Today’s "Modern Love" column is by my friend, Spike Gillespie (Hi Spike!).  She has a couple of books, a website, and is well known in Austin.   I have known her electronically for several years as we exchanged email stories about difficult births of first children. 

     This week she writes about two things: the seemingly odd contradiction of having always been single, and liking the single life, but also always yearning for a partner; and the ways in which this tension has worked itself out recently in her attraction to young men nearly half her age. 

     Of course, the first Chinese philosopher who comes to mind when thinking about Spike is Chaung Tzu.  But there is an unexpected Confucian angle here also.

     Spike has never found that one person, that one man, with whom she could comfortably share her life.  She seems to have, over the years, attracted a larger number of jerks than average, but, also, at times, to have been uncertain about what she wants in her own life.  If you read her books, you’ll see she’s brutally honest about all this. 

    This week’s piece belies a certain longing and anxiety beneath the devil-may-care exterior.  She still seems to want a partner and she appears a bit unsettled by the string of younger friends – "none have been lovers" she tells us – of late:

Am I a predator? Noncommittal? Do I have a need to mother these young men?

She resolves it in her fun Spike way, but I can’t help but picture Chuang Tzu pulling her aside (at the bar?) and saying:

       If you know what’s beyond your control, if you know it follows its own inevitable nature and you live at peace – that is Integrity perfected.  Children and ministers inevitably find that much is beyond them.  But if you forget about yourself and always do what circumstances require of you, there’s no time to cherish life and despise death.  Then you do what you can, and whatever happens is fine. (54)

    Yes, this has a "don’t worry, be happy" ring to it – but Chuang Tzu said it first! (4th century BC).  For Spike’s specific circumstances, I think it says: hey, we cannot control how we encounter people in this world.  Men come and go in your life, they cross your path in unplanned and unusual ways.  Some will be jerks; some will be beautiful.  It doesn’t matter what their ages are.   Rather, you have to move with the circumstances.  If none turn out to be your lifelong partner, fine.  If a really young one turns out to be a great friend, even a lover, good.  If you let go of conventional expectations (that’s the "no time to cherish life and despise death" part): Then you do what you can, and whatever happens is fine.

      On the age thing, Chuang Tzu would be especially adamant.  He is constantly railing against static, ossified ideas of propriety.  What matters for him is genuine integrity, truly following the path that unfolds before you.  Any conventional taboo of older women and younger men (is there such a taboo?) Chaung Tzu would reject, if it stood in the way of a real, loving relationship.

     And this is where Confucius comes in.  If you did not know Spike, you would think, from this article, that she is just a crazy, irresponsible victim of her own bad judgment.  But there’s more there there.  You can discover it in her first book, All The Wrong Men, and One Perfect Boy, and on her website.  The number one priority in her life is her son; always has been.  She obviously spends a great deal of time cultivating that loving relationship (anyone who has the patience to sponsor teen rock and roll groups is close to sainthood in my book!).  And, in that way, she is enacting the most important ritual behavior that, for Confucius, is the foundation of a truly humane life: on a daily basis she is, in very concrete ways, performing her love for her son.

     In the end, what really matters is that we take care of those closest to us and then use those loving ties to reach out and bring others into the orbit of our humanity.  For Spike, whether there is a lifelong male partner or a string of young male friends really doesn’t matter.  What matters is her life with One Perfect Boy.