She's in a relationship, right now, and nauseatingly satisfied with it; unfortunately, the male counterpart in said relationship is unable to perform the task of stuffing her cavity full of crawly, squirmy, active, sperms. So, they tapped me for the stringer.
This friend is my ex-girlfriend. I love her and, once, was in love with her. The decision was simple and no forethought, on my part, was necessary.
But afterthoughts....
I've always wanted to pro-create but never wanted to be a father. Some part of me has always been convinced I'd make a good daddy, if only because I've spent a lifetime avoiding the mistakes of my parents, but most of me has been horrified by the idea of being a father-- with all the attendant disciplines, scoldings and guidance.
How could I be a father, after all, when I've never really had one myself?
My father left my mother when I was too young to know whether to care. He was replaced by a string of idiots who only had single personalities traits: there was beats-mommy, the longest runner, there's frog-eyes the crackhead, possible-pedophile the mechanic, psychological-abusey, guy-who-can't-pronounce-my-mother's-namey....
None could take the place of an actual father. Whether they knew it or I did, there was always a separation: I was not of them and they had nothing to do with me. In the starkest terms, on the coldest nights, when I'd look up at the ceiling and my pre-teen mind verged towards nascent German philosophizing, they were just the guys currently fucking my mother.
My father was a ghost. He disappeared and started an entirely new family, complete with wife and kids and left me, instead, with a series of broken memories and a handful of aphorisms for modern living:
"Son, if you ever meet a girl who can pee standing up... Marry her."
I'm not making that up.
He also left me a shining example of what not to do: Don't have children in highschool, don't smoke crack, don't get cancer and if you do, try to fulfill your dreams before learning you're terminal, not after. Oh. And only pussies go Christian when they know they're going to die.
Sorry. Dark digression, there.
Back to the infinite potential laying between my legs.
After talking to the true parents, the one's who'd raise this child-in-negotiation, I realized I'd be just like my father after all: I'd inseminate a woman (the old fashioned way, if you're curious--- these are very modern people, I'm dealing with. Plus it's cheaper.) and just... walk away.
No responsibility. No attachment. No costs. And I fulfill my biological imperative.
I talked to a woman I know, a woman who had this same situation-- she was impregnated for a friendly couple (the old fashioned way, if you're curious-- I know a lot of very modern people) and carried the child to term, birthed the child and just... walked away.
She talked about how she couldn't be happier. That it was a gift for them and a relief for her-- this woman, single, 37, globe-trotting... and, by her own words and my own insights, thoroughly alone. She said to go for it. Just do it.
Yes. But what if I loved it?
I had an ex-girlfriend (a different one) who asked me, upon the birth of my only nephew, if I loved the boy-- and of course, I did and do.
She couldn't fathom this. How could I love a creature I'd never, up until then, met? Granted, I'm pretty sure this particular ex-girlfriend was a Aspie, but her point stands. How could I love something I'd never even seen?
Even now, when I think of this nephew, I think of him almost as if he were mine. Except that I live hundreds of miles away and have nothing to do with his rearing.
And so it is with inchoate offspring. I feel myself veering towards love for an idea... in which I will have no responsibility, no hand in raising.
I wonder if this is how people sponsoring egg-headed African kids feel, fingering their Polaroids and sending their just pennies a day.
When I last went to visit this friend, this future mother, I saw her with other people's children. I saw another couple, the biological mother and her boyfriend. I saw them discipline. I saw them scold. I saw them set boundaries and take away play-things. I saw them parent, each and every one of them.
I didn't think I could do what they did. And I realized, in these moments, that the truth was-- the very things that make one a parent are the very things that make one a "Man."
Setting boundaries. Discipline. Solidity.
This journal has been a personal exploration of masculinity in a largely feminist (even though it doesn't want to admit it) nation; a nation that sees women as, more or less, equals-- who can go to school, who can hold jobs, who can have careers outside of motherhood. Condoms and birth-control and a woman's choice and fuck-buddies and women's only gyms and OKCupid.
It's also, I realize, a search for what masculinity means-- intellectually.
And, at this moment, I realize that this journal is a document of a tragedy.
It is the search for the meaning of something that I could have been taught, if only I'd had a father.
This friend, this child, will not have this problem-- her or she will have enough parents, sisters, brothers, to be birthed and reared whole.
And I can have a part in that, simply by fulfilling my father's role-- to inseminate, and walk away.
But I can't help but question... whether I'd truly want to.
Perhaps, in walking away, I step further away from the growth towards my ideal... towards being a "capital M" man.
I talked to my mother about this idea, about helping this couple, in terms that made it clear this hadn't happened yet and she told me, if it did happen, she didn't want to know. If she couldn't see the child, hold the child, think of it as her grandchild, she didn't want to know about its existence.
Perhaps that would be the easiest way.
Maybe I'd feel differently if this were a sperm-bank and I'd never have to see these friends, and their offspring, again.
Or maybe I'd be like the African sponsor, loving something I'd never met. Maybe I'd wander through life searching every child's face for hints of my own.
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