The Dork Side

What has happened to me? I used to be a regular guy . . . I drank too much, I grabbed the sports section first from the Sunday New York Times, I watched sports on TV (or manly shows like CSI and 24), and if I expressed my feelings it went like this: “Hey, I feel like having another beer here.” Well, a funny thing happened on the way to the toga party: I sobered up, I grabbed the Book Review first, and I favored TV shows like Men in Trees and In Treatment, featuring the emotional pain inflicted by neurotic lovers, rather than the physical pain inflicted by psychotic killers. And you thought St. Paul underwent a conversion on his way to Damascus?

For the genesis of this transformation, let’s return to the evening of August 21, 2007. After downing the fourth cold one at my nightly watering hole, I told myself that’s it, enough is enough, stop the madness. I arrived home before my wife Joan and sat at the kitchen counter waiting to break the news. When she walked in I said, “It’s over.”

“What’s over?”

“It’s over.”

“What’s over?”

“The drinking, it’s over. I quit.”

Relieved I wasn’t declaring an end to our marriage, she hugged and kissed me and asked: “What prompted this?”

“I don’t know; I guess it’s just time to come in from the cold.” She hugged me again; I gave her the gift she was waiting for.

Soon thereafter I began seeing another woman. Let’s call her Stella, because that’s her name. She happened to be available, so it started; once a week – more often if I really needed it – at her home in a room specially designed for us. It didn’t matter if her husband or children were home; we went at it anyway. She listened, really listened, caring about what I had to say, urging me to let it all hang out. “Whatever you have to offer, any position you take, I can handle,” she said. If I didn’t feel like starting that night, she was happy to initiate the session; she was passionate once we started, unable to take her eyes off me. Sometimes when I arrived she’d make me wait, which I didn’t mind; it was her little game and I played along, edgy with anticipation. I opened up to her, shared my most intimate thoughts and feelings, yet she revealed nothing of herself. I longed to know her secrets, her dreams, her favorite color, but her ground rules were unyielding: “My personal life is off limits, understood, hot shot?” When we finished, she dismissed me cordially . . . pleasant smile, no emotion. “You were good tonight, Jack, see you next week. Call me if you need me.” It was as if she was expecting someone else; hell, for all I knew, she did this all day long.

How could I do this to Joan? What kind of monster was I? The fact is: Joan insisted I pursue her, that I continue seeing her for as long as I needed, for as long as her services satisfied me. “Stay with her, Honey, but make her earn it, make her perform.” Sick? Twisted? Perverted? I wish. No, Stella was my psychologist, whom I sat across from each week and spewed forth whatever nonsense rattled around in my head. Through her intense listening, probing questions, and insightful observations, I have discovered much more about myself, about the choices I’ve made, and the driving forces behind those choices. So there you have it: I’m seeing a shrink. Hey, if it’s good enough for my fellow Jersey boy Tony Soprano, it’s good enough for me, wise guy.

Yet even before I curbed the drinking and parked my bony ass on the therapist’s comfy chair, ominous signs of manhood slippage appeared. In the fall of 2006 there debuted a TV show called Men in Trees, starring Anne Heche as Marin Frist, a Manhattan relationship coach transported to the fictional town of Elmo, Alaska – sort of a cross between Sex and the City and Northern Exposure. This was chick shtick all the way, and I couldn’t get enough of it. I became so absorbed with this oddball collection of fictional characters that when the show disappeared from the air for an extended time, I nearly lost my mind. Will Marin and hunky mountain man Jack hook up and get married? Will loony innkeeper Patrick regain his memory and marry his sweetheart Annie? Will dreamy woodsman Cash bond with flamer hairdresser Terry who is donating his kidney to Cash? Will someone please relieve my misery and fire a bullet into my skull?

If that wasn’t enough, I got hooked on another show called Friday Night Lights, based on the book about a small Texas town whose residents live and die with their high school football team. At least this show had a sports theme, right? Lots of gridiron action, locker room antics, no drippy sentimental crap here . . . well, not exactly. The football scenes were great, but I became more interested in the people of the town, their relationships, their secrets, their dreams. I’d gladly have traded five minutes of football action for more time with Tyra and Landry and their forbidden romance. “Bring in the Kleenex, Joan. FNL is coming on.”

Early in 2008, HBO aired a nightly show called In Treatment. It focused on a psychologist played by Gabriel Byrne with his Irish brogue (he pronounced mother as moother), each night featuring a different patient, and Friday night he visited his own shrink. Well, this show was practically a gift from God himself, given my foray into the very world it presented. Joan watched it along with me and asked if that’s the way it really works, and my answer was absolutely, except for the incessant barking of the neighborhood dog on the show. One year earlier, you couldn’t have forced me at gunpoint to watch such baloney; now, I was drawn to an honest and deeply moving presentation of the complex dynamic between therapist and patient.

Let us travel further along my road away from matters masculine. I became an obsessive reader following my decision to stop drinking, mainly to fill in all the time I suddenly had available. I dove into books on all kinds of subjects: religion & spirituality, self-improvement, leadership, plus literary classics like the epic novel Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, and biographies of gents like Shakespeare and Lawrence of Arabia. At any given time I’d have six or seven books in process. Previously, if I got through one book a year it was an accomplishment, and it would likely be the work of Tom Clancy or David Baldacci – plenty of action & mayhem. So what literary selections did I put on the list for my 55th birthday in April? One was a collection of essays by Truman Capote . . . yes, that Truman Capote. The ultimate MINO (male-in-name-only) replaced macho Tom Clancy on my reading radar. How the mighty had fallen.

In case you’re keeping score, here is a summary of my defections to date from “real man” status:
· I stopped guzzling beer like there was no tomorrow, preferring club soda with lime instead.
· I saw a psychotherapist once a week, meaning I actually gave voice to my innermost feelings.
· I preferred weepy, sappy television drama to the action-packed, blood- soaked shows of old.
· I immersed myself in classic literature, while back issues of Sports Illustrated and Golf Digest piled up unread.

Now for the final piece of evidence that I crossed over to, shall we say, the dork side: I began writing essays. Before this year, the last essay I wrote was into one of those blue books in college, circa 1975. I always had a talent for writing – fussy about grammar, spelling, proper sentence structure – but only applied this ability in the business context of memos, letters, manuals, and the like. Back in January, as another therapeutic diversion, I started writing about my life. To my surprise, the words sprung forth in a steady flow and have yet to let up. I came to learn that the genre I dabbled in had a name: creative non-fiction. Naturally, in line with my reading and learning obsession, I ordered three books on the subject and subscribed to several journals featuring said genre. I even entered a few pieces into online essay contests. When I told my much younger office friend PJ about this, she called me a “complete dork,” hence the title of this piece.

There you have it: the story of my transformation from ordinary male into a sober, emoting, literature-obsessing, essay writing fellow. Actually, I’m okay with the whole thing. I’m not hurting anyone, unless you count my poor father who is mortified seeing his only son turn into his fourth daughter. And I had a great birthday, getting all the books I wanted. That night I crawled into bed with Truman Capote and . . . dear God . . . Stella-aaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!