August 25, 2003

Since this promises to be an exceptionally nasty column, I thought it deserved a preamble by way of explanation. 

I am the first to admit that in my day, I’ve run across quite a few assholes.  I’ve even dated a few of them and apart from circulating a few scathing columns among my closest friends, I’ve kept my mouth shut, feeling that in most cases discretion is the better part of valour.

There are times, however, when the spirit of righteousness wells up within me and I am compelled to take up my pen.

This is just such a time.

Following the breakup of her most recent serious relationship and while on the rebound, a good friend of mine became involved in an ill-advised liaison with a man who (unbeknownst to her) videotaped their intimate encounters and posted them on the internet.

Although I have urged her to begin both criminal and civil proceedings against him, litigation takes time.  While it is true that revenge is a dish best served cold, there is a lot to be said for returning the favour and humiliating the cad in front of an internet audience.  As I’ve been privy to the affair since its inception, I figure I’m just the girl to recount its sad history.

So let’s get to it.

It is often said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that love is blind.  Having succumbed to these clichés on several occasions (see previous columns on “frightening howlers I’ve dated”), I am not generally one to judge on the basis of appearance alone.

There are exceptions, of course.

My friend Caroline is a beautiful, accomplished, intelligent and funny person – with hideous taste in men.  Her particular failing is not, as mine has been in the past, in preferring men who look like losers in a shovel fight – she picks the gorgeous assholes who treat her like dirt.

Caroline suffers from low self-esteem arising from a variety of causes – most recently, her humiliating breakup with a guy she had been dating for 18 months.  An expose of her ex’s behaviour would take a whole other column and maybe one day I’ll get around to writing it.  Suffice to say that he treated her in an appalling manner and she has been picking up the shards of her ego ever since. 

She vowed then to avoid good-looking men, in the belief that the ugly ones would be “more grateful”.  I could have told her that she was wrong, but even I could not guess at the extent of her error.

She met her new swain at a bar (red flag #1) while she was drunk (red flag #2) and found his come-on line (“show us your tits”) to be charming.  (I would have given him a shot to the luggage for that one, but Caroline is remarkably tolerant).

Following their first intimate evening together, she phoned me up all aflutter.  “You have to meet Jason”, she enthused. “I just know you’ll love him.” Having been down this road with Caroline before, I doubted it.  I kept putting it off, hoping that the attraction would wear itself out once she came to her senses. 

From the start, she showed signs of dissatisfaction.  “Well, he’s not perfect,” she admitted candidly.  “He never lifts the seat, no matter how many times I remind him and we had a huge fight because he refused to wear a condom at first.  And he’s kind of hairy.  He’s not especially well-hung either, but what the hell, nobody’s perfect and he gives great backrubs.” I recognized the hollow sound of rationalization in her voice. 

The little she told me only strengthened my resolve to avoid meeting this charmer.  I considered some of his comments grounds for justifiable homicide and I didn’t think I had the stomach to make nice with a guy who in all likelihood was a world-class idiot.

Having been burned in the past by giving this woman honest advice, I’d resolved just to keep my mouth shut and let this current fiasco run its course.  In these situations (where your friend knows damn well that the guy is a loser but can’t admit it out loud), the truth is rarely met with gratitude.  Reports from mutual friends who had made his acquaintance only deepened my suspicion that this asshole was a troll of the first water.

Every time she brought up her new beau, I’d change the subject.  This cowardly course of action seemed to be succeeding – until the last time I met her for coffee.

“Let’s get a table in the back”, she hissed at me.  “I’ve got something to show you.”  She took her digital camera out of her purse.  “Here he is,” she said.

With a trembling hand and faltering courage, I took the camera from her and steeled myself to look. 

The new love of Caroline’s life was no more than 5’6” tall and had a hairline receding so quickly that it was almost audible.  He was living proof of the accuracy of the Darwinian theory of evolution, though to describe his features as simian would be an affront to lower primates everywhere.  I found it incredible that he could excite lust in any woman other than Jane Goodall.

“Check this out”, she said slyly, leaning over to advance the frame.  “I took it last night. What an animal!” 

As the grisly image registered, I could only echo her words. 

“What……?” I croaked hoarsely,  “An animal??”

Stark naked and leering, Jason reclined on her bed.  Or, to be more accurate, he hovered several inches above it, afloat on a luxurious body afro so lush and extensive that as far as I could tell, the only parts of his body bereft of hair were his gleaming bald head, his eyeballs and the soles of his feet.  (He wasn’t smiling so I can’t be sure about his teeth.)   

He was so liberally blanketed in glossy black fur that had he frequented these parts 200 years ago, he would have been in danger of being killed for his pelt.  Even these days, he’d be wise to avoid known trap lines when winter camping.  The abundant ringlets springing from his ears suggested that trapped within his skull was a Lilliputian Rapunzel bent on escape.  A glimpse at the cascade of tresses flowing from his nose led me to believe that she was exploring alternate points of egress.

As I struggled for words, Caroline prattled on.  “For our first date, we went to the zoo with his family,” she confided, and went on to describe the day. After introductions were made, Jason’s family had wandered off – to no doubt pass a pleasant afternoon swinging contentedly from the trees among their kin in the Primate House.

I forced myself to take another look at the horrifying image.  With that much body hair, I concluded that personal grooming would be a Sisyphean task – I was sure that he only achieved it thanks to the diligent attentions of an army of tireless cats working in round the clock shifts. 

As my eyes were drawn inexorably lower, her earlier criticisms of him suddenly made sense.  Although repelled by the sight of the rest of his body, it was his microscopic member that provoked my pity. 

No wonder he didn’t like condoms:  the only sheathes that could ever have fit are those designed to be drawn up over wounds on fingers. Given his pitiful endowment, he’d be more likely to infect her with West Nile Virus than with any sexually transmitted disease. I was not surprised that he constantly fouled Caroline’s toilet seat – the only way he could possibly have hit the bowl would be to straddle it with his belly pressed up against the tank.  A few drops of urine on the toilet would have represented a triumph for a man more accustomed to pissing on his own toes, so sprinkling the seat was probably a point of honour.

“So?” she said.  “Remind you of anything?”

Well, yeah – a little, bald Yeti with a button in his lap, but I wasn’t about to say it out loud. 

Caroline looked at me expectantly as I simultaneously fought to control my nausea and overcome my revulsion.

“Uh, he sure is something,” I said, striking a balance between complete honesty and tact.

This seemed to satisfy her and we soon moved on, thankfully, to other topics.

About two weeks later, I got a tearful call from her.  She had discovered Jason’s treachery and had immediately dumped him.  I told her to come right over.

She was frantic with humiliation at first, but at least the scales had fallen from her eyes. 

Many women will publicly state that size is unimportant.  This ridiculous fiction is never repeated in private.  The reality is that women, like nature, abhor a vacuum.  Caroline remains bitter about his truncated manhood.

“God, I wasn’t asking for freak of nature dimensions, but big enough to touch the sides would have been nice.”

Despite her vows to remain celibate for the rest of her life, I’m sure Caroline will recover.  I tried to persuade her, as gently as I could, not to select her next partner from the denizens of dark bars.  Time will tell if I succeeded.

Till next time,

Morrigan