I have a rule, never speak to a man, no matter how attracted\u00a0I\u00a0am\u00a0to him unless he has the backbone to speak first.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
I don\u2019t speak to many men.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Two years after I invoked this rule, my loneliness astonished me.\u00a0 I\u2019m not saying that men didn\u2019t approach me and speak; they tried.\u00a0 Mostly married men, innocent as lambs, most of them.\u00a0 We had conversations about the weather, the owls at night (really) the training of dogs and all manner of things at all different occasions.\u00a0 Not one bachelor, however, made a move in my direction.\u00a0 Not one bachelor\u00a0approached my friends and asked to be introduced.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Now some might think perhaps I am the female version of Quasimodo\u2013not so.\u00a0 I\u2019m no prima donna, but I\u2019m not stooped over with a hunched back and bald\u2013nor do I have a little black mustache.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
My resolution secured me the reputation of a snob. A woman who thought too much of herself and unapproachable\u2013frigid. Single women avoided me too; they didn\u2019t want to be branded as frigid or unapproachable by associating with me, and all I wanted was to be spoken to first; ‘Hello I’m Bob the mechanic or Ralph the baker,’ that’s all.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Please don\u2019t think Prince Charming showed up, swept me off my jaded feet and made me the envy of all women\u2013he didn\u2019t.\u00a0 I changed. Selling my flat screen TV and donating any book I owned which had not been published 100 years ago, then taking a deep breath, I resolved to read every novel I had lied about reading. Radical, I know but I had no one to talk to.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
I compiled my liar book list.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
My first attack was on all the Jane Austen novels.\u00a0 Next, I tackled the Bronte sister. I was aghast to realize that I hated \u201cWuthering Heights,\u201d and wondered as I struggled through the novel how the hell I would continue lying about the book for I had fairly gushed over it in the past, along with all my wine drinking literary, friends. I wondered then if my friends (no longer associating with me) had read the abridged version, and I suspected that I wasn\u2019t the only liar in the world.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Don\u2019t think I ignored male authors out of spite, I did not.\u00a0 I read Robert Louis Stevenson, HG Wells, and Oscar Wilde\u2013I laughed out loud when I read \u201cI\u2019ve been telling the truth all this time, can you ever forgive me?\u201d (I know, I know, a play not a novel but it hefted and felt like a book).\u00a0 Wilde was a genius in being delightfully rotten.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
My point of view about the world and the ‘momentous,’ moments of my life shrank compared to the literature in front of me.\u00a0 For example, I believe now in evil as an entity with a personality (I still believe Satan exists and is an enemy of God) after I read the books of HG Wells. I felt delightfully wicked because I don’t think that’s what the author intended being an atheist. An author can write but not dictate a mind into lemming-type thinking; that takes a book club.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
I became so absorbed in the restitution of my lies that my long-lost friends wondered what had become of me.\u00a0 I refused invitations and my parents drove in from the suburbs one Sunday afternoon to make sure I wasn\u2019t dead and bloated in my apartment.\u00a0 My father walked down to the sports bar after seeing I was okay and my mother picked up \u201cThe Invisible Man,\u201d and read it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cIf only it were true of most men,\u201d she said, opening the book and settling in beside me with some hot tea.\u00a0 She took the train in and out of the city to cook for me after I told her I was taking a week off work to do nothing but read.\u00a0 She even stayed with me a few nights and read \u201cDracula.\u201d\u00a0 (She re-acclimated herself to her Catholic upbringing soon after reading that novel).<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
The Friday evening of my week long liar book marathon I lamented to my Mother of having to go back to work for my rent\u2019s sake.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cWhat brought all this on?\u00a0 Why are you reading these books?\u201d asked my mother.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cBecause single men refuse to speak\u00a0to me.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
She blinked at me from behind her thick reading glasses.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d she asked slowly.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cNo single man will talk\u00a0to me.\u00a0 I\u2019ve not dated a man in two years,\u201d and explained my life in the last four years.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cDo you mean to tell me you haven\u2019t had your heart broken?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cYou won\u2019t talk to a man first, so no man has spoken to you in two years?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cWell, I\u2019ve spoken to men, Mother\u2026\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cYes, yes,\u201d she blurted \u201cbut because of this experiment you are sitting down and making restitution on the lies you\u2019ve made regarding books you said you read but really haven\u2019t?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cWell, now it really wasn\u2019t an experiment, but a sort of\u00a0theory I was testing.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cA theory?\u201d asked my mother her voice rising.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cYes,\u201d I said wondering at her<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cDo you mean to tell me I\u2019ve been sitting in the suburbs wondering if you\u2019re a lesbian and afraid to tell me, dead or heartbroken, and all along you\u2019ve been testing a theory?\u00a0 A theory?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
It shocked me,\u00a0her strident tone of voice.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
“You idiot girl!” My mother got up from her seat on my sofa and paced my living room floor, then sat back down and looked at me. “I made you attend\u00a0Sunday School in an effort to help you figure out men – they’re not complicated, dear!\u00a0 I read you the Genesis account of creation, for pity’s sake.” Looking at me earnestly she said, “You punish yourself because you think men egotistical, and all they are is lazy, ignorant and cowards.\u00a0 Where have you been?\u00a0 How did we miss this?”<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
She got up and paced a few more\u00a0times across my living room floor.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cOh!\u201d my mother moaned and collapsed back down on my old library chair, landing on Dante\u2019s \u201cInferno.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cMother, I would hardly say I was punishing myself.\u00a0 I mean I\u2019ve been lonely, but I\u2019m better read than most people my age.\u201d\u00a0 I shrugged and picked up \u2018Moll Flanders.\u2019\u00a0 \u201cAnd you know, most of my so-called friends are already married and wondering why they spent the time and money on the effort.\u00a0 Perhaps I\u2019ll skip all that.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
My Mother was looking at me from between her fingers, her blue eyes shining out from behind her reading glasses.\u00a0 \u201cThen you don\u2019t blame me for being a terrible mother?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cI don\u2019t consider you a terrible mother.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
She seemed relieved and removed her glasses to dab her eyes with a tissue.\u00a0 \u201cDo you see yourself ever in a relationship?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cOh, perhaps some older man who walks by me while I\u2019m reading on a park bench, might stop by someday and ask me what keeps me so absorbed.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cHave you seen him?\u201d Asked my mother in a conspirator’s tone of voice.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cEvery day on my lunch hour.\u00a0 After a week\u2019s absence, I\u2019m hoping he might have the courage to ask me what I\u2019ve been up to.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cOh, darling, I\u2019m so relieved you\u2019re not so noble as to not try stealth.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
I smiled at her and asked if she wouldn\u2019t make me a pot of tea.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
“Oh\u00a0yes\u00a0certainly.\u00a0 And since it\u2019s only Friday, I think I\u2019ll read the Pickwick Papers.\u00a0 I always hated Charles Dickens and lied through so many of his novels.\u00a0 But it\u2019s time to come clean.”<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What happened was that I sold my flat screen TV, boxed and donated any book I owned which was not 100 years old,\u00a0took a deep breath and\u00a0resolved to read every book I had lied about reading.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
I compiled my liar book list.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2226,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[11,21],"class_list":["post-65","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-short-story","category-short-fiction","tag-amwriting","tag-shortstory"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lydiaink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Liar-books.jpeg?fit=1408%2C768&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2120,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions\/2120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}