The Passion

“Even so,” he said, “I believe they aren't as capable as we about actually feeling self-assured without their charm being there.”

His wife looked at him. “I feel sort of that they don't fit in. But I also feel that they are just normal about seeming to want to charm everybody.”

“I totally see it in them that they don't pertain to our cunning about not being ridiculous when trying to show our ways to be simple enough for there to be some respect for them.”

“I don't think I can agree with that. What I see in them is that they are almost as normal as us. By the way, remember at Helen's party, how you tried to seem charming and then said to me that it was needed just to have her and the others accept your companionship.”

He sighed. “Oh, that's just in a sense. What I had to adapt to was that she, among others provoked me into feeling insecure and that I had to charm them in order to make them stop. What it is with Lisa and her daughter is that they per se don't feel secure without charming their environment.”

“Oh, that, Harold, seems to be that they don't charm every body, and then it's just like you in that they do it only not to feel to intimidated. But after all, you have a point about them, in that they don't feel like even realizing that they're not threatened by people like us, That I think you can come down on them about.”

Harold seemed content to hear that she agreed to some extent. He looked at her and realized that she was also feeling that she could not accept his resentment and potential spite against charm as a defense against feelings of inferiority, insecurity and so on. It was not that he had resented it to begin with; it was only that he needed to tell her that he resented hat they felt superior just for charming him into feeling they were not necessarily to be despised.

After a short silence he said to her that he wanted to know why she seemed concerned about that they don't always seem ridiculously into themselves as so charming that people think “Oh, hey, they're good people!” about them, supposedly. ...

“I feel,” she answered him, “that I don't have any responsibility against everybody I can deal with, not to charm them, and then also not to feel despised. I mean although this person might not be the one that would despise me to begin with.”

Troubled by his wife's seeming weakness, he accused her: “Ann, you and I have been married for five years - plus the four and a half years we went steady before that - so, thereby, you aught to feel that it's not charming strangers you should that easily be keen on doing.”

Ann swallowed. “Harold, I'm sorry about it! But even so they aren't the ones you should feel that I want, just because I sometimes feel like being extra charming about them! Because that kind of charm isn't about charm itself! It's just about trying to see to it fix that no one abuses me - and thereby us - about the stuff that I - and that's usually we - stand for! Now if you don't think that's a good thing, then I feel uncertain about what we're about in this situation, and I even feel uncertain about what you are about being into that I and you should be seen as the best kind of partners for a marriage!”

Harold seemed startled. “Who is that whom you feel that you need to charm for the sake of us, so to speak?!” he asked.

“It's the guys who pretend I'm a looser just because I'm with you, for example! I mean, if I don't charm them, then they will pretend the reason I married you was because they were too good for me! But, Harold, I don't feel that they should be seen as the partners I want! I just need to charm them in order not to feel frightened that they might seem better than either one of us!”

Amazed over her answer, Harold looked at her and said: “Don't be ridiculous! It isn't we who need that you charm them into pretending that we want a good relationship! There should be enough of that in simply being satisfied with one another, and showing them that! There's no good reason for there to be need for charm with them, for the sake of me, nor for our children. ... Is there?!”

“There's in that case no reason for you to have to charm Helen and her friends, just because they seem to be corny about how they have to treat you at their party!”

“What do you mean there's no reason?! I can't deal with them as if they can accept me otherwise!”

“Then I have the same problem with those studs I was talking about!”

He looked sore. “That's going behind my back!”

She seemed troubled in a way that indicated some surprise at herself. “Oh, God! I didn't even think about that!”

“It seems to me,” Harold said in a mixture of spite and uneasiness, “that you don't even realize that they aren't after anything more than to have me seem to have a slut in you!”

She thought about this for a moment, then said: “How come they don't realize they're doing that to me!?”

“You say they don't realize! I think they do realize, and take pride in seducing you! Perhaps what they don't realize - and I hop this to be so - is that they don't actually seduce you! But, you know, if they see you as charming just because it's them, then why wouldn't at least some of them interpret that as a flirt!?”

“How come you don't despise that and then just arrive at a notion of us being together and simply way above that stuff?!”

He looked at her. “I'm not sure about what to believe!”

She looked at him with some passion. Then her look grew more intense and then serious. “Look, Harold, it seems you don't realize that you and I have the best of relationships already going for us, and I intend for it to stay that way!”

“I don't feel that I can believe you!”

“I feel, in that case, that you shouldn't pretend you're as passionate as I am for our relationship to work!”

“They, those blokes you've been charming ... are they into seeing us as the perfect couple?! Is that what you mean, cause I don't feel up to believing that you actually charm them for no purpose of your own! ... I believe you're trying to charm them because you subconsciously want to be unfaithful against me! ... And then you try to tell me that I need that for us to be passionate about one another!”

“I don't see why they should be seen as the ones who could have us seem bad in any way but that we would be portrayed as the losers they couldn't envy! By the way, don't you realize, I can also scorn them for trying to score on me, even upon charming him!”

“I guess that's a satisfaction I could have! I guess that could do, to the extent that they seem to be really intimidated by that it is certain that they can't get you!”

“Oh, I can do that!”

“Then how come they don't seem to look up to me, those blokes?!”

“Do you mean Dan, Jess or what?”

“Yeah, for example them. Hm. Yeah, I came to think about the two of them, and also a few others that we both know! ... But do you know what?! It's you, not they, mostly, who should show me the evidence of that the passion is for us and not either one of them! It's not with a guy unknown to me that you should have a passion! It's not you who aren't unfaithful unless they and seem unpassionate when you see each other, and also when I for instance, mention his name for - or yours for him!”

“There's fairly much passion in showing each other we can scorn them! I guess they can also be scorned, those girls that you might need to charm! I suppose you and I could be passionate against their self-assurances and thereby see to our own as the only ones that are to be fed with the reality of love that only you and I can have!”

He looked at her. “I guess,” he said, after a while, “that we can go for that!”