I now understand a bit more how the case for noncuckitude is a case for a rougher, more dominant man. A man [whom] a woman is relieved to possess. Relieved because, well, she’s relieved of command. Stand down, lieutenant.
My having been too nice with my wives all these decades finally comes out in the wash. My having been a sort of serial nice guy whom the women describe in detail with a series of grateful negatives: Dave didn’t do porn, Dave didn’t commit adultery, Dave didn’t do anything wrong. What Dave Didn’t Do (Random 2024). Such descriptions constituting a sort of exit interview. Sayonara Dave. Nice to have known you in the Biblical sense. Dave was exemplary. Yup, Dave didn’t do anything wrong.
To which I now say, Dave didn’t do anything wrong but what did Dave do right? What did Dave do, right? Was he, in Substacker sam van’s terms, the hero she could be pleased to have? Pleased to own up to. To own?
My last wife didn’t last. How is that even possible? The mind boggles at what it’s being asked to do here to come up to speed with current realities. In fact on her birthday (November 3rd 2024) she disappeared in no more time than it took to nod to the bad stuff I didn’t do, and so…away. Otherwise, no explanation. I don’t know (January 2025) if she’s even alive, though I have reason to suspect that she thinks she won’t be for long. We were so intimately made for each other, so different from anyone else for a thousand miles round, that it never once occurred to me that she would pull the plug, Doug, or hop on the bus, Gus. The first time she saw me she recognized me as the one she’d seen in a prophecy. Well, I had read enough Greek tragedies to know that a prophecy of recognition is no prediction about the end of the story.
I had no idea she could leave. Did I? Hmm. Was she dissatisfied? Aren’t people supposed to argue if they’re going to break up? It’s possible that she intimated to me with a kind of oblique hintimacy a thousand times what she’d like. Not: put your hand here and take your other hand and… Not that. Oblique, rather.
Weird how intimate, inti-mate, is so close to intimacy, am I right? Closeness.
Take the hint, Dave. We, she and I, understood the overall concept of the relief that comes from being relieved of command. Even just in terms of dogs, we had often talked about how she was the only person in our trailer court (or anywhere in southern Ontario, frankly) to have actually trained her [wild, feral, unruly, savage] dog to walk placidly by her side with the leash slack, in total silence, her beast offering no challenge to passing dog or human. And we agreed with Cesar Milan that the dog who is reined in thus is a happier dog because—human analogy coming—the reined-in dog is not always having to be in the alpha position hunting and protecting. [There’s a brief interlude here where I get confused about rein versus reign—what else am I confused about?]
The point is that I’m thinking she wanted me to be not nice but in charge. Out in front so she wouldn’t have to be. To which I’d say, she only thought she had to be and if she didn’t putz with all those things she did, well, I’d get to them eventually when they had to get done (but now we’ve left the high road and are off in the moors or down here in the muck of the squabble lands). And as for protection, well, I was literally a streetfighter when I met her, so even later, injured, I knew how to go down protecting my woman. Therefore I was only a semi-cuck. Good word, cuck. A lot of history there. Old cuck. In Shakespeare’s day a cuckold was signaled on stage with double horns. I was a non-cuck in terms of protecting my woman, but a cuck in terms of having failed to relieve her of command. Semi-cuck.
Maybe I only had one horn but I guess it didn’t make me a unicorn.
—Thor in winter
Cuckmen end up surrendering so much they live in vans. High-risk freedom. Snow diagram drawn by young woman who comes by with hearts every few days. Name not known.
Dave, my friend, I feel for you but honestly, the "what women really want" bro fest ironically makes grown up women cringe.
At least it does me, a woman who 1) loves her husband faithfully and 2) talks to whoever the fuck she wants to in the grocery store because nobody tells her how to run her life which is exactly why her marriage is so successful.
My experience, as a younger guy: Unexplained leaving/disappearing/ignoring (colloquially known as "ghosting" as the cool kids call the phenomenon) doesn't mean they've come to dislike you, or anything. Especially if the woman is introverted, which is all too common these days. They just kind of get "tired" of sharing their life with someone (as introverts do) and bail. Introverts do that with once-close friends, as well, so it makes sense.
"Ghosting" is coined by younger folks (men and women) getting 'ghosted' on dating apps. Women would seemingly like me, sometimes even being the first to express interest (tell me I'm "super" good-looking, etc.) - then, they'd inexplicably stop communicating with me. Happens all the time on dating apps, and in the real life dating scene which is largely the same deal. Women, at least the younger ones are just plain insecure about themselves despite their countless selfies, and don't know what the hell they want to do, there's no two ways about it; but it doesn't actually mean they stopped liking the guy they swiped on/matched. They just got caught up in something else, because they don't understand what a long-term relationship entails (their insecurity doesn't help with that, either).
The takeaway: Guess if those women end up getting married? Turns out that it isn't the best idea to have such a short 'attention span' in terms of relationships.