I feel compelled to write something great about the problem of comparison, competitiveness, the way in which we humans, as social creatures, collectively damn ourselves to a fictional hell of existential angst about whether we are, ultimately, replaceable.
However, this topic is so epic (to use a favorite term of my son's) that I can never do it justice.
I once read an article in which the author (Michael Cunningham, if I remember correctly) was saying that every novel is born out of a writer's burning desire. In its unrealized form, the story is “a cathedral of fire” – the writer experiences it as something akin to sexual desire, to religious epiphany – but the novel that actually gets written is never more than a pale echo of what the writer imagined it would be.
So. Having gotten the requisite apologia over, let's begin with the pale echo of what I've been obsessing about all day.
Last night, Lilianna was gushing to Parker (my husband, and her sometime lover) about how incredibly awesome Paul, her new lover, is. This morning, I asked Parker, “So, did it feel bad to have her go on about Paul's muscular arms, et cetera?” Parker shrugged. “I already know I'm not Mr. Buff, so who cares?” I pressed, “But what about the fact that Paul is also Mr. Capable – remember how you had an idea about how to fix the window in Lilianna's jeep, and then Paul had the same idea, and he ended up fixing it?” Again with the shrug: “Great – it's fixed. The fact that Paul was able to do it doesn't make me any less capable.”
I was a little suspicious of his bodhisattva-like unconcern. It's true that Parker is one of the least jealous people I know, but it's also true that he's been known to fall into the trap of comparing himself to others – and then, more often than not, bemoaning the fact that no one else is like him, that he's a total misfit, etc.
“I smell a rat, Mr. Envy,” I said. “Remember how you always used to compare yourself to Robin?”
Parker acknowledged that yes, he'd gone through a phase of mentally holding himself up to another of Lilianna's lovers, and finding himself lacking. “But comparing myself to Robin was nothing compared to the way I used to compare myself to Scott,” Parker pointed out.
Oh yeah, I remember that.
For example, the following, from a journal entry I wrote in February of 1999:
[Scott] & I had a conversation about Sense and Sensibility while [Parker] was in the kitchen making bread. Tonight [Parker] sadly said that it sounded like we were having fun together, that [Scott] was better at talking about books, & since books were so important to me, then I'd be happier if he [Parker] didn't exist, so that [Scott] & I could be together, etc. He's feeling in the way, he said. That's the other thing that bothers me, to get back to the things that bother me. I wouldn't be who I am without [Parker]. I don't wish him gone; I don't regret having married him. “Can't I want you both?” I asked.
“So what's changed?” I asked Parker.
“I've had it with all that,” he said. “Everyone loses when you set up the question that way – this, 'Who's better,' whether you're talking globally, or whether you're saying, 'Here are 5 categories that are important to me; who's better at each?' You know, everyone loses at something. Even if you were the one person who didn't lose at anything, it wouldn't last – eventually, someone better would come along.”
Once, in the throes of his jealousy about Scott, a dozen years ago, Parker said to me, bitterly, “You have all the power in our relationship. Look, we all know I can't do any better than you.”
Apparently, he'd run the Global Mate-Attractiveness Class Ranking numbers, and decided he'd gotten a good deal. At the time, this was not all that comforting to me. What if he was wrong, and he could do better? Did that mean I'd be replaced when someone better came along – as she inevitably would?
In my experience, jealousy is mostly about the fear of being replaced. On a deeper level, it's the fear that, if someone does end up replacing you, you are worth less. In other words, interchangeable = worthless.
And being in an open relationship means that you're staring at the possibility of being replaced all the time. It can be unnerving.
Monogamy offers a particularly seductive illusion: the competition is over, and you've won. You're the only girl/guy in the world.
But of course that's not true.
As it turns out, there's not a whole lot of job security in being The One and Only. And being The Best sure as hell doesn't save you from having to think about your competition constantly.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall...
So, your position at the pinnacle is being threatened by some upstart who thinks she's Snow White. What are you gonna do about it, order your favorite hunter to kill her, and bring you back her bleeding heart?
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