Directory of Lost Causes (By Quentin S. Crisp)

The moment that you're waiting for will never come

I pretty much hate Valentine's Day. I suppose that's fairly predictable of me, and it's not as if I care that much in the end.

I've often thought that, actually, although the Nazi master-race ideology could be seen as the antithesis of love, in practice love is all about Nazi master-race ideology. This is because love, as it is generally experienced, is controlled by sexual desire, which is really the desire to wed one's own genes to those of the best genes one can find in order to join in with the glory of genetic immortality. It's pretty foul, really. Which is why the sight of public affection between couples is often so offensive. "Hey, look, we're winners in the human race," they seem to be declaring.

And the results in the surge of this urge to romantically merge are all kinds of destructive folly, such as building new houses for all those new babies on flood plains. I suppose I don't feel as sorry for nature as once I might have. Lovecraft once wrote that the most merciful thing in the world was the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. For me, I think the most merciless thing in the world is that God or nature has planted within us inextinguishable desires for what can never be. For instance, I'd very much like to be Annette Funicello, but it doesn't look like ever happening. And if it did happen I'd no longer be able to appreciate it anyway. It's that old monkey's paw trick - those in the ministry of wish-granting have been given a remit to make sure ever wish granted carries within it some pointless moral lesson designed to teach you you can never get what you want, so you should just give up (that is actually the big lesson of Classroom Earth). You can never word your wishes carefully enough for the wish-granters not to find a way to perversely misinterpret them. This is peculiar, really. I mean, everything in existence is only here because it has elbowed something else out of existence, which is to say that existence is, by definition, the master race. And yet some force in existence seems bent on teaching us not to want anything anymore and to just fade back into non-existence. Hence the flooding. And hence the oestrogen pollution that is causing such problems with reproduction. It's enough to make you sick, really.

The human condition is one of waiting for things to be other than they are. But they are never other than they are.

I remember reading a story by Thomas Hardy in which a young woman falls for a handsome young man. They become separated by fortune at one point, and he returns later, to be re-united with her, but he has become disfigured in the meantime. She cannot bear to look at him. When you have clearly seen this in human nature, how can you believe in love? Everything then becomes an odious lie that you have no choice but to join in, to some extent, though you can at least, in a spirit of bottomless bitterness, opt out of that lie by not reproducing.

Naturally, I hate articles like this one, in ways so infinitely subtle and complex that I cannot hope to articulate them. Well, first of all there's that pressure to join the loved-up master-race, and then, next to the article itself, is a little thing for you to fill in which will eventually lead to you parting with money in order to enhance your master-race status. No doubt the person responsible for this propaganda, by plugging into all this cliche-ridden competitive shit, is also a 'successful writer' and therefore displays the value of her own genetic stock and becomes eminently eligible.

Shall I go through this point by point?

1) Some people think you don’t have to be all that attracted to the person you’re dating. I’m not one of those people. (And let’s be honest, who really is?)

Yeah, you're right. And that's exactly why John Merrick killed himself. He knew he would only ever know pity at best.

2) There’s a reason “sense of humour” is consistently at the top of every woman’s love list.

Because they like to think they have one.

3) My current squeeze was recently playing with my hair for the duration of an entire episode of Grey’s Anatomy (speaking of, is it too shallow to want the perfect boyfriend to watch Grey’s Anatomy with you?).

Yes, it is.

4) …comes out with our friends and plays the role of token adorable guy

This is the crux of the matter, isn't it? Token adorable guy or girl.

5) Like a designer coat you get for a steal, what’s the fun of talking about your big find if you can’t show it off? A perfect boyfriend isn’t just perfect when we’re alone; he’s perfect in public, too.

See, I told you.

6) …agrees to go splitsies when we order food

Splitsies?

I'm getting bored with this, so just one more:

7) I dated a bloke years ago who was big on guys’ and girls’ nights out. Which was fine, except that when he’d zip up his jacket and I’d say, “See you later,” he’d say, “Sure, unless I meet some other hot chick who wants me to come home with her, ha, ha, just kidding!” Guess what? Not funny. A perfect boyfriend makes a woman feel safe and secure.

See number two above. Sense of humour.

And another thing I hate is computers.

And another thing that I hate is

Labels: Nazism, Valentine's Day