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The ability to write - including emails and texts - is an indicator for me ... I tend to resonate better with the more literate man. Just like 30 degrees Celsius indicates a nice warm day, writing ability indicates to me a man who can communicate on a high-ish level, albeit formally. John1 could write. He wrote the longest emails I have ever received, even longer than the ones I get at work, really long. He wrote on aeroplanes, in airport lounges, in hotel rooms. He wrote beautifully. The imagery, descriptors, use of metaphors and onomatopoeia were exemplary. I was in awe. I started using the thesaurus to make my return emails more erudite. Seriously.
The long-awaited dinner date arrived. John1 was very tall, very slim (reed-slim, so slim that I felt fat next to him) and he was not unattractive. But John1 was verbally grey. His use of language was but pedestrian. Dull. No use was made of hyperbole, idioms, assonance, personification, alliteration, similes, irony or the like. Significantly, John1 had no sense of humour. I was my usual hilarious self. Not even van der Merwe-hilarious or even Fawlty Towers-hilarious could have stirred John1's cheek muscles. No wonder he had no crows feet - he has yet to laugh.
I was in trouble. I could not get any emotiveness out of this man. I even started arguing with him just to get a reaction. Any reaction, even a negative one would suffice. That did not work either. The wine flowed, un-wooded Chardonnay, and still no shift in John1's blunted affect. Then BINGO! I hit the jackpot. I asked him about his family of origin. I unleased a dragon. And Saint George came to life.
John1 hated his mother. Yes, hate. The venom was all but dribbling out the corners of his mouth, his arms were flailing Mediterranean-style as he chastised her for not having been able to support him and his siblings adequately when they were sans father support. She had failed him and his siblings financially. I didn't get it. Let us analyse this conundrum: The father had deserted the kids. But the mother was on the receiving end of the son-hate. Just accept this twist of logic for a moment.
John1 was (1) alive, (2) educated, (3) 50-ish and clearly (4) a successful man in his own right. That, in my mind, smacks of fantastic parenting on his mother's part: she didn't kill him and he is a post-graduate despite his perceived financial misfortune. What more could a son want materially?
The psychology of the mother-son relationship has been studied and discussed since around 440 BC when Sophocles wrote about Oedipus Rex. Sigmund Freud had a lot to say, too. Research reported by the University of Reading in 2010 revealed that boys who do not have a strong bond with their moms tend to have behavioural problems; they grow up to be hostile, aggressive and destructive ...
Red alert: Run, baby, run. If a son hates his mom, how can he possibly love anyone in a healthy functional manner? They may love you, but it will not be a healthy functional kind of love. Moms are a son's first love and if he does not have a pleasant memory of that love, a sense of loss, neediness, a lack of trust and resentment must surely mar his future love (read: partner-oriented) relationships. I was not about to test this theory out. I am not open to "behavioural" problems, nor hostility, aggression, nor any form of destructiveness. Life is tough enough.
John1 has a wonderful command of the written and hostility-driven verbal English language and can communicate his hate most convincingly. Delicious pizza. Mediterranean: lamb, mint and feta on a gluten-free base. Thanks John1.