fronting, envy, and Saturday night drunkenness

Posted on: Tue, 08/14/2007 - 23:55 By: Tom Swiss

Came down to the Judge's Bench for the open mic. Just hanging out now,
finished reading and taking notes from the Alan Watts book (Zen and the
Beat Way) I borrowed from Robin.

I was in here Saturday night when I ran into a friend of mine. No names, to
protect the innocent, so let's call her X. X is a lovely lady whom I've
known for several years, almost hooked up with when we first met but she
changed her mind, and we've had this ongoing friends - maybe more? no -
well, maybe yes after all - thing going on ever since.

Often this comes up when she's been drinking, as she had Saturday night.
She was merely at the stage of having fun and being loud when I ran into
her here, and got caught up in her wake. (I had thought to come down, sit
and read and write and listen to music.)

But after a few shooters here, a few shooters at Cacao Lane, and a few at
the Phoenix, she was falling down. So I managed to walk her back to her
apartment, where she passed out on the floor. I napped on her bed for a
hour or two, until I was ok to drive, managed to roll her out of the way of
the opening door, and headed home.

Thing is, it's interesting to think how this looked to other people...me
with this beautiful tipsy girl in high heels and a cleavage-revealing
dress, buying me drinks, kissing me...probably looked like I was sure to
get lucky. Probably even made some guys feel jealous.

Now, consider: how about times when I looked at some guy with a beautiful
girl on his arm, and felt envious? How often was the whole story actually
less than enviable?

More and more I think how we're all fronting, and feeling jealous of each
other's false fronts, feeling inferior so of course we have to put up our
own false front to hide our inferiority.