The Truth. Neil Strauss

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ go to her funeral.

      But this one is different. Ingrid isn’t crazy, she isn’t jealous, she isn’t controlling, she’s never cheated on me, and she’s talented and independent, working in a real estate office by day and designing swimsuits by night. I’m ruining this one all by myself.

      And that’s because I am the king of ambivalence.

      When I’m single, I want to be in a relationship. When I’m in a relationship, I miss being single. And worst of all, when the relationship ends and my captor-lover finally moves on, I regret everything and don’t know what I want anymore.

      I’ve gone through this cycle enough times to realize that, at this rate, I’m going to grow old alone: no wife, no kids, no family. I’ll die and it will be weeks before the smell gets strong enough that someone finds me. And all the shit I spent my lifetime accumulating will be thrown in the trash so someone else can occupy the space I wasted. I’ll have left nothing behind, not even debt.

      But what’s the alternative?

      Most married people I know don’t seem to be any happier. One day Orlando Bloom, an actor I’d written a Rolling Stone profile about, came over to visit. At the time, he was married to one of the world’s most successful and beautiful women, Victoria’s Secret supermodel Miranda Kerr, making him one of the most envied men on the planet. And the first thing out of his mouth? “I don’t know if marriage is worth it. I don’t know why anyone does it. I mean, I want romance and I want to be with someone, but I just don’t think it works.”

      My other married friends haven’t fared much better. Some even seem content, but after a little probing they admit to feeling frustrated. Several cope by being unfaithful, others white-knuckle it, many surrender passively to their fate, and a few simply live in denial. Even the rare friends who’ve remained happy in their marriages admit, when pressed, to being unfaithful at least once.

We expect love to last forever. Yet as many as 50 percent of marriages and even more remarriages end in divorce. Among those who are married, only 38 percent actually describe themselves as happy in that state. And 90 percent of couples report a decrease in marital satisfaction after having their first child. Speaking of which, more than 3 percent of babies are not actually fathered by the male parent who thinks he did.*

      Unfortunately, it’s only getting worse. Thanks to technology, we now have more dating and hook-up options than at any other time in human history, with countless desperate men and women just a click or swipe away, making fidelity—or even committing in the first place—yet more of a challenge. In a recent Pew Research survey, four out of ten people believed that marriage was an obsolete institution.

      Maybe, then, the problem isn’t just me. Perhaps I’ve been trying to conform to an outdated and unnatural social norm that doesn’t truly meet—and has never met—the needs of both men and women equally.

      So I stand here, packing for Chicago, riddled with guilt and confusion, with one foot in the best relationship I’ve ever had and one foot out of it, wondering: Is it even natural to be faithful to one person for life? And if it is, how do I keep the passion and romance from fading over time? Or are there alternatives to monogamy that will lead to better relationships and greater happiness?

      Several years ago, I wrote a book called The Game about an underground community of pickup artists I joined in search of an answer to the biggest question plaguing my lonely life at the time: Why don’t women I like ever like me back?

      In the pages that follow, I attempt to solve a much tougher life dilemma: What should I do after she likes me back?

      Like love itself, the path to answer this question will be anything but logical. The unintended consequences of my infidelity will lead me to free-love communes, to modern-day harems, and to scientists, swingers, sex anorexics, priestesses, leather families, former child actors, miracle healers, murderers, and, most terrifying of all, my mother. It will challenge and ultimately revolutionize everything I thought I knew about relationships—and myself.

      If you’re interested in getting more out of this odyssey for yourself, notice the words and concepts that most excite or repel you. Each gut reaction tells a story. It is a story about who you are and what you believe. Because, all too often, the things that we’re the most resistant to are precisely what we need. And the things we’re most scared to let go of are exactly the ones we most need to relinquish.

      At least, that will be the case with me.

      This is the story of discovering that every truth I’ve desperately clung to, fought for, fucked for, and even loved for is wrong.

      Appropriately, it begins in a modern-day insane asylum, sometime before I escaped against medical advice …

      A hairy man in green hospital scrubs takes my luggage, stretches a pair of latex gloves over his hammy fists, and starts searching for contraband.

      “We don’t allow books here.”

      The only other place I’ve been where books are confiscated is North Korea. Taking away books is a tactic of dictators and others who don’t want people to have an original thought. Even in prison, inmates are allowed to have books.

      But this is my punishment, I tell myself. I’m here to be retrained, to learn how to be a decent human being. I’ve hurt people. I deserve to be in this hospital, this prison, this asylum, this convalescent home for weak men and women who can’t say no.

      They treat all addictions here: alcohol, drugs, sex, food, even exercise. Too much of anything can be a bad thing. Even love.

      Their specialty is love addiction.

      But I am not a love addict. I wish I were. That sounds much more socially acceptable. There’s probably a special place in heaven for love addicts, along with all the other martyrs.

      The attendant drops my nail clippers, tweezers, razor, and razor blades into a manila envelope. “I’m going to have to take these too.”

      “Can I shave first? I didn’t have time to shave this morning.”

      “New arrivals can’t use razors for three days while on suicide watch. After that, you need your psychiatrist’s permission.”

      “But how can you commit suicide with nail clippers?” I’m not very good with rules. That’s another reason I’m here. “Mine don’t even have a file attached.”

      He is silent.

      You can’t fix most problems with rules, any more than you can with laws. They’re too inflexible. They break. Common sense is flexible. And I’m clearly in a place devoid of it. “If I wanted to kill myself, I’d just use my belt. And you didn’t take that.”

      I say it with a smile, to show I’m not angry. I just want to let him know that this system doesn’t work. He looks me up and down, says nothing, then writes something in my folder. I’m never getting that razor back.

      “Come with me,” insists a green-smocked woman—rail thin and sinewy, with unkempt blond hair and sun-damaged skin. She introduces herself as a nurse technician and leads me to a private room.

      She wraps a blood pressure cuff around СКАЧАТЬ