On "Crazy" Women, Part I

Yes, I know that Janet Leigh wasn't the
psycho, but I'd probably date her
anyway if she were.

Yesterday a female co-worker asked, "Would you be willing to date a very hot woman if she were crazy?"

Because it's hard for me to answering a question without first asking a question, I asked in reply, "Define crazy."

"She's calls you all the time, won't leave you alone, she's clingy, that sort of thing."

Because it's even harder for me to answer any question with brevity, the following is based on the answer I gave.

First of all, answering questions like these can be very difficult unless the answer is preceded by, to paraphrase the Sports Illustrated football writer Peter King, "I think I think." (The writer Peter King shouldn't be confused with the congressman Peter King, who displays a lot more certainty when he expresses his opinions. I don't actually say "I think I think," because I would sound crazy to talk like that, even though I might just start to include that phrase in my conversations from now on anyway, but the point that's taking me forever to make is that there are decisions about which you can only speculate, because you don't know how you'd actually react if you faced such a choice in real life.

In other words, I'm not in a position to date other women, and haven't been for than 13 years in a civil-contract sense, even longer in a Get-my-ass-whupped-if-I-went-out-with-another-woman sense. However, with all that in mind, here (finally!) is how I'd answer the question.


GET ON WITH IT ALREADY
I think that for the most part, guys are willing to cope with a reasonable amount of crazy, depending on their circumstances — moreso than what the ladies would put up with. Of course there are plenty of exceptions, but I think the average guy who is neither a stalker nor similarly socially retarded himself would endso hopefully ure plenty of crazy from a woman if

1. He had no other options on the horizon
2. She exceeded in hotness what he thought he'd ever able to land in a girlfriend

Margot Kidder: crazy.

My co-worker defined "crazy," but I'd add to the definition the passive-aggressiveness, moodiness, and sheer oddball randomness that a guy might experience from his mate, such as suddenly declaring she won't eat any green foods (because "green makes me sad") right when she walks into your apartment where you've prepared a dinner which includes a salad.

And most guys would deal with it. Most guys are lazy, but when it comes to pleasing a girl, usually at the beginning stage when you're trying to impress (i.e., get laid) or if she's very hot, he will bust his ass and bend over backward figuratively to please her in the hopes that she'll bend over backward literally to please him.

YES, BUT WHAT ABOUT YOU?

Sean Young: crazy.

The short answer is, probably not. I wouldn't put up with it now. Life's too short for that, and these days I'm a cut-the-crap kind of guy who likes to shoot straight, even if it takes forever for me to load my verbal weapon.

Sure, I can't read minds, and I often have to be told things more than once, which is why I'll still unload the dishwasher but leave the bowls on the counter instead of in their correct places within the cabinets. But I don't like to play "games" and am definitely not one of those people who relishes the drama of fighting while in a relationship.

Twenty years ago, however, I'm sure I would have been whipped by a hot headcase. I once had a relationship with a woman I'll call Abby during college, before I dated the woman who became Mrs. The Anthony Show, and although we claimed to liked each other, we never seemed to have a good time whenever we were together. Most of our moments were spent arguing about religion — not really arguing, per se, but mostly her asking me about certain aspects of my religion and then getting outraged and me being like, "Hey, I'm not asking you to join the club, I'm just telling you the rules" — and whether or not I would "dick her over" (her words) because guys in the past had dicked her over, and she was ready to dick me over before I could dick her over, but she felt guilty because she was convinced that I wasn't going to dick her over, and she would have no quid pro quo justification to dick me over.

Anne Heche: very crazy.

In the end, she did dick me over, with a friend of mine's dick, but that's another story. (Actually, that's pretty much the whole story.) The point is, I wasn't looking to marry the girl (which made discussions about religion as relevant as discussing how many kids we'd each want, or which side of the family we'd visit on Thanksgiving, or do we prefer a Chase over CitiFinancial for our mortgage needs).

But I did like her, and I didn't have any other women lined up, so I stuck with it, even though I was mostly miserable and worn out from what one noted linguist calls "the jibba jabba" and the experience inspired me to compose truly awful poetry, including abysmal song lyrics that I mailed in all seriousness to a musically inclined friend of mine who wrote back, charitably, "I like how you rhymed 'what to do' with 'I feel blue.'"

SO WHAT THIS MEANS IS?
My thoughts on dating crazy women, like the color of my hair, has changed over time. In my next crazy-women episode, I'll discuss other crazy women! Crazy, right?