My vow of celibacy

 “...they reminded me that my fate was to only pursue ghosts, beings whose reality was mostly in my imagination; there are indeed beings – and it had been, since youth, my case – for whom all that has a fixed value, observable by others, wealth, success, high positions, does not matter; what they need, are ghosts. They sacrifice all the rest, put everything in motion, make everything serve the purpose of meeting a certain ghost. But this ghost soon vanishes; so you run after another one, even though it might mean ending up going back to the first one.” Marcel Proust

It was reading Dante that I was first taken with the idea of celibacy. Those of you who have had a Christian upbringing will be familiar with certain helpful notions, such as: lust = giving in to animal urges = lowly, when as far as I was concerned it had always been more like: lust = pleasurable = fun. Or that other “L” word, love. Love = loving God = loving everyone. Whereas I'd always been more with the “love = the person I am in love with = making one individual's happiness my priority”. I began learning these basic Christian notions reading Purgatorio, and as I did so I became more and more aware of how ever since hitting puberty I had wasted most of my energy and time on boys. And wasted energy is only the more humble way of putting it, for if I were allowed to let my terrible sin of vanity chime through I'd add: “And made an utter fool of myself more times than any rational individual would think possible”.

Why do I call it a waste of time and energy when before this turn over (coinciding with the end of my 20^th year) I'd always considered it to be (and been told it was) quite an impressive thing, this passionate attachment I had for life, for love, for that stuff that makes novels and sitcoms and to me was just a normal day's work. What about the wonderful positiveness of always believing the best of people, of trusting strangers, which apart from extreme cases such as that of Blanche Dubois is a rather appreciable quality and a pleasant change from unjustified suspicion? Well, these chases, these dreams, were a waste of time and energy because they all pursued the ghosts described by Proust. Any good friend who was around at a time when I was running after a particular ghost will tell you that this being was only wonderful in my enthusiastic descriptions. Not one of these so admired lovers was worth this femininely one-way devotion. More ironically, I came to realise that some of these lovers were absolutely capable of devotion, of all-consuming adoration even, only it was strictly reserved to women who spurned them, thus proving that old worldly axiom that you only want what you cannot have, or, to put it Proust's way, that you only love those who do not love you.

There is however one solution that outwits the axiom, and it is called friendship. While over my twentieth year love of men was making me prodigiously unhappy, I was also being constantly cheered up by the wonderful friends I made. These friends were a rigorously two way love and they always made me smile, even when until a second before I had been crying. I love my friends and in no way I see this as being a waste of energy, for it is simply the best thing in my life. They are there to laugh at me when I am being too pretentious and to console me when I am having my failed artist rants... and then to laugh at me again. And another reason why pursuing ghosts is a ridiculous activity, is the fact that I have now come to see that being in love with a man made me a rubbish friend. Having one person as your one priority inevitably means not being available for an endless list of holidays, parties, projects and other adventures with your friends. You can claim you are the bestest most caring friend ever, but when you hang up on your depressed friend because you have to take a call from the boyfriend well... you are slightly contradicting yourself, aren't you? Celibacy as I live it does not mean renouncing my loving nature (a thing I'd be utterly incapable of anyway), but leaving my heart available to people who really matter: flesh and blood people, not ghosts.

The only issue really is one of identity. At catch ups with friends I was the entertainer, the one who always had a new story (“... and then I heard someone say “Hi”, and that was when we realised he had been sitting at the table next to ours all along!”), the one you could pat on the head (because if you ever thought your love life was going to pot, well, at least you were better off than the mad girl on your right), the one that made you smile when her face lit up describing how amazing this guy was (when everyone knew full well he was just some twat). Could I “be me” without all those boys to talk about? Well, next week it will be sixth months since I have been involved with a man in any way at all (I include just flirting), and I believe that I am still me. I still tell stories, only now they are about those involved in the play I'm directing, or my Dante tutor, or that friend I once mentioned, or the madman that feeds the ducks, or the pretentiousness of the French, or the truth about that guy's posed air of confidence. I still wave my hands a lot and imitate lots of voices and... people still laugh. I am still a melodramatically fun person. As to other aspects of self-definition well, I will admit I sometimes remain confused. For example, as far as compliments go there is quite a difference between “You have great legs” and “This essay shows sheer brilliance”. Not that I have done anything to go against this oxonianisation: now I don't care about meeting ghosts I tend to feel happy with my hair tied up, a big woolly jumper and an insightful book on Dante. The abandoning of those lowly animal instincts certainly has been accompanied by a triumph of the intellect in the sense that what gives me a buzz these days is a rehearsal where my actors were particularly funny or translating poetry. Not only that, but if I have to recall the one time a man approached me this last month it was not a pleasant experience: I felt extremely awkward and wanted to run away. And he was not ugly or insistant, it was just the new celibate me working herself up about nothing.

Before you go away thinking I have turned into a nun, I would like to point out that this does not mean I have abandoned the pleasures of the senses altogether (sorry Dante!) Indeed, good food, a soft bed or pleasant music will make me purr. It's just the men that have gone, and all this leaves me with is full devotion to my friends, more energy than ever for my play and some extra time for myself when I am not studying. All in all, I believe this is a much healthier lifestyle.

Reg de Saint-Loup