By Ken Knight
How many guys do you know who have deliberately thrust themselves into very compromising circumstances just to try and “save” someone who didn’t deserve the attention and life-risk (on his part) in the first place? As a Bachelor for the past 20 years myself, I have seen buddies, associates, and a few vaguely-known denizens around me throw an arm around some feckless parasite just because it happened to be female and the tune of going to bed with her played in the dude’s head like a harp. Anyone with an IQ above Forrest Gump-level knows there are hustlers of the opposite sex out there, but it seems that untold numbers of men tend to want to “rescue” women in “trouble” in order to win their hearts, and man I gotta say I’ve seen some really decent lives turned upside down by this sort of thing playing out. My Friends…the “damsel in distress” thing is only a win in an Edgar Rice Burroughs novel, because in reality Susie Sucksalot is not the shapely and honorable “Dejah Thoris” of Burroughs’ sci-fi novels!
My buddy Davis was married twice and divorced twice in just ten years, his $130,000 a year salary and $500,000 worth of real estate divvied up between the two ex-wives in the subsequent divorce settlements and he is living on only half of his previous net income thanks to court-imposed wealth redistribution. Trick was, he should have seen the second one coming, having met her in his Church’s “Divorce Care” class while he was on the horns of his first divorce but NO…..Davis had to “rescue” the soon-to-be-divorced woman because he couldn’t stand to be single for five minutes and she poured on the honey-mustard with her sob story of woe-is-me, her two bed-wetting kids, mountain of debt, etc. etc. and well, since she was a “looker” (in Davis’ eyes) he absorbed her debt, married her within a year of his last divorce, bought a house with her and paid $35,000 for her kids’ benefit….and she repaid him with physical violence and having a motel room sex romp with a Bail Bondsman. Yep, good job “saving the day” there Davis!
My buddy Chris was what we call a “smug married” guy who dropped his single pals after marrying a gorgeous member of the female species who was so damn fine she could’ve posed in Playboy® and Chris found himself content with just having her around, all of his buddies banished from his sight by him and his new cupcake, who he accepted despite her severe gambling debt and penchant for spending the rent money on lottery tickets. But hey, Chris “saved” her from her gambling debt before and he was proud to have such a “hot” wife on his arm, proud to have “saved” her from herself and her gambling addiction. Thing of it was, such addiction is not so easily cured by the act of getting married and wiping the slate clean finances-wise like Chris did. He woke up one day with a team of thugs banging on his door demanding money owed them by his wifey whose gambling addiction launched into a darker corner of illegality. Needless to say, Chris ended up giving away half of what was in his house that day to stave off further beatings once the thugs got through his door.
Another associate of mine named Jeffrey “rescued” a woman from an abusive boyfriend by getting the boyfriend arrested, testifying against him in court, and moving the femme in with him for she had no other place to go since she couldn’t live with her slap-a-ho boyfriend any longer. I remember Jeffrey telling me that he was smitten with this chick “at first glance” (and my only regret is that I didn’t kick him in the cajones right then and there for being so goddamn stupid). Needless to say, poor Jeffrey found out how his loyal effort was to be re-paid by his new girlfriend when he was stopped from going inside his own home by a couple of guys who were friends of his girlfriend’s abusive ex-boyfriend. As it turned out, the two men were keeping him from entering his own house because cupcake was inside “making up” (in the bedroom no less) with her abusive ex-boyfriend!
These stories are not embellished for they need no embellishment…they are simple examples of observations seen from the position of a third party (me) and I am 100% confident that readers here at The Spearhead have seen eerily-similar situations take place amongst the denizens in their own town! Now I am sure I will hear ravenous tales from women about male parasites and hustlers galore in response but that’s not my point here.
It is a sad phenomenon I think that natural human altruism is so easily usurped and taken advantage of by people who are more endangered by their own bad conduct and habits than by any other “ogre” life throws them into the pit with. Weighing the pros and cons of entering into a relationship with someone is not taken seriously these days or stories like these would be delegated to pulp fiction novels instead of Maple Street USA. Taking on a woman with severe financial problems, reckless behavior patterns, an “ex” boyfriend who they can’t give up, a felony criminal record and/or a talent for conning men out of their money is not worth the short-lived “companionship” and sexual congress the guy typically sees as the net pay-off for his effort. “Saving” someone is not an easy thing considering the fact that you may end up on the chopping block in their place!
Some older more traditional folks might call you “selfish” for being discerning and skeptical to the sad and tragic (sales-pitch) tales of a member of the opposite sex in their attempt to win you over and “help them out”. It’s not being selfish guys, its self-defense!
Ken Knight is the author of “THE MIDNIGHT SHOW~ Late Night Cable TV Guy-Flicks of the 80s” as well as the new zombie-apocalypse novel “DIRGE”
