The Man You Dream Of

I heard you talk with your girlfriends over mai tais the other day, I heard clearly from the kitchen the sorts of things you had to say. You said good things about me, yes, but then you started to complain, and talked about all of the things that you say you’re going to ‘change.’ You don’t like that I own some guns, or that I sometimes watch NASCAR, that I will not vote for lefties, and prefer trucks to tiny cars. You don’t like that I think Broadway is a torture to be endured, and you think that your influence will somehow make me ‘more cultured.’ As if the things that I enjoy somehow will leave you demeaned? You even said that,”He’s so close to being the man of my dreams!” And when I brought it up later you didn’t seem to understand, said,”But babe, why wouldn’t you want to grow into a better man?” You got mad when I pointed out the truth of the words you had said, that it meant you didn’t really love the man that you lay with in bed. You love a hypothetical, and not the person that you have, that I’m somehow not good enough, and that your presence is a salve. Now imagine the reaction if I went and said those word to you? You’d be furious, up in arms, the whole internet would be too. To think that a man could somehow demand a woman become more, we’d have psychotic feminazis come and explode right thought our doors! Yet when women want to ‘change a man’ we just nod our heads and smile? You such double-standards just leave most men feeling defiled. I don’t love you for what you will be, No, I love you for what you are. I don’t pretend I can ‘fix you,’ treat the imperfections and scars. So I will be what I must be, and I will like what makes me glad, even if that involves some things that you don’t get, or think are bad. The vision you have in your head is a dream and will remain so, such ‘perfection’ is fantasy, and that should not come as a blow. I’m a partner, no a project, so please accept this if you can, I can’t be the man you dream of, only the best of what I am.