The Truth. Neil Strauss
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Название: The Truth
Автор: Neil Strauss
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Биографии и Мемуары
isbn: 9781782110965
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“Is the underlying principle of all this the idea that if we have true intimacy in our relationship, we won’t seek outside sex?” I ask Joan.
“Yes,” she says, with some satisfaction that I appear to be getting it.
I ask again, just to make sure. I want everyone in the room to hear exactly what she’s saying. Troy’s advice from earlier echoes through my head: I’m not going to let her break me. I’m going to be the voice of sanity. Of reality.
“If you had true intimacy in your relationships,” she repeats, “you wouldn’t be seeking sex outside your relationships.”
“I have this thing that’s been going through my head all day. Is it all right if I ask it?”
“Please.” The word drips with disdain.
“Is it okay to use the blackboard?” I don’t know any other way to explain it.
Her back stiffens. She senses something unpredictable may be about to happen. She shoots me a stern look, trying to melt my resolve as I approach the blackboard.
My hand starts shaking as I pick up a piece of chalk. I write her words on the board:
If true intimacy, then no outside sex.
“That’s your theory,” I begin. “If you boil it down to the basic idea behind it, what you get is this …”
If true X, then no outside Y.
“And the problem is, this equation just isn’t true.” In school, I never thought I’d actually have to use algebra in real life. I was wrong. “Even if you make both X and Y the exact same variable, it still doesn’t work.”
I continue writing:
If true X in the relationship, then no X outside the relationship.
“Let’s say, for example, that your wife is the best cook in the world. Then according to what you’re saying, you’ll never want to eat anywhere else.”
Joan remains quiet, watching me, letting me write on her blackboard, rattling me with her lack of reaction.
If true cooking in the relationship, then no cooking outside the relationship.
“But that’s just not true. Sometimes you want to go to a restaurant for a change.”
The guys are watching intently. Calvin is on the edge of his seat. Troy has a big smile on his face. Charles’s brows are deeply furrowed.
This is it. This is the moment where I disprove all the bullshit Joan’s been feeding us. She can have her revenge afterward, whatever it may be.
“Now let’s go back to your original premise. And let’s make it even stronger.”
If true intimacy, then no outside intimacy.
“Even that statement isn’t true. You seek intimacy with your parents, your siblings, and your friends. No matter how you look at it, what you’re telling us doesn’t add up.”
She says nothing. I press on.
“The other issue is that you’re telling us intimacy and sex are related like this …
“But for men—and not just the guys here but every man I know—they’re like this …
“So what are we supposed to do with all the rest of our sexual needs?”
The guys are staring openmouthed now, big dopey grins on their faces—except for Charles, who’s looking at Joan imploringly. I must be interfering with his recovery again.
“Here’s what I’m starting to think,” I press on. “People are under the logical fallacy that when their partner wants sex outside the relationship, it’s harmful to their intimacy together. We are all here because we don’t believe that’s true, but we do believe that lying and deceit harm intimacy. So instead of being retrained to accept a relationship on our partners’ terms, we could just as easily retrain them to accept the relationship on our terms.”
Troy dares to applaud. Calvin pumps his fist into the air in solidarity.
Joan doesn’t change her expression. She’s stone cold. “Cross out if intimacy, then no outside intimacy,” she instructs me. I do as she says. “Now cross out, if cooking, then no outside cooking.” I do that. “Now go back to your seat.” I do that too.
She stares at the board. “I’m processing,” she says.
The room is completely silent. It’s like a chess match. And everyone’s wondering if it’s checkmate.
Finally, Joan turns to me. “You need to define intimacy.”
“Would you like me to do that now?”
“You can do that on your own time.”
I’m disappointed, because I know the answer. I heard it recently in the patient lounge, where someone was quoting Pia Mellody, who’s the Patrick Carnes of codependency: Intimacy is sharing your reality with someone else and knowing you’re safe, and them being able to share their reality with you and also be safe.
“The definition doesn’t have any bearing on what I’ve said, anyway,” I tell her.
“I think you’re intellectualizing to be able to control the overall addiction,” she responds.
That’s all she’s got: to tell me to stop using my brain? “That’s what dictators like Pol Pot and Hitler and Stalin say. They burn books and kill intellectuals so no one can question them.”
The response comes out more confrontational than it’s meant to be. I’m not trying to rebel. All my relationships have been disasters and something clearly needs to change. “So help me,” I add, beseechingly. “I want to be wrong. I want to recover. But I need to reconcile this contradiction. What you’re teaching us needs to actually make sense to me.”
“This is your addict fighting against recovery and not letting go,” she says sharply. She looks at the clock and rises to her feet. “You’re all late for dinner.”
She walks to the desk and starts gathering papers, holding her head high as if she’s prevailed. Yet everyone, possibly even Charles, is aware that not only did she fail to defend her thesis, but quite possibly she couldn’t.
“Neil,” her voice rings out as I’m leaving, loud enough for everyone to hear, “why don’t you present your timeline to the group tomorrow?”
At dinner we all sit together, the red demons of the round table. We are bonded now in brotherhood, СКАЧАТЬ