Taste in men

H reminds me of Stuart. Both highly intelligent men who has good humanitarian principles in their youth, which they compromised as they 'matured'.

Selling out doesn't make a good man bad, though it does make him less passionate. It's just something most good people do to remain sane.

The difference between the two is that Stuart didn't realise he'd ever sold out. He just drifted into thinking he could improve the world by being kind and friendly - in that overbearing way he had. Lifestyle politics, we call it.

H is perfectly aware that he's given up on the environmentalist causes of his earlier years, and he doesn't try to justify it on scientific or ethical grounds. He just stopped fighting because he didn't have the strength anymore. And because of that, I respect him a hell of a lot more than I respected Stuart.

I can't sell out my politics - though I deliberately don't write about them much in this blog. It's not because I'm especially strong or rightous - I'm not. I just couldn't live with myself if I gave up.

They share a social class, a gentle tactility, and a certain forced jocularity. Neither understood that I don't need them to laugh at my jokes.

Stuart was an alchoholic and an emotional fraud - he was a manipulator and a bully and living with him was the biggest mistake of my life. H is just...someone who's company I enjoy a lot, and who I really wish were here right now, so we could cuddle silently for minutes at a time.