A Better Future for Divorced Men.
As I amble my way through my thirties, I am meeting more and more divorced men. I shouldn't be surprised, lots of marriages break apart nowadays, and men are often one half of a marriage.
All of them cut a troubling figure. Hangdog posture, middle distance stares, attempting to engage in boring conversations that barely conceal the wealth of pain squirming behind their sunken, dying eyes. They ramble on about their plans: exercise, education, “getting it together,” they ramble on about how children need their fathers, extol you on the hatefulness of the family court system, insist that whatever new relationship they’re currently in is destined to succeed, even though they are still the same person they were six months ago.
There’s no way around it: divorced men are a spooky cohort, carrying around an air of doom, like an older cat or a Schoenberg piano piece. Every divorced man is walking around while this noise waterfalls out of their asses:
Our children… no-- THEIR children-- can’t continue to be exposed to the twelve tone toxicity they’re putting out in every which direction. Society must act. We must seclude all divorced men from society.
I’m not talking about PRISON per se. The carceral state is terrible, I would never seek to put more human beings in their pockets. Getting all these sad sacks together in a confined space would be a death sentence for all involved. I would just send them to the… giant swaths of empty land, out there in the middle of America. It would be kind, humane even. Imagine: you exit the courthouse after signing the papers that JUSTLY give your ex-wife all of your money and complete control of your childrens’ custody rights. A nice, non threatening man approaches you. “Hey buddy,” he says, “You doing alright?” Before you can yell at him, something like “NO I’M NOT ALRIGHT, SHE’S GOING TO TURN MY KIDS AGAINST ME CAN’T YOU SEE” he pats your shoulder and says “Don’t worry buddy” right as he lifts a small rag soaked in lavender scented chloroform to your mouth.
When you wake up, you’re in a nice big, well equipped house on a farm. In this space, they say, you can just BE YOU. Adjust to this time. Focus… on yourself. Away from the big, scary world. There will be room for them to do ALL the activities that divorced guys like to do, away from the notice of the wider world. Including and up to:
-Looking at old photo albums and weeping on the toilet.
-Throwing your wedding ring at empty beer bottles.
-Playing half a season of fantasy baseball with the other guys on the compound.
-Ordering an LSAT prep book from Amazon at 12:35 in the morning, so you can go to law school and really stick it to that family court judge. Your lawyer-- all lawyers-- didn’t believe in you, and the only way to break the corrupt system apart is to wear its hideous darkness around your shoulders like Batman’s cape.
-Vlogging.
-Eating raw meat for like three days, tweeting stuff like “Sometimes I get this urge to travel very far away, like to the wilderness of the Kamchatka Peninsula, and start civilization all-over from scratch. Hunting wild animals in the cold, developing metallurgy and watching the stars at night.” (the computers will be linked to a fake Twitter that no one else can see but that will provide them with algorithmically generated likes and RTs)
-Smoking weed while agreeing with David Brooks.
-Talking to the other divorced guys about just getting in the van and reconnecting with nature.
-Watching Rick and Morty for the first time, vibing with the Pickle Rick episode (Deeper than you might think).
-Tweeting on internal fake Twitter about your new girlfriend and how much you love her, and all the stuff she doesn’t do that your wife did, and how you’re actually in a much better place now, because you’re just really at peace about all the divorce stuff. You really appreciate women.I know people don’t believe that, but everyone should know. Women are great. I insist.
-Firing off a Facebook friend request to your junior high girlfriend.
-Speaking with Navy recruiters at length, lifting weights in a tank top while thinking about your future on this great nation’s big steel boats, all the good you will do for this country and the world.
-Reading the first thirty-five pages of “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”
-Reading Dune cover to cover in a weekend, relating to Paul’s struggle, staring out the window and wondering where “your Fremen” are, the native people who will enable the revenge you crave for the horrors brought on you by hateful Imperial forces who were jealous of you (Family court) and the greedy Harkonens (Ex-Wife) who tricked you into going to Arakkas to harvest spice (Marriage) so they could kill you (Divorce).
-Learning to play the guitar.
-Going to the batting cages.
-Getting in a brawl at the horse track with your new best friend, Elliott Gould’s character from California Split.
-Singing along to Steely Dan on newly minted 180 Gram Virgin Vinyl, closing your eyes and really leaning into “...and DIE behind the wheel…” Your new setup is crazy. You can hear organic sounds in the crackle. The ghosts of Dan emerging from the depths of the grooves, rubbing your shoulders, letting you know that none of this was your fault, that fate itself put you here, so you could be alone with them in this moment, one with the Dan and by extension the universe. One tear falls as the old you dies and falls away, the husk of the self shed as you are reborn in the soil of the Dan’s perfect grooves…
-Making a pass at a waitress in front of your kids. (Waitresses and kids are both hired actors in precisely simulated Sherri's-style-environment.)
-Gambling.
-Building a train set while subconsciously painting one of the houses to look precisely like your old house where you lived before she began to think you were “Intolerably irritating.”
-Looking for Jerkmate discount coupons on Honey.
-Interests. You know. Just being interested in stuff. You have them again.
-Listening to Rogan every day while working on Lego Architecture sets or a Model Train, depending on how deep the subject’s attachment to trains is.
Sooner or later, in the course of indulging in pure Id away from the broader swath of humanity, the subject will finally experience pure ego death and catalog everything that was their fault, coming face to face with their failures and realizing that the only key to moving on is acceptance. They will then be allowed ONE (1) tearful phone call to their ex-wife where they apologize and say some weird, intense sexual stuff (remember the night when we made our son… our lovemaking made our beautiful son, etc etc etc). At this point they will be allowed to move three towns away from their ex-wife, where they will peacefully reconstruct their lives from scratch and hopefully do better at their next try, all without infecting us with the terrible energy they impose on everyone who talks to them in the period chronicled above. These are the benefits of true socialism, folks. AOC 2028, donate today.