Eat, Pray, Love

alone for a long time, too, and I’ve lost a great deal in love, just like you have. I don’t want us
to take anything from each other. It’s just that I’ve never enjoyed anyone’s company as much
as I enjoy yours, and I’d like to be with you. Don’t worry—I’m not going to chase you back to
New York when you leave here in September. And as for all those reasons you told me a few
weeks ago that you didn’t want to take a lover... Well, think of it this way. I don’t care if you
shave your legs every day, I already love your body, you’ve already told me your entire life
story and you don’t have to worry about birth control—I’ve had a vasectomy.”
“Felipe,” I said, “that’s the most appealing and romantic offer a man has ever made me.”
And it was. But still I said no.
He drove me home. Parked in front of my house, we shared a few sweet, salty, sandy
day-at-the-ocean kisses. It was lovely. Of course it was lovely. But still, and again, I said no.
“That’s fine, darling,” he said. “But come over to my house tomorrow night for dinner, and
I’ll make you a steak.”
Then he drove off and I went to bed alone.
I have a history of making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love
fast and without measuring risks. I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but
to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential. I have fallen
in love more times than I care to count with the highest potential of a man, rather than with the
man himself, and then I have hung on to the relationship for a long time (sometimes far too
long) waiting for the man to ascend to his own greatness. Many times in romance I have been
a victim of my own optimism.
I married young and quick, from a place of love and hope, but without a lot of discussion
over what the realities of marriage would mean. Nobody advised me on my marriage. I had
been raised by my parents to be independent, self-providing, self-deciding. By the time I
reached the age of twenty-four, it was assumed by everyone that I could make all my own
choices, autonomously. Of course the world was not always like this. If I’d been born during
any other century of Western patriarchy, I would’ve been considered the property of my fath-
er, until which time he passed me over to my husband, to become marital property. I would’ve
had precious little say in the major matters of my own life. At one time in history, if a man had
been my suitor, my father might have sat that man down with a long list of questions to estab-
lish whether this would be an appropriate match. He would have wanted to know, “How will
you provide for my daughter? What is your reputation in this community? How is your health?
Where will you take her to live? What are your debts and your assets? What are the strengths
of your character?” My father would not have just given me away in marriage to anybody for
the mere fact that I was in love with the fellow. But in modern life, when I made the decision to
marry, my modern father didn’t become involved at all. He would have no more interfered with