Moral Dilemmas

I don’t consider myself to be an alcoholic. Merely a guy who frequently drinks more booze than my body can safely handle. The difference may be merely semantic, but it is there, all the same.

Boozing does not just interfere with my private life. It constitutes my private life. There are some things that are greatly improved with alcohol. Other areas of activity should be treated more responsibly. Accordingly, I only sing karaoke when I’m drunk. I don’t drive a car, because it obstructs my drinking schedule.

On Thursday night, I went to have a couple of drinks with a cousin. I try not to get heavily intoxicated on week-nights: work, as Wilde famously stated, is the death of the drinking classes. So it really was going to be just a couple of drinks.

Cousin was delayed. Claimed he had to go and pick up a mate’s car. So I wandered into a bar in Takapuna and started eyeing up some of the ridiculously hot, and very young talent on offer. Three drinks later, and I was feeling really quite merry. And then cousin arrived, and caused me to slow my imbibement.

My cousin is fifteen years older than me. He makes a gazillion dollars a year, has a very shallow view of women, has a string of expensive waterfront properties, and does his fair share of boozing. He often asks me for advice. Thursday evening was discussing a business venture he wanted my thoughts on.

So the conversation started out civilly, with me chiding him about his recent break-up with his girlfriend of four years. Cousin has been getting stick from many family members about this, but my criticism was from a different angle. Which is why he prefers drinking with me, rather than the rest of the herd.

“So let me get this straight. You took current girlfriend to Europe on a five-week holiday with you, and sent her home ten days into the holiday so that she could pack up her stuff before you got back?”

“Yes, that’s right,” he answers.

“And you came back a week after her?”

“Yep.”

Now, other family folk have given him grief because he didn’t end his five-week holiday at the same time as her. Some even called him callous. Not me. “You stupid fuck,” I tell him. “You’re a free man from that point. Why didn’t you spend the next three weeks shagging your way around the Mediterranean?”

“Because the family felt I should feel guilty about treating current girlfriend so coldly.”

I almost punched him at that point. What I realize—and what other members of the clan probably know but would never admit aloud—is that women are evil. They thrive on knowing that the naughty man is getting grief from all quarters for him being a bastard. What they don’t accept is that all men are bastards, and that when we treat women badly, we’re just being honest with ourselves. True to nature. And it’s why chicks dig us for our bastardly nature.

“And shafted girlfriend doesn’t know about new girlfriend, you think, Cousin?” I ask.

“No,” he says. “So if you see her at the pub, don’t mention it to her.”

I give that knowing smile, which is about to reveal another nugget about human nature, from the peculiarly worldly aspect that I have in my head. “Bet she fucking knows already, mate. Bet she knew you were fucking the other one six months ago, but stayed quiet because it was her way of manipulating you. All chicks are evil, and they do much better than us in not letting on what they actually know.”

“So you’re not pissed at me for dumping ex-girlfriend?”

“Fuck no,” I said. “You dumped her before she let herself go. You did yourself a favour—not having to put up with a chick who had lost the sole reason you hooked up with her in the first place—as well as herself, because now she can go and hook up with another guy, because she hasn’t lost it.”

Cousin is pleased with that insightful analysis. “Yeah, well, new girlfriend is fucking amazing, mate. We connect not just on a physical level, but emotionally as well. Old girlfriend was quite young—she’s only twenty-seven. New one is thirty-five.”

“Stop that bullshit already,” I admonish him. “You might be an outstanding salesman in your professional life, buddy, but I’m not buying into any part of that argument. Firstly, it’s fucking dangerous to be talking about an emotional connection. You’d only be saying that if the new one was manipulating you in ways that you don’t currently understand. There is no such thing as an emotional connection: just hot chicks who give you a hard-on. Start talking emotional shit, and next thing you wake up, realizing you’ve married some repulsive whore without a pre-nup. And I certainly don’t approve of you trading in a 27-year-old girlfriend for a 35-year-old one. That’s trashy, and a waste.”

“But she’s still hot, the 35-year-old.”

“But for how much longer?” I argue. “You know the answer to that. It’s bad policy. Bad, bad, bad. Sure, dump your girlfriend after a few years. But get a YOUNGER one!”

A few drinks later, with business discussions concluded, cousin dropped me back to my place.

And the whole way back, I started scheming in my head, a cunning means of scoring his ex-girlfriend. And when I finally decided not to, it was because even tho’ she’s still very hot, at the age of 27, she’s just too old for me.