Art Pact 55

When a man has once admitted that his promises to be faithful forever are not within his power to keep, there remains forever an air of untrustworthiness about and within him, so that both he and others in the know remain acutely aware that he is not capable of the sort of fidelity which society demands of him. Of course, this is a generalisation rather than an absolute, and there are certain those who, through a lack of self-awareness, believe themselves victims of circumstance, cheaters simply because of fate or the adverse actions of their partner rather than due to their own weakness. Although it can be rather amusing to converse with such people, impervious to irony as they are and defenceless against mockery, being attached to one in a romantic relationship can sometimes stretch the nerves almost to breaking point. It was for this reason that I greeted the news that my boyfriend had decided to leave his husband with some trepidation.

Although not a particularly bad man - I appreciated that his infidelity although a sign of weakness was not entirely a selfish act, his husband suffering from real problems - I heard his excited confession with a fixed smile on my face. I set it somewhere between pleased and sympathetic, a troublesome mix which I suspect that I did not achieve with much aplomb. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and I can honestly say that I have never seen such an expression - perhaps future scientists will have a word for this emotion. Until then, I shall describe it piece by piece, painting it out of primary colours so that even the most intellectually uncomplicated reader will hopefully be able to understand.

First of all, as I have said, I found it necessary outwardly to show either sympathy for the end of a long marriage or happiness that the long-standing arrangement between us might no longer qualify me as the other man, a badge which I find gratifying amongst some of my friends, but less pleasant amongst strangers and those acquaintances of mine who have strong moral viewpoints on the subject of marital infidelity and those who enable it.  Since his delivery of the bombshell had not been sufficiently polarised for me to ascertain whether he himself was completely sure if he should feel happy or sad, I was forced to attempt to blend the expressions.

In truth, I felt neither happy nor sympathetic - not at that moment. Beneath the mask, I felt as though the ground had gone out from under me and I was falling into an endless pit. My blood was like ice, I had a lump in my stomach so large I might have passed as the world's first pregnant man, and my legs appeared on the edge of an open revolt against their customary task of supporting the rest of me. I could not move, rooted by fear to the spot as I was, and yet at the same time I had never wanted anything so much as to simply run as far and as fast as I could.

The simple fact was that now that he was in imminent danger of becoming a free agent, there was the terrifying prospect that he might squander that freedom on asking to marry me. I knew him well, and the thought that he might wish to spend some time on his own seemed so alien to me that I simply could not imagine it. It is a truth universally accepted, and all that - Lonnie was pretty much the definition of a serial monogamist, his current situation notwithstanding, so I understood very well that being in want of a husband, he would not spend his time on any other pursuit than the acquisition of a replacement. I could see the scene unfolding from that moment - he would wait until the divorce was finalised before proposing formally, of course, but there would be hints and assumptions aplenty in the meantime, and a tacit assumption that it was only a manner of time before the two of us were joined in the bonds of "holy" matrimony.

I began to marshal my arguments - first the personal (I wasn't the marrying kind), then the practical (he should spend some time working out what he wanted from life), then the brutal (I didn't know - see above - if a man I knew was capable of cheating on his spouse would make a particularly good husband). You can imagine my surprise and consternation, then, when my preparations were pulled out from under me like so many rugs by the one thing I could honestly not have predicted.

"...and I'm going to marry Carol," he concluded.

I confess that my smile was washed away instantly to be replaced by an expression of unalloyed confusion that represented entirely accurately my underlying emotions. Is there such a thing as whiplash of the emotions? If so, I had it at that moment.