Men Who Can Write
A personal history
I have a weakness for men who write well. That’s not to say every man I’ve been with has been a great writer. Or has even written much. But when a guy is appealing in other ways and can also write, I have a hard time resisting.
Okay, I’ve been in maybe five major relationships and I tend to stick with people, often longer than I should. So it’s not like I have extensive experience, but I did go through a period of being single when I dated a number of men. Only a few could write well.
I don’t recall much about my first boyfriend’s writing ability (sorry, Eric!), though he was super smart and I’m sure he was a good writer. That was so long ago, the last year of high school and the first few years of college. I do, however, remember one 10-page letter he wrote me (back when people wrote letters, and yes, I am old). That letter stands out not just because of its length, but also because he wrote it while stoned, which meant that it made no sense at all — though it did provide some entertainment value. I’m sure I have it somewhere, as I’ve never thrown out a letter. But I’m not going to dig it out now.
My first husband wasn’t much of a writer, and he definitely didn’t understand my desire to write. He wrote poetry a few times when he was having manic episodes, but that only served as evidence that he really was bipolar; I couldn’t imagine him writing poetry under any other circumstances, and I don’t recall him ever reading poetry. He was practical and down-to-earth, not into philosophical musings. He was more inclined to play tennis or basketball and ride his bike.
I had one boyfriend (not for long enough to be included in the five major relationships) who wrote me abstract poetry that was the most dreadful mental masturbation I’d ever seen. I’m sure he thought it was avant-garde. Sure, I liked the idea of poetry being written for me (one point in his favor) — but it was hard for me to appreciate that kind of mind game, and it always felt like the poetry was about him, not me, contrary to what he claimed (one point against him).
As much as I appreciate good writing, I made it to my late 30s without dating any standout writers. But the last two boyfriends I ever had were both excellent writers. I married one of them.
Before Rafael, there was Jim. He lived in my building on Guerrero Street in the Mission and had published several books, all creative nonfiction. It was the first time I’d heard the term creative nonfiction — and I’d never heard of Jim, though one of my friends had read his books.
I met him on the roof of our building, where he had a little office that had once been a laundry room. That roof had wonderful views of the city, and people in the building often drifted up there to catch those views in the fresh(ish) air, sunshine, and fog. I met other neighbors there, too, some of whom I’m still friends with.
Soon after I met Jim, I happened to walk into a bookstore up the hill in Noe Valley, when I spotted one of his books. I opened it and read a few lines. It was then that I knew I was in trouble; he was a really good writer. Damn.
Would I have resisted him if he hadn’t written so well? Maybe not, but that definitely didn’t help.
The next time I saw Jim in his office, he signed a copy of his most recent book and gave it to me. I never saw him look as happy as when he was autographing that book. He wrote in it, simply, “Soon.” I remember laughing over this with a friend. What on earth did he mean, “Soon”? My friend, a guy, thought it was kind of brilliant. Way to be vague and lure me in!
Lure me in he did, and we had a weird on-again, off-again relationship for two years. He had his appeal, part of which was his writing ability, but it went beyond that: as a rare literate intellectual who was also very physically active, he fully inhabited both his mind and his body. Usually, you have to pick one or the other. We had stimulating conversations. We went hiking, camping, and ice skating. He cooked for me, and played and sang Beatles songs for me. He read the whole of Northanger Abbey out loud to me. He took me to a hidden beach down the coast where we spent a sun-drenched day relaxing and playing music. But he was a liar and a cheater and incapable of sustaining a relationship. What can I say — we all make mistakes.
Eventually, he moved out of California, I took over his rooftop office, and I got rid of all his books. I never read the novel he published a few years later.
Around the time that novel came out, I met Rafael. Because we met shortly before Christmas and I had a busy holiday season that year, we didn’t manage to go on a date till the new year. So in the meantime, we emailed. That gave me a chance to learn that he was a very good writer — he even knew how to use semicolons correctly! A comment I made about this to our friend Antonio inspired him to create a short comedy bit about semicolons:
What a great example of how a good comic can create something out of very little!
But maybe it wasn’t that little.
Although I didn’t actually go out with Rafael based on his use of semicolons or his overall writing skills, I did appreciate that he could write well. Sadly, because our communications were in email rather than letter form, I no longer have them. But I have more important stuff — some of it even related to writing. Rafael often gives me useful feedback on my own writing, and he was the one who encouraged me to start a blog back in 2010, when I was trying to make a career change into clean energy. When a friend wrote a book about her apprenticeship with a Japanese garden company in Kyoto, he helped her figure out what the first line should be. And he’s even inspired some Flower Child posts.
To clarify, I appreciate good writing because I love words and sentences. I love reading and writing. That doesn’t mean I fawn over writers, especially male writers. Many of them, like Jim, can be annoyingly full of themselves, and they often have plenty of women fawning over them already. I remember loving The World According to Garp, which I read many lifetimes ago, but being disturbed by the girlfriend’s devotion to Garp based on his writing ability. I mean, why wasn’t she writing instead of simply adoring his writing?
Overall, there’s far too much focus on men’s writing, as Claire Vaye Watkins illustrates beautifully in her essay “On Pandering.” She internalized the focus on male writers so much, she explains, that she realized she was trying to write like them, instead of in her own authentic voice.
Her internalization didn’t come out of nowhere; it was the product of centuries of underrating women writers and elevating men writers. Look at the way Henry James dismissed George Sand, the Brontés, and, even more egregiously, Jane Austen, “with all her light felicity.”
Henry James was just one dude, but he was representative of the thinking about men’s and women’s writing. For centuries, women’s writing has been consistently dismissed or ignored, left out of the Western canon, and devalued.
So I’m not here to elevate men’s writing. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m simply talking about the fact that I appreciate good writing, and I have always appreciated it in men who interest me. Sometimes that hasn’t worked out well; other times, it has.
Would I have married Rafael if he hadn’t been a good writer? Of course! But it didn’t hurt.
Postscript: As an only marginally related aside, that reminds me of this wonderful — and incredibly un-PC — scene in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes:
Un-PC as it is, I love that MM scene!
You may not marry a man just because he can write well, but my goodness, doesn't it help? ;-)
Sitting down and taking the time to hand-write a letter to the one you love. Then waiting a week to receive the reply in the mail. I miss the pace of those days sometimes. Your piece reminded me of that.