From AZ to BZ

“You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer 'yes' without having asked any clear question.” –Albert Camus

Oh, how true this is.

I divide my life into two phases:  before Zen (BZ) and after Zen (AZ).  During the BZ part of my life, I gravitated towards people who used charm as their social survival tool.  I didn’t see it for what it was.   I thought I had simply met someone who was as spontaneous as I was.  After some deep reflection and lots of sitting a few feet from the wall, I began to understand the difference.  They sell the figurative form as a literal structure.  Several in my life were selling it and I spent about 20 years buying it.  Sad to admit it but it’s true.

The last charmer in my life got me to buy that he needed $20 to attend an AA meeting because it was a closed meeting.  He explained to me ‘closed’ meant he had to pay in advanced for the whole month.  And each meeting was $5.  A year later I went to Al-anon meetings for a few months.  It was about the third meeting someone mentioned which meetings in town were ‘open’ and which were ‘closed’.  It had nothing to do with paying in advance and ALL meetings were donation-based.  I proceeded to tell the group about how he obviously deceived me.  They dubbed my story as the best con anyone had heard in a while.

I’m starting to become comfortable with believing he may be a pathological liar.  I don’t like thinking I’ve invited evil people into my life and the lives of my family.  However this one con was just a small drop in the bucket of cons I later discovered.  He used to sneak out of the house after I fell asleep to go drinking.  And he would take my car instead of his to go out.  (That scratch on the car I said was new, he claimed was not.)  That mega-computer he built and spent thousands of dollars for custom components was nothing but a fancy shell with cheap, dated technology.  He told me his manager cut his hours at work and he would file for unemployment.  Supposedly his claim was denied and he filed an appeal.  And supposedly he went to a hearing.  I even received an elaborate string of texts telling me of everything talked about with the referee.  Later I found out he was fired for missing work and did not qualify for unemployment.  (Though I was paying his bills with the understanding the payment for back benefits would be deposited any day now.) 

These are just a few of the instances when I bought his fiction later to find out he was lying.  I can guess he never went to the hospital to be with his mother.  I bet dimes to doughnuts that his cousin wasn’t severely beaten outside a bar.  (I questioned why the incident wasn’t in the news.  He said thy family wouldn’t let the paper print it.)  I’m cynical about his tales of abuse.  I’m sure I’ll never know fully the extent of his deceit, nor will I entirely comprehend the damage I allowed to occur by buying his bullshit. 

Sometimes the worst cons we experience are self-imposed.  We do it to ourselves.  So I sit and stare at a wall.  And I celebrate being in the AZ part of my life.  Time to shed my own illusions.