The rich, older man

Yes, I know I haven’t posted in months. But I’ve been busy doing things worth posting about, working on a special report you could say.

I have somehow become an accidental gold digger, and my special report concludes thus: it seems that being a gold digger isn’t easy.

The rich, older man and young woman combination is such a cliché in this city and so widespread, it was just a matter of time. Here’s how I got drawn into it.

Two months ago I was introduced to the CEO of a private equity business. Let’s call him Mr.X. Many things about him didn’t make sense: why did he have the time to take me out to lunch? Why did he make so much effort to be charming? And why did he stay in touch? In my naivety I thought he just wanted sex. He flirted a lot and talked to our mutual friend about me. All my insecurities were activated. I thought I had found a mentor of sorts.

But through all the graciousness, he had the most intense stare. His eyes fixed on me with blue-gray steel. He said he was good at reading people, but I didn’t know what he was looking for, and what he had found in me.

Now I think maybe it’s this. Female journalists are supremely placed to meet rich, older men, and, for the sake of the job, to charm them. After years of doing this two or three times a week, you also become quite good at it. Worst of all normal people doing normal things begin to bore you.

You find ways to escalate experiences, to find the extremes.

After a period of ‘courtship’ he made his real move – he introduced me to his client, Mr.Y, an even richer, older man. This man had been the real object of his courtship for an investment of US$ 3 million. He also happened to go to the same school as me in London twenty years ago, and was divorced and lonely. Given his cold and fastidious character, an ordinary whore would have been too vulgar. He needed a high class escort without the escort label: i.e. a well educated, cultured, gold digger.

Yes, I’m the perfect fit – except for the motivation. I’m motivated not by money but by what? I don’t even know. Curiosity perhaps, validation. I was a welcoming present, an object.

I went on a date with Mr.Y – where he changed the time to fit his schedule, and changed the location to his building. On these dates the man gets it all his way, they’re not really interested in you. That was how he related to the whole world: when he says jump, everyone says how high.

I found all the gatherings of this circle to be sad, surreal affairs - a mishmash of oddly matched people who had nothing to say to each other, but who were still desparate to be there. Young, beautiful local women sat in silence like they didn’t exist while the men talked shop. Young guys hanging on to their every word, the lackeys, the groupies. A friend became one of them, a young man who was changing before my eyes from a sweet hearted kid.

But crazily enough I consider continuing. Perhaps because I’m used to self abuse. Or because the story isn’t finished yet. Curiosity always has me in its grip, and I’m compelled to open the blinds.

At the same time I walk away from innocence.

Self rescue

I've always been in the business of self-rescue. Not just self help, or self development but a massive intervention in the cycle of dysfunction, abuse and despair.

But I did it mostly without therapy (and a bankful of money), or the great industry of self help. Instead I leaned on the ancient art of philosophy.

Some people say that in the post-modern world philosophy is dead. But I want to show with this blog that it weaves every strand in the narrative of life.

I've been absent for a while because blogs have been banned here. But the distance was good because I realised I need greater focus.

So I've decided to tackle self development because it's simply a travesty. Commercialization has made it a flippant, shallow industry of new age nonsense and charlatans.

But really changing reality is the most ancient, and complex project undertaken by the human race. It calls on our most profound ability - philosophy - to decisively intervene in the tyranny of fate and nature.

Also I have a problem with shiny, glossy, catchy motto's. They ignore the darkness that give life shape and dimension. Positive psychology reduces the magnificent beast of life into a squeaky, plastic toy.

I want to document the narrow path of change with the abyss lying close on either side.

An honest alcoholic

Days when I wake up at 5am are usually grappling-with-depression days. But I don’t just grapple with it, I think about what it means. I figured it’s being at some sort of crossroads – go forward or go back? Make something of your life? Or destroy it? Suicide takes a certain resolve, and planning. Going to live in a cave and grow your own food so you don’t have to interact with the world takes determination. Actually living life takes even more work, a life time of positive thinking and problem solving.

This is where I clench my fists and rail against the sky: why is nothing easy??!

Then it occurred to me the easiest option is to be somewhere in between living and giving up – i.e. wallowing in misery. Never quite making the decision to sever ties, but not having to make the effort to make things better. Yes, misery is the escape of hypocritical choice. It’s great to know that I’ve chosen this scenic route for great chunks of my life, when I could have been just an honest alcoholic.

The mental health profession

I know the mental health profession far to well. I’ve been taken in by the system and spat out the other end. I’ve had more therapists than boyfriends. I’ve taken pills and weaned myself off pills. I’m glad to say I’ve never been hospitalised though I know people who have, and I know members of my family who should have been hospitalised but never were. And I know most of them are crazy themselves. Not just crazy, they’re dangerous. And I know because my mother is one, and she’s the reason why I needed therapy in the first place. Next time I have to find a therapist I think the tables should be turned. I’m going to ask them questions, uncomfortable ones. Questions like: why were you attracted to the profession? Have you ever had major depression? What were your parents like? Are you married? Are you happy with your life? Do you have a personality disorder???

The alcoholic and the journalist

You get to learn a lot about alcoholism as a journalist, because so many journalist tend to be alcoholics. I, a journalist, often have lunch with a friend, an alcoholic, and also a journalist, and we talk about the disproportionate relationship between the two. He says it’s a practical hazard of the job – getting your sources drunk and talking. But I think it’s something deeper. Something to do with the fast lifestyles and shallow, wandering attentions of the journalist. Something to do with its former glory as a profession. Like the alcoholic who coasts on that special, alcoholic charm – what’s underneath is the incompetence, the years wasted, the unwashed, uncared for mess of a person.