Currently Chasing: Pleasure, not pain

I don’t even know where to start this blog, which is always the case when something totally ridiculous happens.
So I’m in Afghanistan and I run into a fellow photographer and we are photographing the same event. I ask him for his card so I can be sure to get his photographs…because he may have caught some moments I didn’t catch, and …his camera is bigger. Not that size matters. Just saying.
So he gives me his card and he’s off. He contacts me a couple days later and sends me all of the photos he took. There are some of me just standing there and a couple of me shooting pictures. I notice that I’m in PT gear…and I begin to wonder…how did he know my name? How did he know where to send these photos? Why did he take so many pictures of me, and why was he being so proactive and sending photos before I had time to write and ask for them. All of it together caught me very off guard.
Long story short, it turns out he did know me … I played a small part in instructing him in the art of journalism, and …wait for it…he reads my blog. Then he does something I clearly expected. He hits on me. So I do what girls normally do in that in that situation. Went to stalk him on facebook.
I wasn’t a friend of his, so I requested him as a friend and then started to look at pictures that weren’t locked. In most of the pictures I couldn’t see past one thing … a wedding ring. While I was looking through his facebook profile photos he must have seen the friend request pop up in his email because he immediately sent me an email that said, no-no…that’s cheating. He suggested we get to know each other the old fashioned way, and I agreed, but not before asking the question…”are you married?”
Of course he was/is. He assured me his wife and him were distant and not very happy, which made me jump for joy and want to bed him immediately. Um, not. So I wrote him back:
Me: “So you read my blog and you know how I feel about this sort of thing, and you would still bother to hit on me? And also, why did you take these pictures of me in uniform? I look fat and awful.”
The photographer: “Well, I just have a propensity for pretty girls, which I guess gets me in trouble…I’m grasping at straws.”
Me: “So you’re saying I’m thin enough to be a straw?”
My point is I couldn’t believe this was happening … again.
So the next day I come into the office to find this email:
Subject line: And this is how I spent the last hour
Email content: “=A brief philosophical treatise on why you and I should enjoy the next two months, guilt free=

As I get older, I find myself growing a more and more epicurean appetite. This is undoubtedly the result of a combination of life’s events, not the least of which is having spent three of the last five years in the dirt, frequently coming to very close terms with human mortality. In a single phrase, my desires could be stated thusly: seek pleasure; avoid pain. While the former is certainly an easier achievement than the latter, it often simply boils down to expectation management.

I am at least moderately familiar with your written works, and I know you have an aversion toward – yet somehow a proclivity for – being a side dish. While I have little doubt you would make a thoroughly enjoyable nine-course meal (and that’s not a remark), circumstance often narrows our course, and like it or not, we are treading along the edge of the appetizer bar. (And now I’m super hungry. Awesome.)

There is a significant distinction between forwardness and honesty; while I am almost always forward, my track record with honesty is less than unblemished. This is what lead to the end of my first marriage, and seems quite likely to end my second.

As you noted, I do plan to return to my home upon leaving Afghanistan. I already know I have a shiny, new basement bedroom waiting for me. I am hopeful, as always, but not entirely optimistic. I, for one, would hate to head home and watch the marriage finally disintegrate knowing I had missed out on the opportunity to experience a little something with you while I was here. Self-destructive thought process for sure, but a process nonetheless -- my process.

Again, in the name of expectation management, there can be something quite enjoyable about a fleeting romance and in taking advantage of each day as it passes – it allows us the rare opportunity to read the expiration date on a relationship. Perhaps not a great thing, but it allows us to make decisions with our eyes open and to enjoy a dozen or so devil-may-care weeks.

So that’s about it. I would like to spend some time with you and enjoy your company. I think we are similar enough in spirit and passion to have some really enjoyable times together, even if only for a brief moment. But I make no promise nor have any expectation beyond that. I won’t promise you the world. I won’t propose and then send you a ‘never mind’ text message. I’m not looking to fall in love and run away to Paris -- il ya trop beaucoup de fromage dans cette ville, anyhow. The only thing I would promise is to spend the next nine weeks doing my best to make you smile – and occasionally laugh. I think it’s a decent promise, and it’s certainly honest.

In closing, this is the first time I have attempted to win a girl over through gratuitous use of logic and literary prowess. So in a sense, you’re my first. And they say you always remember your first.”


I was impressed with his writing skills. Even the $10 words were well used. And I will say this…the line “Seek Pleasure, Avoid Pain” really made sense to me. But what did he think the ultimate demise of a relationship with a married man would bring me? Awesomeness? Epicness? A feeling of being whole and complete? No. It would bring MOTHER FUCKING PAIN. Duh?
I should have just deleted the email, but I couldn’t. Instead, I wrote back.
To be contined…