Heartbroken

Twice today, my little glass heart crushed to splintery shards.

First, this, found perusing the advice section:

Dear Carolyn:

I have no problem with sleeping with many women. None. The only guilt I feel is sin, and I go to confession and try to stop, but I just love the "chase" too much. I want to get married (I'm 40) when I find the right girl. I want a sweet, innocent girl who actually says no to me. I know you think I am a rat, but women have made it far too easy to sleep with them . . . at least in N.Y.C.

New York

Oh, sweet and gentle person... these innocent girls you chase are no less innocent for sleeping with you, though they won't be when you're done. Sex isn't a barometer of moral fortitude, something with which to test someone and discard the next day like a pair of sweaty socks... though it can be a vulnerability. Everyone learns someday that placing your trust with someone does not mean that they deserve it. You don't deserve it.

Heartbroken.

Then Jezebel, sweet Jezebel, how you rage against men for objectifying women, for minimizing women, for subjecting women to judgment and stereotypes. Then you print this, that I can't even copy here due to its sheer length, an email from a man pouring his heart and soul out to a woman who doesn't want it. Because she doesn't want it, it's humiliation, something to be mocked and scorned and picked apart. But what it is - someone's feelings, someone's vulnerability - that's not an email there, that's life. That's love.

Heartbroken.

The goal of love isn't to receive; it's to give, to offer it up and release it without expectations. We're all afraid of our love falling to the ground uncaught and so we mock those who give it freely and unashamedly, when it's we who should be ashamed. They, at least, are living, their hearts not yet fossilized by their fear.