Trading Up
Several months ago, Simon Rich wrote a humor piece for The New Yorker in which he imagined that boyfriends are traded like ball players . The male protagonist of the story is feeling pretty bummed about being traded to a new owner by his ex-grirlfriend when he arrives at his new owner's/girlfriend's apartment. But when his new owner tells him that she engineered the deal because she thought he'd be a "good deal," his spirits lift. Rich ends the piece thusly: "He wrapped his arms around her, laughing with relief. There was nothing like joining a new team; there was nothing like Opening Day." Which prompted me to write in the margin: "the excitement of the new, of possibility; of being desired." And every time I think about our need or desire for another person's desire, I think of Kojeve. And that invariably leads me to revisiting old haunts and setting out on new vistas. Begin with our desire to be desired. What is it that we wis