“How do you know I’m not living under a mountain of debt?” I queried.
“Please” she said in a somewhat exasperated tone. “I’m not going to tell you all of my secrets. Let’s just say, most young, single girls have trouble telling fake rich from real money but single moms usually don’t. Actually, any woman who has been dating a while learns to weed out the fake rich from solid money. Players all have patterns and you weren’t playing last night. I had to drag you into bed. You weren’t flashing your big bills, you were hiding them under the little ones. Your clothes weren’t flashy, just well made. You speak Pandora which means you have bought a lot of jewelry in your life. Husbands have to have the kids tell them what to buy when it comes to that. No, you don’t flaunt it, but you’re well off. I wasn’t gold digging when I dragged you home. I knew you were a safe night. Someone who wasn’t going to stick around here so I could run into them at the grocery store or gas station. In short, I didn’t want a man who would keep pawing at me for more. I’m not ready to have another man in my life, but in all honesty it has been two years since someone warmed the other side of this bed and I really needed it. I didn’t know it when I went out, then I ran into you. No, that’s not true. I did know it, which is why I went to the bar where nobody hits on me because I was trying to deny it. Now answer my question.”
I gathered my thoughts for a few moments. This was a mine field under the hot sun, covered with Mexican jumping beans and I was in the middle of it. Any moment now those little buggers would start popping and jumping, most likely setting off some Walmart/North Korean special land mine due to its fine fine quality. The real question wasn’t “will I lose a limb?” No, it was “will any still be attached when I reach the other side?” Oddly enough, men aren’t fortunate enough to perish in such mine fields.
Finally, I tried the old adage, “Generally you show up naked and bring cold beer.”
She slapped my stomach and replied “quit trying to weasel out of it. That works for the kind of guys who go to the bar we met in, if the women still has some looks”
“Or the guy is Billy” I interrupted.<
“Or the guy is Billy” she conceded. “Actually, just showing up would work with Billy. Hey! Quit trying to distract me and answer the damned question.”
“In all honesty I don’t have an answer which will work for you” I responded.
“Damn you’re cold!” she exclaimed turning to look me in the eye.
“No judgment on you, it is a reality of the time. Marketing departments have girls uttering the phrase ‘Because I’m worth it’ before they are in second grade. This phrase then becomes belief and impacts behavior. Even Victoria’s Secret has been filling your head with shit since you were old enough to grab a catalog or turn the channel to one of their fashion shows. This whole ‘bombshell’ thing. This belief that women should be able to do whatever they want and a man should follow them around like a puppy on a leash anticipating and serving their every need. That belief doesn’t work for 99.95% of the type of men you claim to want.”
I continued. “In all honesty Victoria’s Secret has screwed you even more than that hair color commercial with the ‘Because I’m/you’re worth it’ slogan.”
“How so?” she queried. “They sell us all kinds of slutty undies to turn you guys on. How does that turn you off?”
“It’s not so much the undies, but they have become part of it. Now they are more to ‘empower a woman’ than attract a man. I’ll be honest. Twelve year old me used to always try get a hold of a catalog or watch the fashion show. Twenty-something almost thirty-something me quit caring. I don’t even watch it when I’m just flipping through channels. I’ll turn on the news, watch a documentary or just shut the television off it there is nothing but the fashion show on.”
Melony actually turned over so she could look me in th eye while I continued. I could tell by the look in her eyes that she didn’t understand. “You have a look of confusion in your eyes” I stated.
“I am confused” Melony responded, “but please continue.”
“Humans are cruel to their offspring” I continued.
“How did you make that leap?” Melony interrupted.
“Please don’t interrupt. It’s not a leap, it is a journey and the journey is the reward.”
“Okaaayy” she said softly dragging the word out with a disbelieving look in her eye.
“Humans come up with all sorts of things for kids to believe in. The Easter Bunny, Santa Clause and a host of other things. They do this knowing full well they are instilling a delayed tragedy in the child. Oh, they hope the kids will figure it out on their own or so they say, but they know it is a lie. Those children who believe the strongest will undoubtedly be the ones who find relatives hiding the Easter eggs. On that day they will suffer psychological trauma and some of them will never really get over it.” I raised an eyebrow while looking at her to see if she understood so far. She nodded slowly.
“Eventually some of these traumatized children find their way into the field of marketing. Whether they admit it or not, they are much like the children in those children you hear about in documentaries, survivors of sexual or physical abuse who become abusers themselves. In this case, they strive to make true believers out of as many as they can via marketing so those people can be equally crushed. Most of them will hope to witness the crushing moment, first hand, as many times as possible.”
“Are you trying to tell me Santa turns children into monsters?” Melony ask incredulously. “You’re starting to sound like one of those quacks on television claiming Santa is really Satan with the letters re-arranged.”
“No. I’m saying a percentage of the children who believe strongly in one of these myths, when confronted with the undeniable ugly reality instead of figuring it out on their own, suffers psychological trauma they don’t grow out of. It’s not a massive number. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say it is roughly equal to the number of people who are successful in the fields of marketing and advertising plus some percentage of those who end up in prison. We don’t need to go down that rabbit hole though. If you want you can look it up later. There are studies and papers written about trying to quantify the number of victims who become victimizers themselves. There are also a great many other discussions about how to identify which victims will become victimizers so the endless cycle can be broken. What is important to this discussion is that you understand the concept of victim becoming victimizer and that they try to victimize in the same way.”
She nodded for me to continue.