I have had three love relationships in my life, all with women named Alice. I didn’t start out to do that. My first love just happened to be named Alice. I can’t say that there was a lot of chemistry to our relationship. We were drawn to each other because we had neighboring lockers in high school and rode the same school bus. I thought she was pretty, and the more we spent time together the more I felt comfortable with her. To be honest, what was most important for me in our relationship was that with all the insecurity I had about my looks, my lack of athleticism, and my beginner social skills, she liked me. So we became each other’s first love. Maybe we would have stayed together, except that after we graduated from high school we moved 1000 miles apart because of the universities we chose to attend. We tried to keep our relationship alive, but we just couldn’t keep it going when almost all of our contact was by phone, e-mail, and text message.
My second love was also named Alice. Maybe there was something going on in my subconscious that made me interested in her because her name was Alice, but I think it was just a coincidence that the beautiful, smart, and kind woman who was my lab partner in a college chemistry class was named Alice. I liked this second Alice from the start, and we fell in love in just a few weeks. But we had so many big differences — politics, religion, preferred time for going to bed, preferred foods, and how much we cleaned up after ourselves. So we were lovers for only nine weeks.
After I recovered enough from ending my second Alice relationship I went looking for a new partner named Alice. I realized that in moments of anger or romantic passion I might call out the name “Alice,” even if I was with someone not named Alice. I did not want to face the embarrassment and risks to the relationship that could arise if I called someone named “Barbara” by the name “Alice” in a moment of strong feelings. I knew I would avoid the trouble misnaming could create if I partnered with a woman named “Alice.”
Luckily I found a third Alice, and she is a delight. She looks great, with beautiful long brown hair and amazing hazel eyes, and she is great at understanding me. She gets along very well with my parents, and I like her parents. Her interests and mine overlap a great deal, and she is very good with children, if we decide to go in that direction. I like her sense of humor and her upbeat attitude toward life. And she is wonderful in bed.
I had been thinking this Alice will probably become my life partner. But I felt like I needed to tell her that I developed a relationship with her partly because of her name. So I emailed her all that I wrote here, up to the sentence before this one.
Now, two hours later, I have received this email from my third Alice. “Dear, Dear Mike. Thank you so much for sharing with me that there were Alices before me and when you found me you were looking for an Alice in order to avoid the trouble that could arise if you used the wrong name in a moment of passion. What you wrote makes perfect sense to me. In fact, you are my fourth Mike, and I was looking for a Mike just like you were looking for an Alice. I wanted to avoid the same difficulties you wanted to avoid from accidentally using the wrong name in a moment of passion. We seem to be birds of a feather in this way, which I think is good. I hope you do too.”
I know I should be happy that Alice is so accepting of what I wrote to her. But after reading her reply I feel sick to my stomach. I am now less sure of her affection and less confident that she really gets who I am and is drawn to me because of me. If my name were Jason, would she find me attractive? If we stay together will I always wonder whether there is more to her wanting to be with me than my name? And if she calls out “Mike” in a moment of intense sexual passion, will she be thinking of me or someone else? What a mess I have made for myself by confessing to her that I was drawn to her partly because of her name.
Paul C. Rosenblatt is a retired academic whose teaching, research, and academic publishing focused a great deal on couples and families. In retirement he has been writing for literary magazines, often with a focus on couples or families, including works published in October Hill Magazine, Shark Reef, Grey Sparrow Journal, and Please See Me.
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