Friday, July 14, 2006

Cary Tennis Rocks

Go to Salon.com. Allow them to force-feed you an ad. Go become a Cary Tennis fan, the way Pretty Lady's sister is.

Dear Cary, My wife of 15 years has developed a deep, not quite sexually intimate relationship with an enlightened man, with whom she says she can talk like a girlfriend, share soulful conversation and feel a very deep spiritual connection like we never did.

...
I am freaking out. Sometimes I deal with this OK, once I become trusting that she and the other man have not and will not become sexually intimate. But then I see she wishes she could. In fact, she wishes she could with more people!

Dear OK--

Your wife has met a man and fallen for him. They are having an affair. It is what you might call an "unconsummated" affair, but it is an affair.

As a result, you feel bereft, abandoned. Not only that, but you are also confused, because your wife is treating this as something other than an affair -- as a spiritual quest, a chaste apprenticeship, a healthful seminar in better living good for the whole family.

Terminology is important. So let's call this an affair, and let's refer to her lover not as "an enlightened man" but as "the cheater."

...I don't trust your wife. I fear she is the kind of person who broadcasts her deep unhappiness in complicated, deniable ways, so that people around her don't really know what to believe or how to feel...


Cary Tennis has Been There and Done That. He has Lived on the Edge, and has the wisdom to show for it. Pretty Lady has actually done a reading on the same programme as Cary Tennis, once upon a time. He's a rather nondescript little man, in person. But the man can write; he can advise, he can clarify.

Go. Be a fan.

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like him very much. I used to read all the time but then I couldn't get on without paying money, and I don't like him that much.

My extensive life experience tells me that, "not quite sexually intimate relationship with an enlightened man", means she's bonin' the cheatin' bastard. Get rid of her fast. Liars always make bad marriage partners. Just my semi-humble opinion.

The Aardvark said...

Very impressed with Mr. Tennis' ability and willingness to speak without equivocation. Whilst the treachery displayed by wifey is clear, I must say that the hubby's passive "being OK" is a big part of it all."Mr. Spiritual" would be a poser of the highest order. I must be cynical about my fellow Men, and say that unless properly trained-disciplined-discipled, the most likely reason for being Soulful is that you may be Physical Real Soon Now.
...Ah...I read the whole piece.As Mr. Tennis and I are on the same wavelength, I must conclude that he is really quite clever! ;^)

The Aardvark said...

...And you have to love someone who writes things like:
"quasi-mystical Latinate cant."

Anonymous said...

Oh, I have a new addiction. Thanks, PL ;)

And am I the only person who actually *likes* Salon.com's ad-for-read format? No registration, no telling anyone where the hell I live, no paying, just clicking on a link and then doing something else for 60 seconds in return for hours of free access. Maybe I'm a lunatic or in the midst of one of my newly-acquired Wellbutrin petit-mals, but I think it's spiffy.

Pretty Lady said...

...And you have to love someone who writes things like:
"quasi-mystical Latinate cant."


There's a reason we were reading on the same bill. :-)

Oh, I have a new addiction.

Me, too. I was up until 2 AM reading all the back columns.

I like the ad-for-read format now that I have high-speed access, and they're only wasting 30 seconds of my time instead of three to five minutes.

Mr. Nelson, your comments are precisely in line with the other 106 reader letters inspired by this same article. I myself have fallen for cant like this in the past. No More.

Anonymous said...

Cant is always a negative, even if the stupid f--k forgot the apostrofee after the n.

Anonymous said...

eh...forget I said that....the devil made me do it..
mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa

Anonymous said...

"Soulful is that you may be Physical Real Soon "

Actually, I'm at my most soulful after physical just happened. That's one reason I don't believe it's just some kind of mind meld/misdirection horseshit. (Can I say horseshit on this blog?)

Pretty Lady said...

Can I say horseshit on this blog?

You need to ask, after the events of the last week?

mea culpa

Stop that. Guilt is the only enemy.

it's just some kind of mind meld/misdirection

On the contrary, mind meld is the whole point. The physical is merely redundant.

Anonymous said...

"On the contrary, mind meld is the whole point."

After her mulitples you mean?

Pretty Lady said...

After her mulitples you mean?

As if!

Pretty Lady said...

Morgan, I completely agree with you on that. My partner is the one who betrays me. The Other Woman is simply someone who has both the good taste to appreciate my partner, and the ill morals to pursue him. Though she may be a brazen trollop, nothing will be gained by ripping her to shreds but a fleeting, Pyrrhic sense of gratification.

I think this is one of the areas in which men are different from women. They have a difficult time identifying their emotions with any degree of finesse or subtlety; so much gets channelled into amorphous aggression. I had a lover once who suddenly announced, apropos of nothing, "Tengo ganas de golpear a Mooshi." ("I'd like to punch your kittycat.") This seemed wholly unreasonable, since Mooshi was a harmless creature, and he was the cheating bastard (and a cat person, no less!), but it illustrates the male tendency to be impotently jealous of any object which claims the female's affection, no matter how innocuous.

I have heard women tell of otherwise mild-mannered boyfriends who had a penchant for throttling their stuffed animals.

Pretty Lady said...

I'd probably kick him literally, though. Or at least have the very strong ganas to do so.

Matt said...

I have no problem with a guy beating his wife for cheating. I don't have it in my to do it...I think. They're married and have children. A girlfriend...well who gives a damn about that? Just dump the filthy broad.

The man knows she is married. Instead of behaving like a respectable man, he invades another man's privacy, property (yeah I said it!) and life in general. He deserves a beating for that. He also deserves it for using such slimy pathetic non-manly seduction techniques. Clint is on my tv so I feel like KICKING SOME WOMANLY MAN ASS.

I wouldn't have hurt your stupid cat, Pretty Lady. I would have kicked his ass for saying that to you (I hate cats)!. Just letting you know where I'm comin' from. Oh yes.

Anonymous said...

NOw, in Brooklyn, a fine assortment of fashionable woman-beater silk-screened withinteresting fight logos are available. I suppose it is ok to use them as wife-beater shirts or the boyfriend of the wife-beater attire.
One should always dress for the occasion.
By the way, if anyone needs a little respite from these terse emotions......wfmu.org (live on line) is playing birdsonds.....just now ..the song-sparrow....sans wife-beater shirt.

Anonymous said...

PL,

Go to my main page and start reading. Anon got blocked and deleted two days ago.

we love life.

Anonymous said...

Another thing about this stupid gullible whore lady---my mom was involved in a "deeply fulfilling spiritual relationship" with a man not my father and her husband for most of my childhood. They slept together once; my dad beat the shit out of her (she gave as good as she got, don't get me wrong), put the dude in question in the hospital in a HALO, but they still carried on their "enlightened spiritual mutual guidance", probably to this day. She told me all about him when I was 11, and I told her flat out to leave Dad and go marry him, if she was so fucking in love with him. Crazy broad even had me talk to him on the phone when I was about 14, so I could "understand what a remarkable soul he has". I understood, all right--understood he was a slick sonofabitch con man who had strung my mom along for over a decade and got his rocks off knowing that an absolute hottie like my mom (she was f-ing GORGEOUS up 'till about 53) was pining away after him all chivalric-love-like.
Screw that for a lark. It's a freaking wonder that I have any idea how to maintain a healthy relationship with a real person, when you think about it.

Pretty Lady said...

I told her flat out to leave Dad and go marry him, if she was so fucking in love with him.

You are a very sensible woman, Mitzibel. Funny how 'spiritual' relationships of this nature tend to evaporate once they meet the cold hard demands of everyday life.

understood he was a slick sonofabitch con man who had strung my mom along for over a decade and got his rocks off knowing that an absolute hottie like my mom (she was f-ing GORGEOUS up 'till about 53) was pining away after him all chivalric-love-like.

One wonders at the level of narcissistic sadism that requires. I repeat, you are a very sensible woman.

It's a freaking wonder that I have any idea how to maintain a healthy relationship with a real person, when you think about it.

It's called 'being born with a bullshit detector.' Pretty Lady lacked one, and has had to develop it through tortuous experience. May I borrow some of yours?

The Aardvark said...

The scary thing is that it appears that Mitzibel's mama was shopping her, as well.
I say "appears" because I have a dear friend whose teen daughter was being offered online by her mom to her chat friends. The kibosh was put on this situation with all speed.
I am thankful that you saw the loathsome truth of the "relationship" with Mr. Soul.

I say this as a believer, but whenever I start hearing "beautiful soul" talk, something in my head starts waving its arms and going "Danger! Danger!".

Pretty Lady said...

I have a dear friend whose teen daughter was being offered online by her mom to her chat friends.

WHAT????!!!!! Her MOTHER was PIMPING her? WHAT?????!!!!!

The Aardvark said...

Yes. Nothing happened, thankfully, but it was well and truly creepy.
I think that is called "understatement".

Pretty Lady said...

it was well and truly creepy.
I think that is called "understatement".


Tell that woman that Pretty Lady the Forgiving, Pretty Lady the Universally Loving, Pretty Lady the Pretty, says that SHE SHOULD BE IN JAIL. THAT PSYCHOTIC BITCH.

'Scuse me. That is called 'overstatement.'

The Aardvark said...

This may be in the works.
A divorce certainly is.
(She has other...habits, as well.)
An immensely sad cicumstance all around.

Anonymous said...

Take yer .45 and clean em both up.