Ruminations on Current Events

Friends,

I've been sitting on this Anthony Weiner thing for a couple of days, trying to pull the lens back in order to look at what it all means. Obviously, it is fun to snicker about his last name and what part of his anatomy that got him into trouble. It is also mildly entertaining to consider the level of discourse this usually-verbally-dexterous politician seems to have sunk. The connections to Bill Clinton are also somewhat tittering.

And then there is on-going sense of bewilderment of "who did he think he was?" While watching the press conference on Tuesday, part of me wanted him to respond, "Just a guy," when the media asked that question. I also kind of wanted him to say that he was being a GIANT idiot.

Then I read Alec Baldwin's fascinating piece, posted on the Huffington Post, entitled, "Anthony Weiner is a Modern Human Being." What I find compelling about what Baldwin says is the reminder of the availability of such online behavior. Consider this:

We tell ourselves that these devices help us communicate more effectively. What they actually do is allow us to bypass the person lying right next to us, across the room from us or at an airport heading home to us, in order to meet our immediate, even inconvenient, needs. To bypass their moods, their current view of us and their own desires, or lack thereof.

There is something to be mined here. You may be in the most loving, generous, safe and profound relationship ever. But. There are potentially millions of people out there that you haven't met yet. And they just might love you.

Of course there are a hundred problems with this, not the least of which is the fact that Weiner is a married man, with a smart and talented (and maybe pregnant?) wife. I am not interested in the series of questions about whether or not it is cheating: I think that determination is between Weiner and his wife; his press conference clearly indicated that, to them, it marked a betrayal of some sort. Which is, I think, a form of cheating. So, why did he do it?

Because he could. Nothing more complicated than that. Because he is, in Baldwin's words, "a modern human being."

I reach the same conclusion that Alec Baldwin did, and probably a lot of others. I would like to add my own take on this. I think that fidelity is a difficult and challenging thing; I have wrestled with it myself over the years, before the Internet and Facebook and YouTube and Twitter made it that much easier. How fun is it to live chat with an old flame? Or an old prospective flame? Or a co-worker? Or someone you read about and think is smart/sexy/gets you...whatever. But too many people I know but their real-life, flesh and blood, "til death do us part" relationships in jeopardy because it is just so damn easy.

And it is ultimately sad.

gotohellifyouhatefreedom,
Volansky