For Christmas, my ex-girlfriend gave me a subscription to one of those phone call therapy services. She\u2019d been making offhand remarks about the betting for weeks, so I guess it was technically a gift, but I was smart enough to see the ultimatum in it. I smiled real wide and nodded kind of sad, and then I chose Dr. Lacy Taglione because I liked how her name sounded. I pictured her hot. The first thing I said, after all the bullshit intake stuff, was, \u201cHi, I\u2019m Landon. My girlfriend thinks I have a gambling problem,\u201d and she asked me if I thought she was right. Her voice was raspy, maybe a little rusty, and I appreciated its softly mechanical lilt. It sounded like one of those digital assistants, if she also bartended and then danced on the side.<\/p>\n
\u201cDepends on how you define problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we\u2019re talking about amounts and genuine financial jeopardy, then no fucking way, but if it\u2019s about secrecy and dopamine and recognizable compulsive patterns or whatever, then, okay, yeah. Maybe.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDefine it for me then.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDefine what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat, for you, would constitute a problem?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d I said, and I meant it. It probably had something to do with impulsivity, with lack of control, with various forms of life interference, none of which were even negligibly present in my case, seeing as I only ever bet to piss this ex-chick off. That\u2019s putting it too bluntly, probably. It was more like catharsis, doing something I knew her guts would despise. Like, she would spaz about something nutso, how I\u2019d gotten the wrong flavor of sparkling or whatever, and then I\u2019d go take the over on the Packers game rather than fight back. It was an effective system for a long time. We stayed together for nineteen months. We didn\u2019t even break up because of the betting, either, it was because she found some other dude who was easier to boss around, and I think they started fucking before we even broke up. I never spoke about that with Dr. Lacy. Our therapeutic relationship only lasted three months. Mostly, we talked about communication.<\/p>\n
She said, \u201cSo you sublimate your feelings into sports?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWho doesn\u2019t?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of men do, I concede that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI can see the condescension dripping through my screen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGo on.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of men, you say, like women don\u2019t have any unhealthy sublimations or whatever you called it. Shopping and makeup and redesigning rooms for the sake of having something to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, everyone says they want men to express their feelings, but the thing is, no one really does. This is a fact.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone has unhealthy sublimations, I concede that too.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThink about it. My honest feeling is, yeah, I\u2019d like to have lots more sex. But if I say that, then it\u2019s like I\u2019m some kind of typical simple asshole who only thinks with his dick, see? There\u2019s no way to express that feeling in a way that doesn\u2019t sound reductive and probably sexist, maybe even borderline predatory and manipulative, especially if I get all withdrawn and forlorn and invoke the word \u2018intimacy\u2019 while I\u2019m saying it.\u00a0 You get where I\u2019m going with this, yeah?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOr if I do get seriously depressed or lonely or whatever and then try to sublimate that feeling into the fact that the Brewers actually and routinely break my physical heart by amplifying all the pain of existence, then that\u2019s just, like, childish or whatever. To say: we lost a decisive Game 3 by blowing a two-run lead in the ninth, and now it feels like my brother\u2019s dead. People get the sentiment, but deep down they\u2019re like \u2018this guy has no idea about death\u2026or life.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou seem to be awfully focused on how your actions or comments will be perceived.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause even real masculine pain is always easy to dismiss, and sometimes what Georgia actually wants is for me to suck it up and deal with it so that she can be the one to primarily express everything she\u2019s feeling, while also encouraging me to express my feelings (and complaining about it if I don\u2019t), but only so long as those feelings fit into defined bounds of appropriate emotionality, which, by the way, if anyone tried to tell a women that her feelings didn\u2019t fit into the \u2018bounds of appropriate emotionality,\u2019 whoa boy. Lights out, motherfucker. So what\u2019s the point of saying anything at all?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut feelings MUST BE EXPRESSED, all you assholes say, and you\u2019re not wrong, exactly. I mean, all the rage and fear and shit has to go somewhere, so why not opt for an exploitative sportsbook or a barstool or a muscle car or younger chick or whatever because, frankly, there isn\u2019t a lot of space for other forms of masculine expression, is there? I mean, if you\u2019re not rich or famous or powerful, then you\u2019re just you, the guy nobody wants to hear whine.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you feel lonely right now?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd Christ, Lacy, who doesn\u2019t care about what other people think? Are you, like, fucking inhuman?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLandon, do you feel lonely right now?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLacy, are you a fucking robot?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou sound like a fucking robot,\u201d which I almost even believed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a real person. I menstruate, and I once sent a naked picture to my boyfriend, which he then never replied to, and I haven\u2019t heard from him since, and no robot would ever get anywhere near anything that taboo, so that should be proof enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c…\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI asked if you were lonely.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly way to really prove it is to make a deal with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI lose I answer the question.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cState the terms.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI win, you meet me somewhere, here, in Milwaukee.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is coming up against all kinds of ethical guardrails.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJust choose any bet on offer at BETsmART. Anything relatively even money. Let\u2019s say up to -150. Could be Polish fucking ping-pong for all I care, okay? Pick something. Anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
It probably sounds like I wanted to see if she looked like all the Google image searches I\u2019d done, like this was some elaborate pickup con. Maybe it was. Maybe I\u2019d fallen in love with my therapist like every other middle-aged asshole going through couples counseling. Maybe my love was real. You tell me. All I know is she picked soccer, and she lost. She lost bad, bad enough it could have been on purpose, and so one week later I went to the lakeshore, eleven in the morning, as we\u2019d agreed. For an hour, nobody showed up. Then, this lady in hip jeans and heels sat next to me on the bench. I said fuck all. She never turned her head. Her heat was crowding me, wind playing with my skin, fish smell everywhere. We watched a pelican diving toward the water and coming up with something silver and flashing, and I felt aroused. I felt confident. The thing had food, and Lacy and I were connected and understanding. Both of us eyed the feast between us. We knew, inside, there was nothing left to be saved.<\/p>\n
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