I wake early, jolted out of bed by a dream that I’m being attacked by a mosquito – a foot-long creature with spiky black legs, splinted by yellow number 2 pencils. My first thought? The Code.
I find myself annoyingly awake, and those words, stuck. For that matter, the image is stuck, too. You know, in that way that a startling visual prints itself in your mind’s eye whether you like it or not.
I shuffle into the kitchen to make coffee, and recall the irritation of an insect just before bed, my swatting about madly, and scratching at nibbles on one shoulder and a knee as I was drifting off.
I’d been bitten despite awareness. Despite trying to defend myself.
And then there was the old friend who called late, wanting advice.
“I need your female intuition,” he says.
“What?”
“Your intuition. I don’t understand women. And I have a question.”
Men, Women, Sex, More Sex
I laugh. Turn the light back on. I suppose I’m qualified enough. We women talk among ourselves trying to figure out what makes a man tick. Isn’t it more sensible for men and women to talk to each other – trying to understand the opposite sex?
At least it wasn’t a woman friend, asking about a man. Most of the time, I haven’t a clue.
No. That’s not right. Sometimes I’m convinced I’m breaking the Code. The Guy Code. Finally figuring it out.
Oh, I don’t believe in that planet stuff. But codes we live by? That’s something I can wrap my head around. There are cultural codes – honor, integrity, loyalty. And then there are gender codes – the Man Code and the Woman Code, with variations on each. And yes, open to interpretation.
I’m pretty sure that theirs is Morse. On and off. Though damned if I can decipher it fully.
A woman’s? More cryptic. A system of flags and signals, maybe. More volatile. More inscrutable. To men, anyway.
“What is it?” I ask.
“My old girlfriend,” he says. “She started calling again, after a year. She knows I’m in a new relationship and I’m happy. She’s been leaving messages and I don’t know why. Today I got annoyed and picked up.”
“And?”
“She wants to get together for a drink. She’s a wonderful person, but I don’t want to start up again. I went back to her once before, and it didn’t work out.”
Some things never change, I think. Whether we’re dating at twenty-three or fifty-three.
“How did that go, the second time around?”
“I had just started to see someone else. Only a few dates. Then my ex invited me for a drink, and one thing led to another. Well… that was that. We were back together.”
“Did she know you were dating someone else?”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“She ended it not long after. Said it was a bad time for a serious relationship.”
The buzzing in my ear was back. Even with the lights on.
“What does your female intuition tell you?” he asks.
“She knows about the new woman?”
“Yes. Through mutual friends.”
The Code, I tell myself. She’s a woman who breaks the Code.
Love, In Love, (S)he’s Just Not That Into You
“Did you love her?” I ask.
“I thought so,” he says.
“Did she love you?”
He hesitates.
“She said she loved me but she wasn’t in love with me.”
I’m rolling my eyes, and glad he can’t see it.
“So what’s going on?” he says.
“First of all, there’s that business of ‘I love you but I’m not in love with you.’ Do you get what that means?”
“No.”
“It’s code. Maybe she cares about you. Maybe she likes the feeling of a relationship without all the strings. Maybe she really wants a friend with benefits. Is this the one you told me about before? The long-term sexless marriage?”
“Yes. So what do you think?”
“Tell me about the new relationship.”
“It’s great.”
“Well,” I say, “It’s not that complicated. She wants sex, or she only wants you when she thinks someone else does. She doesn’t care that you have a girlfriend. Isn’t this what happened last time, but before you were seriously involved?”
“I suppose.”
“That’s shitty,” I say. “She’s breaking the Code.”
“What do you mean – the code?”
“Men have a code. Like don’t sleep with your brother’s girlfriend, don’t date your buddy’s ex – well, unless he gives you permission. That sort of thing. You guys break your code, I know. But then you shove each other around, have a beer, and you’re over it.”
“Right.”
He laughs.
“Okay, maybe that’s not entirely true. Still – you try to abide by a code, don’t you?”
“Sure,” he says.
“Women have a code, too. It’s not hard. Don’t chase another woman’s boyfriend. Don’t seduce another woman’s husband. Sure, things happen that you don’t expect. But you don’t set out to steal someone’s husband or boyfriend for sport. And you don’t invite him for drinks, knowing he’s susceptible to a few glasses of scotch and a tumble. You just don’t do it.”
Lost Ciphers?
He sighs, as I give up on the mosquito and switch off the light. I think about the codes we create as belief systems – honor codes, marital vows, the simple act of giving one’s word – and the importance of others being able to rely on it.
I think of codes to which some of us adhere strictly, wondering if the world has abandoned principles as a matter of course or if it only seems as much in the din and fray. I wonder if my standards are viewed as naive, as foolhardy, as inexpedient. Yet I cling to them. I do my best to follow them.
I don’t recognize myself without them.
As for the Code between women? A woman who intentionally seeks to break up a marriage or relationship? She’d be no friend of mine.
“Thanks,” he says. “I’ll tell her no thanks.”
I say goodnight and the buzzing subsides. Until this morning, when I reach for my virtual pencil.
© D A Wolf
I agree, she is definitely playing a game and stealing someone for “sport” sounds like some serious self-esteem/ego issues. I’m glad he said no thanks and hopefully he resolves issues with that relationship and moves on from her.
Uh-oh. I’m going to have to let Husband know that he broke the Guy Code. I am his college roommate’s ex-girlfriend. (I wonder if he got permission before we started dating…)
🙂
I bet he did, Kristen! 😉 Or else, they punched it out, tossed back a few Amstels, and that was that!
I don’t know about the code, but it seems that women are less likely to adhere to a code than a male. I don’t know. On the one hand, cheating spouses or lovers are at fault because they are the ones breaking their promises. But, women should just say no. I think they are desperate or didn’t get enough attention when younger or are perverse with the chase. I think you gave your friend good advice – if it didn’t work out twice, especially under similar circumstances, goodbye and good riddance.
My approach is open and honest and non-violent. Call that a code if you wish, but “the code” mentioned here isn’t particularly mine. Once had a friend dating an interesting lady who obviously didn’t care for my friend. I informed said friend of this and that I was going to call the lady. As events transpired, I likely did him a favor and myself a disfavor. Over time, friend remained a better friend than did supposed lady. No beers and arm punching – of course, this was a bunch of nerds at Princeton Graduate School. He was better off keeping to his string theory.
It’s funny. Hearing about a man who breaks the code? I think, typical. But when a woman breaks the code? I’m outraged.
The ex-girlfriend reminds me of our younger dog, Shasta. She doesn’t really want the ball that the older dog has, but if Bailey has it it must be good so she’ll steal it. “I won’t keep it, but you can’t have it either”. Her values are in a bad way and he’s better off keeping her as an ex.
Great comparison, Carol!
I am surprised this guy could not see this for himself. She wasn’t “in love” with him, dumped him before (probably why he remained interested- rejection often causes attraction, if for no other reason than to convince yourself you are good enough for the unobtainable one) and broke up a newly budding relationship in his past. And is back at it. At least he sought advice.
I had a friend of almost 20 years who, after raising her one child and getting her ready for college, suddenly wanted to date again. And she ‘dated’ a man, 15 yrs her jr, who was engaged and living with his fiance. She ‘dated’ (actually, just cheap lunch sex) him when fiancé got pregnant. And when he married the woman, she “broke up” with him (how do you break up with someone who does not belong to you?) but went right back to him for 4 years. She began all this behavior past the age of 51!
She finally broke up with the married man again, when she realized she could begin sleeping with her good friends ex-fiance of 10 years. Just to hurt her friend, who was still in love with th man. And that man was in a relationship, so she broke 2 women’s hearts. And that was the final straw. I will have nothing to do with this heartless, selfish woman.
The good news is, after only 3 months, the new man she was in love with, dumped her for his former fiancé. HAH!
Wow! This topic really triggered an emotional nerve!
Quite a story, Spectra! If you read the link to the Washington Post blog which Bruce (Privilege of Parenting) provided in a comment, and I referenced in today’s post – you may note that even in midlife, following divorce, we sometimes seem to pick up where we left off before we married. It’s an odd phenomenon – a sort of putting the toes back in the dating/relationship waters as if we’ve been asleep for all the years of marriage.
I’m not excusing this woman’s behavior, but I do think many men and women go through a particular (adolescent?) stage following the termination of marriage. But this woman doesn’t seem to have any respect for the “Code” – and it certainly bit her in the behind eventually.
Sad, all round. That we can’t be more respectful of certain boundaries.
Men can be so dumb. How’s that for judgment? But it’s true. I see this blindness a lot in my men’s group, and it always has to do with seeing women as they are. I don’t know what it is. Testosterone. We have a rule in our group that a man who wants to get married has to put the question to the group first. Men are much smarter about their relationships with other men.
Kristen, your husband reads Yeats to your kids. He wouldn’t have broken the code without asking.
Reading this made me think of Dante who considered betrayal as the worst of sins, an offense that landed one in the lowest level of hell—but this seems a gender-neutral issue. On the other hand, if we view those who betray in this way, for sport or malice or whatever reason, as actually in serious pain—and therefore a better candidate for healing than romance, the “advice” we might naturally come to is to steer clear romantically. Now if this sort of betrayal keeps happening to us, we need to wonder if being betrayed is something that occurred very early in our own (possibly unremembered, or pre-conscious) development and which somehow keeps reconstellating. Sometimes consciously confronted pain of our own can help spare us that Groundhog’s Day feeling that the very thing we’re trying to wake up out of just continues on and on like a nightmare.