My Year With Proust - Day 348

   Part of me, which the other part sought to join, was in Albertine.  It was essential that she should come, but I not tell her so at first; now that we were in communication, I said to myself that I could always oblige her at the last moment either to come to me or to let me rush round to her.  "Yes, I'm near home," she said, "and miles away from you.  I hadn't read your note properly.  I've just found it again and was afraid you might be waiting up for me."  I felt sure she was lying, and now, in my fury, it was from a desire not so much to see her as to inconvenience her that I was determined to make her come.

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, p. 758

Marcel continues to have trouble with Albertine, which, of course, I'm beginning to think is more than half of his fascination with her.  It seems that I've been involved with a lot of "difficult" women over the years.  Now, we can read this several different ways: 1) all women are "difficult"; 2) being with me would make any woman "difficult" (and, truthfully, what could be a more daunting, if not utterly Sisyphean, task than living with me); or 3) I'm fatally attracted (for some reason that doubtless needs exploring) to "difficult" women.  If number three is correct then let me take the opportunity, quite publicly, to apologize to every non-"difficult" woman who had the misfortune to hook up with me.

Beyond that admission and apology, I'm amused by Proust's admission that "now, in my fury, it was from a desire not so much to see her as to inconvenience her that I was determined to make her come."  It is amazing how much of the driving energy of any relationship is based on spite.  Maybe we hang on to dying relationships not out of love or fear or jealousy, but rather our insistence that we remain the person who makes her unhappy.