Idiot math
So, yesterday I was sick, a really unpleasant kind of sick, and while I was sick I just turned off my brain and started watching this spectacularly train-wrecky show, Sister Wives, it’s about this polygamist fellow and his four wives. The show’s bizarre on lots of levels, but this one thing immediately jumped out at me. In order to justify his skeezy lifestyle, the fellow says, “Love should be multiplied, not divided.” Love should be multiplied, not divided. He says it so philosophically, like he’s fuckin’ Plato. He talks like he’s cutting edge, state of the art. I’m not particularly good at math, but I know idiot math when I see it. His little polygamist formula accomplishes exactly the opposite of its supposed intent. He’s multiplying his number of wives, but dividing his time, and his love, between his gaggle of women. He sleeps in a different bedroom every night, they go on separate dates, he’s spreading his love thin, he’s not multiplying anything but his sleeping arrangements.
When you love a woman you should love her, and only her, honestly, and completely, and always. Love is real when you’re with someone and the rest of the world goes away. You look in her eyes and everything around you gets soft, muted, all you see is her. All you feel is how much you love her. You look in her eyes and you’re not worried about schedules, money, the tedium of the day. You’re not scared of dying, where you might go after you die. All you see is her, you don’t want to be anywhere else, with anyone else, ever. She’s more intoxicating than any liquor, any drug. She’s your everything. That’s love, and you know it when you feel it.
Polygamy’s something, but that something isn’t love. Not really.
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