Catch and release

A while ago I met a man who is, like me, a liar, cheat, and adulterer. A had put me in touch with him, or him in touch with me, for reasons that are rather sordid - she did not much like the guy, but he had an apartment that stood empty most of the time, and it had occurred to A that if I befriended this man - M - perhaps he would get off on the idea of loaning me his apartment, thus saving me the cost of short-stay hotels.

That project went nowhere. But talking to M merely increased my sense of puzzlement about other men. M has been moderately successful in meeting women through Craigslist and other online sites, but he rarely sees these women more than once or twice. He loses interest, no longer communicates with them, turns his attention to someone new. I suspect that there are a lot of men like M out there. But that is not my modus operandi at all - there is hardly a woman mentioned in this blog who I have not seen repeatedly. When these connections do come to an end, it is not typically because of loss of interest either. L got angry with something I wrote in an e-mail and asked me not to write to her ever again; but I recently had an e-mail from her asking that we not part on hostile terms. F decided she had had enough of purely recreational fucking; but then a while later e-mailed to say she was reconsidering her policy. Z, now back in NYC briefly, is no longer someone I have sex with, but a good friend.

I don't understand men who lose interest after the first or second time. Even if the first time is great, which it can be, the second time is usually better, the third better still, and soon one is having so much fun, giving and receiving so much pleasure, that it is impossible to lose interest. A man like M does not come across as a 'notch on the bedpost' type, but of course that must be how he appears to women who he fucks and then forgets. I like novelty as much as anyone, but for men like M novelty is a matter of adding to a list of women who he has fucked, whereas for me it is a matter of adding to the list of women who I do fuck.

The story of M took a somewhat bizarre turn when it emerged that he had communicated with F and met her for coffee. He pressured her to meet him again, and - this I know from F, who was rather upset by it - then spent his time running me down, accusing me of being a player putting women at risk, etc. In other words, he said anything he could to dislodge me from F's favor and insert himself in my place. A, told about this, pronounced the man a prick and a shit, and that is surely right. I don't care about the slur to my reputation, though I would not act that way myself - I am, after all, a liar, cheat, and adulterer. I do care about the upset he caused F, which is not acceptable. M is, I suppose, like a catch and release fisherman, who enjoys setting up and casting, and hooking the fish and reeling it in. Fair enough. But what is not fair is dumping poison in the water and then scooping out the comatose fish.

On this analogy, I am someone who prefers to add the fish I catch to the keep-net. But the analogy is a poor one, for fish in a keep-net are caged. D, perhaps, is trapped by her emotional dependence, and it is a struggle for her to swim freely. But I have no interest in containment, any more than I have in trickery. A man like M may use lures, but I simply try to be as completely myself as I can, and see what happens. I am sufficiently odd for that to drive many people away, but those who are attracted end up with something honest, and something lasting also. K I have not seen in a long time, and our e-mail contact is sporadic. Yet she wrote the other day to tell me of a charming dalliance she had with a jockey who was completely tiny, and to seek comfort after a little heartbreak caused by falling for a poet.