...afraid of women?

Who, in their right mind, WOULDN'T be AFRAID of women? At the very least, highly cautious.

Except, of course, other women. But even then, if one listens and observes, women do things to each other with looks that just devastates the other party. All perfectly "non-violent," and so, therefore, "not real," but the impact is VERY real and VERY hurtful. All covert and all under the radar.

I can go along for the ride of, "Mr. Schaeffer is warped," for a little while, because I think I understand him. In a light-hearted way I think he'd agree. But to castigate and ostracize repeatedly, and with a self-righteous, self assured tone, no less, is completely pathological. But then again, I understand I'm reading the effluent that falls out of the mind of an attorney, so all bets are off in the humanity department.

All of this crap is distorted and crazed. Sanity is definitely missing from this furious, headlong assault.

When men have disagreements with each other, they scream and shout, pound on their chests, perhaps pound on each other -- more often they wrestle in this homoerotic dance of the absurd -- and then it's done. It's over. Some women really dig this as much as alot of men love to watch women make love to each other. I say, "watch," because no typical man could hope to keep up with a woman his own age in the sex department. I used to think differently in my twenties, when I was still machine-gunning my way through life, but even then, upon reflection, I think it's clear that women held all of the cards in the socio-sexual department.

Again, to emphasize my point, when men are, "done," women are just warming up. Men have cards to play, too, but their game is widely known and widely viewed. Men are transparent as hell.

When I say, "cruel," I mean it in a very literal sense because it's not just men who play the game and play along with it, but women as well. They are as much participants and players in this game as any man could ever be. And if you think I'm kidding, take a look at even the best photograph of Barbara Bush. Watch her move in public. If you can't identify the horror and the cruelty that courses through that woman-thing's veins, you have NO BUSINESS PASSING JUDGMENT ON ERIC SCHAEFFER. You have no idea what REAL inhumanity is all about.

Conversely, I know what it's like to have one's worldview smashed into little pieces by a tough disappointment in the romantic department. ESPECIALLY when you've got ancient trauma content operating inside your own nervous system that is from a PRE-VERBAL period in your own life. So you do the work, you dig stuff up, and literally move an entire mountain of pain one inch to the left or right. Then you get to watch the world drive by and piss and moan at you because you f*ked up their view. Why did I do all that therapy and dredge up all that pain for? I could have been disrespected and chagrined at a far less damaging and superficial level if I hadn't have spent all that time and money with someone who helped me to feel more whole than I've ever felt in my entire life.

The hero's journey in the spiritual growth department is an amazing one. But it has some awful truths that come at you like drop-offs and chuck-holes that swallow up your entire vehicle along the way. The more people who walk this path, the better it is for the people who come afterward, but it absolutely SUCKS for the pioneers. No one friggin' cares that your mother was bipolar, horribly sexually abused by her father growing up, and who did things to your young male mind that parents shouldn't do to their children. And no one friggin' cares that you've overcome so much of that hurt and agony and trauma and self-flagellation.

They only care if you remember them on Valentine's Day. They only care about the lines on your face and whether you've got an agenda that's incompatible with their's that they don't know about ahead of time.

Complete lack of proportion or any sense of justice is operating here. And it's part of being human and it's one of the things I like least about being one.

Especially when I catch myself doing it.

I'm sorry if Eric Schaeffer hurt your feelings. I'm sorry if his thickened skin and incompatible self-pity and absorption threw you off. No, it's not normal. Normal in this society is to meet, fall in love, buy a house in a neighborhood that neither of you likes, fall in hate, destroy each other, and then move on to do the same thing to someone else. All while pretending that this is ALL ABOUT love and hearts and flowers. That's what "normal" is and it's complete rubbish.

But Happy Valentine's Day to everyone out there still living in a world of romantic delusions. I hope that they are dreams of kindness and warmth, and I hope you share your relationship with the world because you've probably earned every warm feeling you allow yourself to feel on days like today.

As for the rest of you chokers out there who want to make your failure in the romance department about SOMEBODY ELSE, here's my gift to you: grow the fek up ; learn to love somebody, FIRST. Start with yourself. Then try a potted plant. Then move on to mammals, perhaps a doggie at first. Don't play with adults until you are one.

...I'll even loan you my microscope.