I have never had what you might call a “successful” relationship. In my nearly thirty years on this planet, I’ve had many lovers.  I’ve had one-night stands. I’ve had a few friends with benefits. These relationships make sex as casual as any other biological function in my mind… and remind me that it wasn’t always the case. Once upon a time, I had meaningful relationships with women; back when I assumed that this was what I was supposed to be doing with myself. These women were all a little off, as you’d guess… I’ve never been a fan of boring people. In fact, I’ve trained myself through the years to attract and be attractive to the craziest women I can find. How I did this is anyone’s guess, but I guess it’s true what they say:  you are what you eat. It’s a shame none of them picked up some of my journalistic integrity, or any integrity at all for that matter.

First Girlfriend
From the first date I ever went on, I knew that I would always have a soft spot in my heart for crazy girls. My first girlfriend was bi-polar to a point where she would have violent mood swings, sometimes mid-coitus. It was difficult for me to keep abreast of how she’d feel about anything at any given moment, so the safest course of action was either to apologize for everything I did or continue doing whatever I wanted, unabated by her complaints, until her mood swung back to something favorable for the situation. I’ve never been into BDSM, but this relationship came close. We were too young and she was too unmanageable for us to know that there were such things as ‘safe words’.

Goth Girls
Within a year, I’d discovered that I really liked goth girls. Now I’ve never been a goth… I don’t even like wearing black clothes. I never liked Bauhaus, though I have been known to listen to Depeche Mode every once in a while. I don’t wear make-up or look depressed all the time. I liked goth girls because they liked me, and they liked me because I really was as depressed and suicidal as they wanted everyone to think they were. No two girls are the same in this world, but every goth girl I’ve ever slept with wanted the same kind of sex. They wanted it angry. They wanted it to hurt. I didn’t want to beat them up – lord knows I’d already been through that on the other side, and it wasn’t really my bag to begin with. But there’s something to be said for knowing that nothing you do to a girl’s vagina will stop the sex you’re having. One of my favorite nights ever was when I tied a girl to her radiator with her own underpants and proceeded to force myself into her without any further foreplay. I had expected this might take some time, but being used in this manner was apparently a huge turn-on for her… the night ended two days later, as I fucked her in the ass in the shower. Most of the red in the water was washing out from her cheap Manic-Panic dye job. Most.

Lucy
The problem was that none of these girls were that interested in me – either that, or way more interested in everyone else. That’s the problem relationships… none of the people in them took it seriously. They would either lie about their feelings and cheat on me, or grow more and more distant when I wouldn’t become something or someone else. I wouldn’t sleep with anyone else or anything, but I could be as cold and unfeeling as a Republican. We’re not even talking about the drugs – I found those about two years before sex, and they would always be a better friend. Much of the time when I was with these girls, my mind was off somewhere, on a date with hallucinogenics or painkillers. I have had a long-lasting and successful relationship with those… come to think of it, I haven’t given hallucinogenics a call in a while. I wonder how my old girlfriend Lucy has been? Probably hanging out with college kids and hippies, as usual.

College Girls & Hippies
Oh, I’ve known many of those as well. College girls are great until they flip out under the crushing weight of their ambitious art school schedules and their ubiquitous Adderall prescriptions. Once that happens you spend less time fucking them and more time consoling them, while feeling really old. Hippies are an annoying bunch; their free-spirited, open-minded attitudes are tempered by their short attention spans and limited mental capacities. It will always be easier for hippies to love trees than people, as trees can’t possibly dislike you for being stupid. Also, hippie girls tend to culture a sort of yogurt in their vaginas. I once went down on a hippie girl and it felt like I’d huffed the fumes from a forest fire and then chased it with a shot of human sweat. When she came, she started roaring like a wild animal and thrashing about; I had no choice but to drop her off in the park. I would see her again only by accident, or if she could find her way back to my house. At that point she would be considered a sex pet. I would also have to get her shots.

Ms. Right
Unfortunately, as I’ve gotten older, the crazy girls have too. Life has brought their collective insanities to a sort of high tide, and at some point it began to roll back. Some of them have children; most of those have had their lunacy tempered by motherhood. Some of them married, and a few of those became faithful and responsible lovers. A few of them are dead. That’s one of the drawbacks of dating girls who do drugs – it’s way easier for them to get as much as they could ever want, and there will always be someone encouraging them to take more. I go through every day of my life wondering which woman I meet will be the next crazy woman to steal a little bit of my soul… and hoping that I’ll get to, or want to, steal a little bit of hers.

If there is one person out there for everyone, whomever I’m intended to be with has probably been through numerous terrible relationships based around hedonism and a lack of self-esteem. Someday we’ll meet and we’ll realize that our lives have both been speckled with relationships with people much crazier than us. We will realize that we may be the two most sane people in the entire universe. Of course this won’t be true – I may be crazier than any woman I’ve ever met. For fuck’s sake, I was crazy enough to date those girls, wasn’t I? Whatever any of them did to my heart or soul, I had requested it. I had asked for it with my attentions and affections. I earned each and every one of my heartaches by occasionally being a human being. But this person, this ‘soul mate’, this ‘Ms. Right’… this would be the one person whose heartaches would mirror mine in humiliation. This would be a person whose broken I would not need or want to fix. This would be the person I would spend the rest of my life with… and if she is real, she’s the craziest woman I’ll ever meet. Our children will be the basis for a new Diagnostics and Statistics Manual.

And no matter who else may come and go in my life between now and then, I’ll be here waiting for her. That is, assuming a crazy girl doesn’t cut my kidneys out while I sleep, leaving me to bleed out in the night. Most people just worry about STDs when they hook up… when you fuck a crazy woman, you have to wonder if she’s the kind of crazy who will cut part of you off and take it home with her. Thankfully, I’ve learned well enough to wait until I’ve already come before asking her… and keeping my shoes close by, just in case she answers me with a scalpel.

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Lucien Hicks’ writes a column posted every Thursday on Playpen Blog. You can read his other writings on his personal blog, Notes from Underwater.

Eternal Love illustrated by Chris Koehler. Check out his portfolio at ChrisKoehler.com and join his facebook page. He oozes talent.

Read other Lucien Hicks’ columns:
Lucien Hicks Investigates the Dark World of Pick-Up Artists
Our Renegade Reporter’s Experiment with Viagra