Brian Matthew Kessler
XXXX Carol Road
Union, New Jersey 07083
(908)/687-XXXX (House)
(908)/687-XXXX (Bedroom)
January 31, 1993
The Pass
#A114
600 Johnson Ave.
Suite B7
Bohemia, NY 11716
Dear #A114,
Sorry about my manner of addressing you. Let me make it quite clear that I have no delusions that you are not a number, you are a free man. Strike that... if you were a man, free or otherwise, I would not be writing this letter... you are not a number, you are a free woman... somehow that doesn't sound aestheticly pleasing, but I will ignore that for the moment. The reason I address you in such a poor manner is obvious... I have no other way of addressing you... something I hope that you shall decide to amend.
I am 19 (but look like I'm in my mid twenties and think like I'm at least in my thirties). I have long dark brown hair that gets tints of red with the coming of the summer sun. I have hazel eyes that shift from brown to green. I am 5'8" and weigh 130 lb. My build is fairly good, due mostly to good genetics and an excessive amount of walking, but I am by no means a body builder. Most women I have know have know have found my appearance to be "hot", "cute", "handsome", "adorable", or other such things, although most of the ones I have found myself interested in usually decided that I wasn't their type. I'd send you a photo, but I have none, so if you want to see what I look like, either you'll have to use your imagination on the given data, or meet me and see for yourself.
I am highly intelligent and graduated in the top 7% of my high school, with very high scores on various achievement tests and went on to Stockton State College with a full tuition scholarship from the school (with many similar offers from elsewhere) and $1,000 per year from the state (if I attended a Jersey school).
I am currently enrolled as a student at Hunter where I will be taking an ecclectic selection of courses until I figure out what I want to focus in on. I am mostly considering either theatre or anthropology. I rejected computer science for being too easy and therefore boring; I rejected mathematics for being too boring; I rejected most hardcore sciences because I hate lab work... especially working with chemicals or doing disections.
I enjoy live theatre, bizarre movies, music (of various types, mostly Punk, alternative, & metal, but not by any means limited), the occult, and very long walks, among other things.
I have an answer to your question. The answer is "Yes". I fit into that catagory. But the question I have for you is: How do you define relationship? Obviously, everything is somehow related to every other thing. For example, Point A is 200 miles from Point B; this defines a relationship, although not a particularly useful one. Using thisa extremely liberal meaning, we obviously already have some form of relationship, however, it is also obvious that we must both be looking for something a bit more tangible, else you wouldn't have placed the ad and / or I would not be writing this letter.
It is probably safe to assume that you mean something that is slightly more than friendly and that fundamentalist Christians would condemn us to hell for (more modern Christians, such as Krishnas would probably settle for poisoning your food with Salt Peter and gun powder and the Quakers may settle for putting you on a strict diet of Corn Flakes). Furthermore, it can be assumed, that you would have us repeat this "sin" many times before the relationship faced the inevitable ending (nothing, no matter how great, lasts forever).
That's where I will stop with assumptions, for the sake of not making a mistake.
I have known plenty of people who have relationships which are inherently masochistic in which they both do a lot of lying and cheating and giving each other a lot of emotional, mental, and sometimes even physical abuse and then dare to say that they love each other. If this is the type of relationship you mean, burn this letter: I want no part of it.
On the other hand, it you want someone who you can talk to and turn to for advice and emotional support, who will spend time with you, and who will do their best to make you happy, and you would be willing to do likewise, then we may be able to enjoy some form of relationship with each other.
Notice in all this, I mentioned nothing about monogamy. This was not an oversight, but rather a philosophical disagreement with the concept. Don't get me wrong... I have nothing against being monogamous... by nature I tend to be monogamous, but I don't believe that relationships should be that way by obligation, I believe it should be that way by choice... or more to the words of Sarte "Commitments should be too each others happiness and not to each other". If you kept me happy on your own, I would feel no desire to pursue my pleasures elsewhere, although if an opportunity arouse, I would not like to feel obligated to turn it down. I would rather be able to make my own decision about it. By the same token, if you did not find my company completely fulfilling, I would rather that you sought pleasures elsewhere than stayed loyal to me out of obligation.
I believe that a relationship should be a key that unlocks new opportunities for your happiness, not a cage that holds you back and forces you to miss out on what could have been something really grand. I feel that when I am with a woman, we are together, but when we are not together, we should each have our own life to lead, as we see fit and trust our partners to be able to make their own decisions about what is best for them.
Also, as one female comedian put it: What if he refuses to wear the cowboy hat... or in a matter that is more relative to myself, Juli (who is discussed below) was somewhat of a sadist. I am not a masochist, so what was I to do? Be whipped and tortured despite my personal displeasure? Not on your life. Leave her incapable of being satisfied? Wrong again. Let her go be with someone who would appreciate it? Why not... which she did.
Furthermore, I feel it is more important that the person I have can be honest with me about anything and everything (as I should also be able to be), than whether or not they are seeing Eric (to pick a completely non-random name for hypothetical person) on the side or something.
You probably now want to know such things as: A) Do I really live up to such ideology? and B) Why Eric for a name? These answers are both related.
My last relationship was with a girl named Juli. I met her at a GWAR concert on July 3, 1992. That night was magick and we met again on the following Wednesday. From then till the middle of August, I met her every Friday night and stayed with her for the weekend until Monday morning, as well as usually meeting with her on Tuesday or Wednesday. (During this time, she actually had more time she could have given me, but she didn't want to get too attached and wanted time to herself).
Then she took a vacation to go to Oregon to visit a friend of hers... his name was Eric. I suspected it was more then friendly, but it didn't bother me; we both agreed that we did not want to be caged in, although up to this point, I believe we were mutually exclusive (despite a second Eric who she beat up every once and awhile, but there was no sex in that... just S&M). During this time, I met a couple women I was interested in, but none went anywhere, although one could have if I was void of emotions (I was concerned when she showed up two hours late and slightly pissed when she told me she didn't have any time for me that evening; my display of emotions freaked her out and she decided that she didn't want anything more than friendship).
When Juli returned, she informed me about her relationship with Eric. I shocked her by calming stating that I suspected as much (in retrospect, By her reaction, I think she was hoping the news would cause me to dump her). She then explains to me how he was upset about her relationship with me and was pushing her for a commitment. She said she didn't really want a commitment, but she didn't want to go on hurting Eric. She then confronted me by asking me if I was so desperate as to be willing to share her with someone else; my reply was that I was not desperate, but that she made me so happy that I didn't want to lose her and that I cared about her so much that if seeing someone else was what she wanted, I'd respect she wishes, and I still wanted her as a part of my life. I successfully and honestly talked her into continuing our relationship, although there was one small problem: Eric was going to be moving in with her until he found his own place to live in New York since he was attending school at Pratt. That was only going to be for a few weeks, but I wouldn't be able to see her during that time. We arranged to meet one more time before he came and I arranged to take a trip to Montreal to pass the time.
Due to her father's illness, she had to cancel our date, so unfortunately I had to leave for Montreal without saying goodbye. I went to visit some friends I had met while lurking about West 8th Street (specifically a girl named Judy who I took a fancy to). I thought both her and her friend seemed very interested in me when we met and while I was not especially impressed with her friend, I was interested in her. I soon learned that she wanted nothing more than friendship. Eventually, circumstances led it to become more than friendly. Apparently she had some emotional problems and found herself feeling awkward around me, but I persisted in letting her know of my affections and eventually circumstances led to the most incredible sexual experience of my life. Furthermore, she actually started to like me as more than a friend. Unfortunately, the day after she changed her mind citing that I was too eccentric for her tastes. Again, she was feeling awkward around me. I decided it was a good time to return home. (My money was getting low and it seemed I was not really all that welcome to stay with her, although I was permitted to. I would have been welcome to stay at her friend J.C.'s, but I really couldn't afford to keep buying food and unlike Judy, he couldn't afford to accommodate that need.) We were planning to keep in touch, but it didn't seem to work out. I may try getting in touch with her next summer since there may be a big three day punk festival in Montreal, if J.C. can pull off it off.
Anyway, I returned home to find a letter from Juli saying she missed me and she wanted to see me, although she would understand if I didn't call her. Unfortunately, with her friends from Pratt returning to school, with her bag pipe practice, with her running errands around the house, and with having bills to pay, plus visiting her mother on Sundays, and trying to have time for herself, she had very little time for me and several weeks went by before we actually got together again. I learned that her ex-boyfriend (also named Eric) from Detroit had come to visit her, not making the other Eric very happy. She had decided that Eric from Oregon was somewhat immature and they were not speeking to each other (which pleased me, if only in hopes that she would have more time for me, but she really didn't).
We got together once every couple of weeks until about a week before the end of October. During that time, she rekindled her friendship with Eric from Oregon, but she hardly ever saw him. Her relationship with Eric did not bother me. Her relationship with Andy did bother me, but that relationship was not at all sexual, it was simply bag pipe practice, which consumed much of her time, including Fridays which was really the best night for me to see her.
We were supposed to meet on Holloween, but she cancelled because she was going to be running all over the place and wasn't going to have much time for me. I later learned that this decision was really based on her discontent with our relationship, which was lacking because of both her schedule and the quality of what she had chosen for us to do on each of the dates since my return (which consisted of seeing a really terrible movie she really wanted to see, seeing her play her pipes, seeing GWAR for a second time, and twice dining in at her place because of both a low budget and her having work the next day). I convinced her to give me another chance and the next two dates went very well (or so I thought).
Then she was very busy for a while. One night after several weeks of not seeing her, I had a one night stand with a girl named Dee (which was the worst sexual encounter of my life, and was the only girl I have ever been that I was not romantically interested in). Supposedly, soon after this she was supposed to be having some free time coming up for me soon, but it never come. Since then she blew off all of my phone calls, and when I finally did reach her, she, herself, told me she wasn't home. I made two more attempts to reach her later (realizing it was definitely over and wanting to know why) that evening and then gave up, despite temptation not to.
I have no idea what went wrong. My best guess is that she knows I would talk her into coming back to me and she is too afraid of getting attached, which she had told me numerous times from the beginning, but I always talked her into trying to get past that fear.
I think I have digressed quite terribly. The point I was trying to make was that her Erics did not bother me. That she lied to me about her not being home and that she was not honest with me about not wanting to see me anymore did. In a way, I guess it was probably for the better since I hardly ever saw her any more, however, since then I just became very depressed, ate little, slept all day and did nothing.
Now, I want to get my life back in together. I have been somewhat successful, but there is still a huge void in her space that I hope to have filled.
It seems to me that in each relationship I have with a female, I find myself getting closer and closer to the type of relationship which I really want, but each time they end, they leave you with a bigger black hole eating away at you. Perhaps this is why people seem so afraid of growing any real emotional bonds. Despite this, I masochistly continue to search for someone to love, which is why I right this letter.
I can't really think of much else to write at the moment, and I've probably said too much by now anyway. I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours truly,
Brian Matthew Kessler