T: “Can you imagine what it would be like to let go of your rage at your parents and just live for you? What would your life look like?”
L: “I’d be like a nuclear-powered submarine without any nuclear power. The fuel that drives my life would be gone.”
“It’s unimaginable to not have that rage. I wouldn’t be me. I would be thrown. Lost. It would be a whole new world. I imagine I’d be less driven. I’d do less writing. There was some screenwriter who gave all the hookers in his stories the name of his mother.”
“It would be like coming out of a coma and having to relearn everything.”
“My rational mind says that letting go of the rage would have to be a good thing. It would be scary. It would be stepping into an unknown world.”
“It was a cold house. A house of sickness. When I had CFS and was stuck at home, I knew I would never get well as long as I was at home. My parents knew lots of doctors but I was never going to recover at home. I knew there were solutions in the world if I could just connect with people. So I started placing lots of singles ads. I knew I could connect deeply with at least one in a hundred persons. I wanted to connect with the opposite sex, hoping that she could get me well. I met someone who introduced me to her psychiatrist who prescribed me Nardil and I started to recover. I knew that could happen years before it did. I was too sick to go out on my own. I needed help.
“That relationship was on the phone for four months. Our first three days together were great, sex three times a day. Then it went all down hill. I got paid for house-sitting and she wanted to take my money to buy clothes for me. I refused. It was our first fight and we never recovered. We just kept spiraling down. I stayed with her for three months. To get me out of the house, she spent the night with her ex. A couple of days later, I was crying at synagogue. These weird people said I could stay with them rent-free in exchange for chores.
“I met Dennis Prager at a speech. He said he might have a job for me if I was in LA. I moved to LA.
“I fucked my way to health. I figured that through that kind of connection, I could get the help I needed.”
T: A lot of using of women? They’re a tool? You’re feelings about women may have started with your step-mom, but were assisted by your using of women?
L: Seduction is addictive. The first girl who taught me how to kiss, that was a high. Sex was the greatest rush in the world. It made all my problems go away. It develops such a strong bond. And then women do all sorts of things for you. And it’s so quick. Sleeping with a woman once usually creates a tighter bond than 20 dates. Once you’re inside of a woman, you are in her heart and soul and social network. Then they start doing things for you. It’s great. I was a smart, good looking, charming guy.
I liked the chase and the courting and the capture, even if it all takes place in one night. Once you screw someone, it’s like you’ve caught a wave. And you can just keep riding that to shore. Sometimes that wave can go on and on for weeks. And I don’t have to do anything extra. I can just keep riding it. The wave keeps carrying you, sometimes for months. That wave takes you to new worlds, to recovery, to health, to trips and connections and doctors and career advancement and spending money and gifts. Eventually, every woman tires of not getting much back so they give me books like The Givers and the Takers. The wave dies but it was so much fun while it last, you just had to catch it at the peak, paddle hard for a few seconds and then down you go into the surf, riding the wave to shore. I love that ride. I’m attracted to generous women. Women who like to give. I like to take.
Those aren’t the exciting relationships for me. They are the nurturing sustaining relationships. The exciting relationships are with cruel manipulative women. I never know what’s what. They spin me round, right round. They have so much contempt for me. I adore them because they’re so busy. They seem so capable. I dream that they will rescue me.
We get high from each other right off. I make her feel powerful and needed before I start draining her and she runs off to her addictions while I obsessively run after her. I’m the love addict. She’s the avoidant. Sometimes I’ll pull myself back and become avoidant and she’ll become the love addict.
It’s exciting. We break up multiple times. Get back together and have crazy intense sex. What we lack in intimacy, we make up for with intensity.
One girlfriend said to me just before my 40th birthday, what do you get for the guy who has nothing?
I had the urge to be rescued. She had the urge to rescue. We were both coming from sickness.
