You’re a Piece of Shit and You Don’t Deserve Love and Neither Do I
Letters in love with Lynette Hutchinson
Dear Lynette,
Another Valentine’s Day has been and gone, and nobody expressed interest in me. I am beginning to worry that I may never find love. What should I do?
Regards,
A Little Lost
Dear “A Little Lost”,
Young people often ask me what the secret to a successful love life is and I often think what the little shit ever did to think they deserved love in the first place.
There is a perception within the wider Australian community today that younger generations are entitled and, as it turns out, that perception is entirely accurate. The annual absurdity of Valentines Day rolled around recently, and naturally it was as tedious as it was odious. It passed without a blip on my radar, or in my heart, or in my undercarriage, and at this point I expect to hear little shrieks and moans from the reader, “Oh poor Lynette didn’t get any on Valentines” well of course I didn’t, and nor should I and nor should you.
Love, like all emotions, is an entirely ridiculous affair that only ever sets us back. You certainly could spend your Friday nights tarting yourself up in the hope that a man looks twice at you without wincing and maybe one day he’ll marry you and have children with you and then leave you for the mutton-dressed-as-lamb hairdresser three doors down, or you could stay in with an episode of New Tricks and a packet of chips.
I spent years shoehorning myself into dresses that honestly did me no favours, I only wish I had my mother there to tell me how pathetic it was (she couldn’t, of course, she was working on the missions in South America and had little time for the 12 of us back at home). “Love,” she used to say, “is like air. Very few deserve it and it cannot be earned. If you think about it too much it will disappear. Don’t ever let yourself think you need it, only the weak do.”
It was one of the last things she ever said to me and by far one of the most profound. I would weep for the hoards who believe they deserve love, but I haven’t the time to.
Who does?