But does it help to think of yourself as an implement rather than the implementer? It just sounds to me like you want to shoulder all the responsibility for this, and that just ain't necessary. I'm just not buying the idea that you were an equal partner.
It's not as though they were likely to have had such a great marriage. And if it wasn't you, wouldn't it have been someone else?
Maybe so. But, selfishly, I still wish I hadn't had any part in the whole thing. I wish I had taken stock of the insanity of the situation, and just walked--early, and fast."
That's not the same thing as believing yourself responsible for the carnage. In fact, I think it's a better way to look at it. Yeah, if you'd been a fully enlightened human being, maybe you could've gotten out right away. So what? It happened, you participated, and now you can forgive yourself for that. Right? Riiiight?

[Tam]

This is a succinct rendition of what happened, but it doesn't even scratch the surface of all the turmoil, emotional havoc, etc. that you must have suffered through. It sure as shit doesn't sound to me like you "wrecked" *anyone's* marriage. You had no control over whether A was being hypocritical, afraid to tell C "no," completely lacking in self-knowledge, C's egotism, steamrollerism, etc. Sounds like your appearing on the scene was a catalyst rather than a cause.

I look back on my 20-year-old self (and my 24-year-old self, and my 30-year-old self, and...) and TRY to view that person in a tolerant, forgiving way, sometimes even tempered with pity for the naivete or fallout from bad choices. This, of course, doesn't always work by any stretch. I still cringe and berate myself for bad things I did to other people when I was 30/20/18/15. (Causing me to sometimes yelp out, "oh, whatEVER!", which is a verbal form of cringing, to the startled chagrin of my husband.) I sometimes wonder why it's easier to forgive others their past foibles than it is to forgive yourself. I've never met a wise 22-year-old.

Comparative wisdom is a good thing. I, too, wish you hadn't been involved in that whole business. But I'm glad you got where you got when we met, and if that was a part of getting you there, then maybe it's ok?...
xo

[Sciencechick]

Y'know, you really DO have to forgive that 22-25 year old. The takehome lesson is that you DID get out. Wouldn't we all like to go back to that 22-25 year old and have a talkin' with them? I know I would, except that I married my 23 year old mistake and here I am 18 years later getting divorced. We learn, we grow......and, yes, youth is wasted on the young, indeed.

And who ever said that clamdip was for more than one?.....well possibly 2 if the bag of chips is big enough!

[Jo]

Yeah, what Tam said, far better than I articulated.

[jilbur]

Y'all have my back. Yea, I am blessed with the fruits of mighty mighty love and friendship. Truly--you rock, and I'm grateful.

Honestly, I don't blame myself--and I do forgive myself. As one guru said: 'You can feel remorse. It's good to feel remorse. But you only can take 10 minutes for remorse.' I'm glad that I've learned something, and I regret the expense to myself and others. For example one person I barely mentioned above was C and A's child. Nothing is simple, least of all hindsight.

But hey--what really, really shocks me is the relative paucity of comment on the clam dip. Well, I guess only an intimate family member like sciencechick can truly deeply appreciate that alchemical concoction of mollusk and cultured dairy.

[Tam]

well, on a related topic, what is Clamato all about? Does anyone actually drink that--now or ever???...

[alice]

Only by tossing out the Clamato of our yesterday can we enjoy the Bloody Mary of today.

(I want to be a guru.)

[jilbur]

My father-in-law loves him some Clamato. Seriously--he'll give you 20 minutes of joyful discourse if he manages to find it anywhere--he will lovingly linger over the details of the serendipitous delirium of the moment of his discovering The Grail That Is Clamato.

Now, I'll give it to you straight: if no one heads straight to the kitchen and makes clam dip, and then reports back that it's amazing and I changed her/his life, I'm shutting down the blog. This means you.

Well, perhaps not. Yet.

[Julia S]

OK OK, I'll go out and get some canned clams. We need toilet paper anyway, as I get jumpy when we are down to less than 30 rolls in the house.

This post made me cry. Without going into me me me, for which I have my own blog damn it, I can only say I sympathize and I am glad that you have forgiven young Jilbur for being well, young and Jilbur. The remorse quote made me want to buy your merchandise and, on top of that, if this clam dip is as good as you say it is I am driving to the coast to clean your house. An expression of my gratitude for writing this, you know.

Can one still be stupid and remorseful at 32? Just asking.