Women

Women.  They are wholly other to me.  Sometimes I feel De Kooning tapped into something real when he painted Woman I (shown here). 

Actually liking a girl is horrifying.  It hasn’t happened to me in a while.  Don’t get me wrong, there have been, and are, girls that I could like at some point, but taking that next step of actually liking a girl is just plain scary.  So, instead of doing it, I just play it off like I don’t care that much, when I probably do more than I show.

Look at that De Kooning painting again.  Women are the absolute other, the unknowable.  The harsh lines and distortions are frustration and struggle.  And while the harshness and distortion of the work may be interpreted as a sort of rape fantasy, De Kooning taking out his frustrations on a weaker two-dimensional object, this is just plainly incorrect and not at all useful.  

De Kooning’s wife sat for this work, a woman he loved dearly.  His best friend.  This painting is De Kooning’s way of trying to come to terms with not being able to understand the opposite sex, even though your best friend is your wife with whom you are so incredibly close.  It is exasperation at the sexual difference.  It is an exasperation that every man feels every day (and women probably too, although, as wholly other to me, I cannot speak for women… they have their own voice that I can’t and shouldn’t replicate).

Love is terrifying.  That’s all I’m saying.