Misdirection

Been stupid-busy the last couple of days. Work, homework, Mass Effect 2, Valentine's Day and an interesting misadventure that gets filed very deeply in the "Never Spoken of Again" folder ... yep. But I thought I would take a moment from the awesome that is Mass Effect 2 and its gelatinizing effects on my eyeballs and thumbs to put up a post that's been running through my mind the last couple of days.

So I was watching this movie a couple days ago, Cashback. Interesting film, British or something, about this college student who wants to be a painter. He breaks up with his girlfriend, can't sleep because of it, gets a night job, and starts freezing time and drawing people - most often naked.

I mean, they're naked. Not him. Really, come to think of it, he only draws women. Lots of boobs.

See, now that's kinda creepy.

My point is, in this movie, it is mentioned how romantic it is to be involved with an artist. They specifically mean a painter or sketch artist, a visual artist of some type - someone who sees the beauties in all the bits and lines and curves that make up everything. The whole time-freezing schtick is metaphorical, see?

But that got me thinking: Yes. Dating a visual-type artist must be very romantic. They will see beauty in all of you, flaws included. They will draw it and recreate it over and over again, in a way you can just look at and enjoy and don't necessarily have to ever think deeply about.

But dating a writer? An author, a poet, even a songwriter? It dawns on me dating a writer is probably a total pain in the ass. And I don't say this because I have anything against writers. Writing is MY art, I can't draw worth a shit.

I say dating a writer must be a pain in the ass because I AM a writer. See? I can see this flaw, this problem, and just lay it out there, in cold, hard words for all the world (or, you know, all two or three people who read my blog) to see and be perfectly okay with that.

Do you see where I'm going here? Dating a writer, you're not dating someone who is seeing all the bits that make you up and finding beauty in the result. You're dating someone who is seeing what you are, and breaking it down into all the bits whether you like it or not.

It's probably worse if you're dating a poet, because they will, of course, attempt to be all poetic in their description of you. They'll be flowery in the language, insincere in how they say what they say, and then get mad at you for not finding visual beauty in the way they wrote it out or spoke it.

God, poets are a pain the ass ...

But maybe it's worse if it's an author you're dating. Probably doesn't even matter what kind. Because we're gonna be sincere in what we write, and how we write it. There's no visual or auditory "art" to what we're doing, it's just a story. And there you are, an author's girlfriend, lain bare before the world. And not in a hot naked painting sort of way.

In a way that they're gonna read you, and learn stuff about you - not everything, but they're not gonna fill in as many blanks, and there won't be as many blanks to fill in - and then they're gonna see you for what you are and make a decision about you. Classify you and file you away.

And you'll do it to yourself, too, if you're unlucky enough to read you mate's writing.

Sure, it can't be all bad. Plenty of beauty comes from writing of the non-poetic variety. Authors are not villains by nature. They're just very, very capable of making you look like one, and making everyone else believe it.