The Green-Eyed Monster

Confession time.
Wahwer is an INTENSELY JEALOUS person. (yes, I speak of myself in 3rd person when I get crazy)

By nature I'm not covetous of material things (solid Catholic upbringing). I might admire someone's clothes, appreciate a flashy car, or look longingly at a person's home. But I can't say that my pining flows over into coveting. That being said, today's shameful confession is that with each year I become increasingly aware that I am jealous / covetous in the extreme where friends and loved-ones are concerned (which I will hereafter refer to as "associates"). I tend to be fiercely protective of them, and would go to great lengths to keep them happy and from harm or sadness. Unfortunately (for me? them?) I also become jealous of other relationships my associates have had B.W (Before Wahwer).

My friends are MY friends. My boyfriends are MY boyfriends (stop laughing, Mel). At times I would wish a tidal wave of napalm over the albatross old pals and ex-girlfriends of my dear ones. Do I want to see them dead? No. Do I want to wash away the memory of them from my associates' minds? Hell yeah. I want to do my best Rhett Butler imitation, laying my hands just so on either side of each friends' head and squeeze the memory of poisonous past attachments from their minds. Not the good ones, certainly. I don't want them to forget the healthy, nurturing loving relationships that have brought them happiness & made them better people. I simply want to delete their memories of the bastards who lowered their self-esteem and damaged their delicate inner framework. The people who made them less instead of more.

Of course I would be a liar if I said I'd never wanted to snatch someone's ex baldheaded just because, well... just because. I'd love to see an x-ray of both of my hands and feet, where I'm sure you could see the healed crosshatching of mended bone. Schisms in calcium that occurred when I pounded my clenched fists against walls and fired my foot at objects while helpless with rage & jealousy-- objects that hadn't earned my ire. If I had a voo-doo doll for every past offender that brought pain to my associates, I'd need to rent a storage shed. Better yet, I ought to just make one giant gender-neutral voo-doo doll and simply invoke the a-holes' names whenever the impulse strikes.

The saying goes that, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." I wonder if that sentiment extends towards guys as well? Do men experience the same all-consuming fury that women do when they feel shadowed by or compared to their partner's ex? And maybe we weren't even being scorned, we only perceived scorn (which is just as painful). How do you fight a specter who isn't at hand in-the-flesh for you to bitch-slap? What's worse, how do you cope when the injured associate won't recognize the damage that the former friend inflicted? If they insist on keeping them on a pedestal & overlooking the countless ways that they diminished your loved one's life?

Why do we even have to experience jealousy? It's so counterproductive and pointless. Maybe it's a means for measuring another person's value in our lives. We tend to value something most when we feel it can be taken away from us, so jealousy serves as a litmus test for our levels of attachment. Personally, I'd rather do without the test, thank you very much. But at least it lets me know I'm able to feel strong emotion, which is a gift in a society that bombards our senses and robs us of our ability to feel.