I don't think I have ever had to look into lies in such detail. What they are, what they mean. What is a lie, what counts as lying, where do you even draw the line?
Well, this is not relevant as a simple exercise of ontology but as a very practical problem I had with B. See, B has an issue with lies. Actually, saying it's just an issue is putting it mildly. Because the problem isn't lies per se, but abandonment. In her world, people just... leave. They disappear one jolly day, they're out the door saying they'll go pick up the paper, then four months go by without a sign of life and on the day of Christmas, they show up with some old-day hysterical ex, tons of denied guilt and no concept of self-worth. I guess the issue is not the part where you find out somebody you love is a nitwit, the part where you figure you could have spared yourself the trouble. The problem is it usually took a lot of trouble and anger and angst and pain to withstand all of this nitwits and she could have just spared herself the whole lot. B can't call it quits when she ought to and it's only when the mister Charmings of the world really fuck up that's she's forced to dump'em.
Back in the beginning (what, two months ago?) every now and then I felt like she'ld be looking at me through the corner of her eye and thinking, “Are you gonna leave too? Show me your hands, no tickets for Guadalajara anywhere?”
Leaving is not properly my style, I always prefer breaking up. I'm hinduist about this, shut down the life support, kill the fucker, life yields to death, which yields to new life. There is not point, I argue, in pumping blood into a decaying corpse: if the relationship is not working all that well and we're running out of ideas, pull the plug for christ's sake, put us out of our misery. We'll call it a day and go home to rest. Only this way, may we meet again at some Copacabana beach resort ten years from now and pick up where we left off over pina coladas.
But B, she got dumped in masterfully imbecile ways and all of them included a great deal of information retention. Meaning they were not lying, they just weren't mentioning that the cab was waiting outside. Now this is a tricky one in it's own right: information retention... also known simply as secrets. You know what they say, not saying is not lying. Well, B. doesn't go for that, if you oughta know then somebody oughta tell ya and whoever doesn't is hiding information that is relevant to you, that's freaking vital and without which you can't chose chocolate from vanilla.
She somehow managed to find well over an army of lying mothers. I can't even say they were all straight-out mitomanous schizo's, they just didn't know themselves all that well and what was true one day wasn't true anymore the next. That's how she got abandoned a few times over and that's how she grew up to be the paranoid freak of nature she is now-a-days, [grin] so I don't wonder how come, I'm just deciding if I can abide.
I'm not a lier. But I can lie. Fuck, I'm really good at lying. And I can't help but noticing that I say this with a certain pride, and perhaps I do, but not because I feel like I'm on top of my game. I simply think there is no point in expecting the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth out of somebody. And I don't.
Now I should probably mention that the Quad includes L (hey, it's no secret). He's a radical honest, a person who, according to the wikipedia, believes all stress in peoples' lives comes from lying. He thus embodies a philosophy according to which the best way of answering the question “Do I look fat in this?” is “Yup”. The idea is both simple and charming: no lies, no white lies and no retention of information, no secrets. Ever for any reason. Needless to say, L and B got it on like a house on fire. Never could he possibly even conceive mischief without immediately telling B everything, and she's found the Discount Store of Reassurance in this.
Well, I wasn't very good at playing ball and we had a fight, B and me. Yes, we did survive, but the fight was about lies and secrets. I didn't lie, I withheld information. Information I decided was none of B's or anybody else's business, you know, that thing people call personal stuff. She did not agree, though then again, in her mind, there is nothing on this earth that is none of that cat's business.
Well, I, for once, have another good use for lies. Of course I could go all Freudian about this and mention that the unconscious can never be entirely confessed, nor should such thing be attempted, for you would risk facing the tabooic horrors. The fact that you'ld gladly fuck your own mother, for once, and so on.
But no, although I very seldom lie, I have a better reason for secrets, which is partly freudian, partly just what I think: I think lies and secrets feed intimacy. They are the very essence of it.
Intimacy is that thing that happens when nobody else is part of something that only you or you and somebody else is a part of. Intimate problems are the problems you don't tell anybody out of shame. Well, let's imagine we put shame out of the way. Let's pretend it doesn't exist. By doing so, we could theoretically be open to everybody about everything, we could simply open up completely about everything we are and everything there is inside us. Let's imagine we do so as well, we walk naked through the streets and tell everybody the truth about everything. No secrets, no lies.
Intimacy has thus been virtually annihilated, it cannot exist where there are no secrets. Sharing something intimate with somebody, somehow means that such a thing will be unique for both of you, regardless of whether it's sexual or anything at all for that matter. But uniqueness is not enough, the very way you look at the girl sitting next to you at the bus cannot in anyway be repeated identically, yet it's not intimate just because it will never happen again in the same way. Prehaps if you 'make it' unique, giving it that weight of uniqueness inside your mind. But again, every memory you have is in fact, unique, and still this does not make it intimate. Intimate must somehow appertain to the unspeakable self. The veiled one. And intimacy cannot be shared but with a person with an intimate self. Intimacy could, apparently, not be established with a radical honest, for he has no veiled self, no hidden impenetrable intimate. He or she has no limits, so indeed it's a mystery whether such a person even has an inside and an outside. In theory, radical honests couldn't even tell the difference between themselves and the rest of the people, for the flux of information, of memories and knowledge, which is basically what we're made of, is not contained in any way.
I love establishing intimacy and am quick at it wherever allowed. But it is unmistakably intimacy, for it exist behind a veil that can, perhaps, promptly or eagerly be confessed. But it will be confessed, I won't just talk about it, I will utter it in a certain silence, the one used for secrets revealed. With whom I want to, and as for the rest, these secrets I will protect with silence. And where needed, with cunning lies.
My name is Léu, and you didn't hear it from me.
Happy polymers!
