What I Can't Have

Your problem, my baby sister told me, is that you only want what you can’t have.

This is not true. I assure you. There are plenty of things I want + can have. There are others than I want + already have. There are certainly some things I want + can’t have, but the can’t is incidental to the want.

I am sure of precious little these days, but I am sure of this: If I could have the thing that I can’t have, I would still want it.

This man – this ridiculous, captivating man – is on my mind. He should not be. He has a girlfriend. I mean, this is the worst kind of man. Forget what I’ve said about lawyers being the worst. That was all fallacy. Men with girlfriends=worst of all.

I did not know he had a girlfriend initially. And the chemistry was palpable. I could feel it; taste it. Nothing untoward happened. There was just…an intense connection, an obvious interest. Circumvented, naturally, by his admission, all right, okay, I um, have a girlfriend. And, well, while I am not sure that the relationship makes sense, and I need to figure that out, I am not trying to have an affair.

An affair? Who said anything about an affair? I am still stuck on I have a girlfriend.

That shit is tired.

So. I have ceased contact with this man. He is not the first man in this position that I’ve been attracted to. But what is there to do? I have been down that road before, and the outcome is never good. It's karmically shitty. It's bad juju. It's the wrong thing to do. Passion can always be resisted. If it's right, it will be right when it is right. And anything but a full-on contact embargo will lead to trouble, by the barrel. So I'm checking my own girl. Staying far afield of him is the right thing, it is the true thing, the honest thing. It is the only thing to do, really, even if it's not what I want.

I can’t have him. And I want him.

And that shit is tired, too.