可惜不是你

This is not a matter to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown aside with great force.

(mangled from Dorothy Parker)

I think hard about whom I should send it to. Of course, it is between the two same gentlemen, whose company I take almost equal delight in, albeit their very different temperaments and character.

Now, in the middle of my short reverie, I was distracted, and somewhat absent-mindedly, I tapped “sent”. Hmm.

I don’t really regret the act, but I suppose it wasn’t very fair a thought experiment, if one ignores the ridiculous complications brought upon it by dragging psychoanalysis and the Freudian notions of displacement, condensation and projection into a simple situation.

I just thought maybe it should be the other man since I’m already going out with this man in the latter part of the month. Silly gesture, perhaps, but of utmost significance to myself, for striking a balance makes me feel in control emotionally, that we don’t have to fall and therefore, fear (or fail). We can be happy together without thinking too frantically about the meaning of togetherness.

*

Me: Do you want to escort me to *insert function*? I got an invite.

Him: Escort? Would love to. Is there a seat for the escort? Or is it a standing chore?

Me: So flattered by your enthusiasm. Haha. Got seats lah. We can enjoy the musical in comfort. Thank you for being my escort.

Him. Ha, no problem.

*

He is very nice. But as usual, I feel an irrational sense of guilt towards the other.

This hardly makes any sense!

I know I have been happiest at your side;
But what is done, is done, and all's to be.
And small the good, to linger dolefully-
Gayly it lived, and gallantly it died.
I will not make you songs of hearts denied,
And you, being man, would have no tears of me,
And should I offer you fidelity,
You'd be, I think, a little terrified.

Yet this the need of woman, this her curse:
To range her little gifts, and give, and give,
Because the throb of giving's sweet to bear.
To you, who never begged me vows or verse,
My gift shall be my absence, while I live;
But after that, my dear, I cannot swear.