the green-eyed monster

There have only been a few times in my life when I truly felt jealousy. And I’ll just be honest: It was sexual jealousy, that ugliest of all emotions. And I can count the incidents on one hand:

The pretty young wife of a friend who always laid her hand on my man’s hand and then let it linger-

The sexy redhead who managed to "accidentally" lean in a little too closely to any (and all) of my boyfriends-

The stringy blonde with the bland Midwestern good looks and the tightly permed hair who took what should have been mine.

It’s a sad state of affairs. But over the years, I’ve been no more impervious to jealousy than anyone else. In fact, I’ve done some crazy things, propelled by that green-eyed monster.

When it comes to jealousy, none of us is really immune. I know, intellectually speaking, that it’s an emotion brought on by insecurity. But it doesn’t help, knowing that information when some bored housewife is making herself available all over my guy. It doesn’t make me feel charitable, or sad for her own, hopeless marriage.

Mostly, it just makes me mad.

Unfortunately, and this is the worst part of jealousy, most of the time it’s not something that I’ve been able to express to the skank in question. Why should I give her the satisfaction? Give satisfaction… to that woman who knows exactly what she is doing and how it makes me feel?

No. It was expressed in private, in dark tones, to the person I loved. In the car on the way home. In the living room after everyone left. Which is stupid. Because in the women’s magazines, showing your anger- a forthright display of that territorialism- is what makes guys run for the door, right?

And yet, I remember nights when I felt impassioned and filled with anger and that passion swept us through until the morning.

Perhaps, despite what the Cosmos and the rest of the Beauty Bibles say, there’s something to be said for staking your claim.

And making it stick.

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