Useless

 Dear Holden,

How are you, man? Long time no see. The last time I heard from you, you needed some rest and you were staying at that sanatorium. You must have already left that place and gotten back to school by now, but we couldn’t talk after your treatment. Are you okay now—mentally and physically? You told me the doctor advised you to stop smoking; did you follow his advice? I read somewhere that even if you recover from pneumonia, it still leaves its marks, and if you aren’t careful it can come back even worse. I know you like smoking, but man, you’re too young to die—so take it a little slow, will you?

I also remember you were talking with some shrinks, right? How did it go? Did they tell you something you didn’t already know? Or did they help you notice something about yourself or the world? If so, please let me know—I also want to learn.

Anyway, you must be surprised to see this mail from me after all this time. The reason I’m writing is that I just wanted to chat with an old friend about something I’ve been thinking about lately.

You know me, and you know I think a lot. I mean, that’s what I do. I don’t like going out; I don’t like crowds. I even feel kind of tired and almost scared when I’m in crowds. There are many things I don’t like, and very few I do. I haven’t had a steady girl for some time, and I can’t keep a stable relationship when I have one. So I have time to sit on my ass and ponder stuff. This letter is also part of that sitting-down-and-thinking process.

So here is the thing, I feel like we’re giving too much value to sex—or to being sexy—and, at the same time, too little meaning.- or maybe the other way around. What I’m trying to say is: everywhere you look, you can see advertiments on how to be sexy, how to have great sex, how to make her cum, “3 ways to satisfy your man,” etc., etc. We’re all greedy for sex—not because most of the time we really need it, or even really enjoy it, but just for the sake of having it, because we think it makes us more. It’s like what people do with money—earning more and more just for the sake of having it, because it gives a kind of superiority, status, and validation. Most of the time we’re doing things just because we think it will look good or be cool. Even with sex.

Here is the story that made me think about this, last year there was a girl I was seeing for a very short time and she was quite beautiful. I remember the first time I saw her—it was a couple of years back a lovely face and brown eyes. At that time my flatmate was fucking her. I even remember him, in one of our talks, comparing her with his next girlfriend, saying that his next girl couldn’t suck it—she would start gagging immediately, kind of a reflex—but the previous one liked having a dick in her mouth very much, he said. He then stopped seeing her with the stupidest lie and had a relationship with the other one.

Anyway, after some time I texted her and we started seeing each other, and in our first meeting she looked so beautiful again. Well, I think it’s not that hard to look beautiful when you’re 23 (or was she 24?), but seeing her in that long coat, with manicured nails and blonde hair, she looked magical. Though she destroyed that magic as soon as we sat down for coffee and she opened her mouth. She started telling me about a guy she was sucking who took her to a very expensive hotel, and that they stayed there for months, and some other shit—blah blah blah. I thought: how disappointing, for such an angel face and a whore’s world. And she kept on destroying that nice image as the days went on. But then I think about myself, and how many times, probably, I disappointed the girls I saw. So it’s alright, I guess. Can’t blame her.

Anyhow, we had sex (more or less) some time later. Fifteen years ago, if you had found me in the depths of a library while reading some Dostoyevsky and told me I was going to have sex with her, I would think that would make me immortal or something. But you know, nothing happened. The sex was not fun at all, because she was too concerned about how she looked. She didn’t even let me look at her. I think now she was scared of being judged because she was judging everyone—that’s why she didn’t let me turn the lights on (or maybe she didn’t want to see my face—who knows ¯_(ツ)_/¯).

After her, I had sex with another girl, ten years older than her. She wasn’t that beautiful, but the sex was a lot better—not because “she was great in bed” or “she knew how to do this or that,” but because she wasn’t so focused on herself. She knew how to share a moment, and sex just happened naturally. God, I once had sex with a short, fat woman, and even that sex was ten times better than the one I had with her. At least she wasn’t constantly looking at her phone, you know.

Other things weren’t good either with that beauty. Her conversations were boring. She was complaining all the time, and she told me stories about how she tried to use men without sleeping with them, or stories about her ex-flatmate who tried to (and probably did) fuck her—plus a bunch of lies and bullshit mixed in.

But at the same time, looking back, it wasn’t her fault that I put up with her shit. I had the opportunity to stop seeing her—which I did eventually—or to ask her to leave. So why didn’t I do that sooner? Why did I let the bullshit go on? Because I probably have the same fallacy: the idea that fucking—or being with—a good-looking woman would make me more important, more valuable, something more. Though it doesn’t. And going to your friends and bragging about it doesn’t help anything either.

So it made me think about beauty, and that’s why I’m writing you. We’re somehow attracted to beautiful women like flies are attracted to shit. But why? What does beauty do? What’s it good for? A beautiful woman doesn’t mean sex will be good. It doesn’t mean she’ll be good company, or that she’ll have anything special. Most of the time they can’t even cook or do shit by themselves. Sure, beauty can work for them—they can find a man to do things for them—but what does it do for me? If anything, the women I saw, the more beautiful they were, the more useless and fucked up they were.

So, Holden, tell me. What do you think? I remember you had that lady, Sally—an average personality with a nice butt. Did you make it up with her after ice skating? You were kind of into her, if I remember correctly. Still seeing her? Do you think a stupid, beautiful girl can understand why you want to be the catcher in the rye? If not, why are we still chasing them?

I’m looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Yours,

Haci Ihsan