Calling bullshit on this one

I was going to reply to this in the comments but decided to be put it front and center.

roger wellor writes the following in response to last night's "Lockdown" post:

"unworthy?"

that's a hell of a word to apply to a lover you presumably had some role in choosing.

I love Dr. Crazy's blog, but she sometimes doesn't seem to think things through and has a tendency to look outside when things don't work.

If a lot of stuff isn't working out and you are the common thread?

You might be the common thread.

With that said, I always loved my sister's approach. When the lockdown came she would sit on her bed, drink Gin and weep.

She'd always feel much better in the morning.

Eh hem . . .

Dearest roger,

You, or the careful reader, might notice that "unworthy" is part of the rhetoric, that of the love sonnet tradition, I use throughout the post in humorous contrast to images from space movies. Lover? Beloved? Heart like a sealed tomb? For good measure (or the critically challenged), I throw in shout-outs to some famous sonneteers, that common-thread dysfunctional figure in the Western tradition who fucked up things with Beatrice AND Laura AND Stella.

The lockdown metaphor is a playful (perhaps too facetious for some who might like to keep the ground sacred) way of discussing the difficulty of distancing oneself emotionally after a breakup. Yes, I have a lot of experience with dating and relationships. I have had many relationships. Tumultuous short-term relationships. Beautiful long-term relationships. Some have ended badly. I have had horrible breakups. I have had peaceful partings of the ways with people who are now close friends. I am the common thread of that narrative. Is there something wrong with me? Can we "blame" me for not finding "success" in love? Only if we see my choice not to be in a long-term relationship as dysfunctional, and we define "success" as finding ultimate happiness in a long-term monogamous relationship and being in a stable couple. Heteronormativity, anyone?

I am a sexually active woman of a certain age who has not chosen the path of marriage and children. Of course I have a long relationship history, and that history is NOT the story of trying and failing over and over again to land that man. With your common-thread theory, my dearest roger, you imply that my and my friend's (not sure whom you are addressing with the "you"--I assume a sort of everywoman) love troubles result from some pathology deep within us that make us unsuitable for healthy relationships. Who's serving up a steaming plate of unworthy there?

But maybe you are right. Perhaps I do need to take a good long hard look at myself to see why I keep "failing" and why I am so fucked up and how I can even see the choice to be a single sexually active childless unmarried woman as a viable one that might be empowering and might not result in being ridiculed as someone's bitter, weeping, cowering and infantilized sister sucking on a bottle of gin.

Yes, I will look deep deep deep inside of myself to see what the problem is. Thanks for reminding me that my behavior needs to be carefully monitored and controlled.

Kisses and loving glances,
Medusa