Fetish

I'll tell you a little secret. I'm in love with Lefties. I'm not sure why, it's just a thing I have. Guys, latter in life, spend the first few moments in a bar scanning left hands for rings. I spend my time scanning the left hands for ink stains.

I was on a date with this guy the week. He was great: funny, gentlemanly, good looking. We had a couple of drinks at the happy hour around the bar around the corner (Little Sonny's - best two-for-one Manhattans in town). We spent a good three hours talking and having a good time with the interview date.

Only, he made the mistake of paying with credit card. The minute I saw him sign the receipt, I knew I wouldn't be calling him back. It was too bad, too. He had so many nice qualities.

If only guys would pay in cash on the first few dates, I might be hooked. It would be too late to have right-handedness be a deal-breaker.

I know, I know, it sounds stupid, or childish, but it's just a thing. Everyone has their deal-breakers. Most are reasonable, though. You know, bad teeth, or a really crappy job, or one of those laughs that sounds like a moron sawing through glass, covering in sticky tack and bubble wrap. Reasonable.

I've thought about it long and hard about mine. I think it has to do with an observation I made a long time ago: Lefties seem to be more creative and intelligent. I'm jealous of Lefties. They always seem to have all the answers, and more so, they are creative as all hell. Or at least it seemed to me.

My first boyfriend, he was a Lefty. He was so smart, and clever. He was planning on Harvard, or some other great East Coast school. He had that ease about his intelligence. Everything came naturally to him. Science was easy, literature was something he could wax as poetically about as the original authors, and music, wow, he was a good musician.

Of course, it was the other parts of his personality which contributed to our breaking up. He personified that trait of our generation: the expectation that we're owed something. His smarts and creativity was merely part of the package. He wielded that brain with contempt for the rest of the student body. Anyone who displayed the slightest bit of stupidity was treated with disdain or, worse still, witty ridicule.

The biggest contribution was the destruction to which he submitted himself. Like all his wealthy, literate compatriots, he lost himself in a whirlwind of drug use. At least the part of him that would have gone to Harvard or some other great East Coast school. That expectation, the feeling of being owed, never left. He still expected, even with phoning in his application essays and interviews, that he would get in.

He ended up going to State, like me and the rest of the Righty masses.

I allowed myself, in that sea of right-handers, to fall into a homomanus relation ship. It was good, he was all those thing that my Lefty was not: happy, respectful, driven. Even thougt it ended, it was one of the happier relationships I've had.

The whole time, however, I couldn't help myself from thinking, it would all be perfect if he was a lefty.