David McElroy

Oh, I don’t wanna be alone
I wanna find a home
And I wanna share it with you
— Maggie Heath, “Hello My Old Heart”

I’ve been so busy for the last few years that I haven’t had time to hope.

I’ve been busy with a real estate brokerage. I’ve been consumed by trying to figure out how to write and produce a video series about how to escape from our dysfunctional culture. And I’ve been focused on how to slowly renovate my old house and improve my financial condition.

In the meantime, my heart was locked away. I successfully distracted myself — for the most part — from my need for love and family and community.

But then I fell into a hole a few weeks ago. Like Alice falling down a rabbit hole into Wonderland, I found myself in a place — metaphorically speaking — where things didn’t quite make sense. The pieces didn’t fit into a coherent narrative. It’s been more like finding puzzle pieces and not knowing what they might be, but somehow feeling as though they’re meaningful.

It all started in a grocery store.

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It was a simple and innocent question, but I didn’t know how to answer it.

“Was she hot?”

I had met a woman earlier in the week who had impressed me and I told someone about her. This was the man’s instinctive question about the woman. He didn’t intend any disrespect. He apparently thought it was the obvious question about a woman who had impressed another man.

He didn’t ask whether she was brilliant. He didn’t ask whether she was funny. Or insightful or interesting or creative or loving. Or a dozen other things that seemed more obvious to me to ask. He was asking about how she presented herself sexually — because that’s what our popular culture has taught most people to value.

I didn’t know how to answer his question, because the things I found impressive about the woman didn’t start with superficial sexuality. Yes, she was very attractive, so she could have presented herself as a “hot girl” if she had wanted, but that was the wrong frame for this discussion.

I love physical beauty in women. And I appreciate sexuality in women. But all of the other things I appreciate about women are lenses which modify whether a women is attractive to me. Unfortunately, something in our culture now teaches men to see women as “hot” or “not,” irrespective of those other factors. And it leads more and more women to present themselves as mindless “hot girls” in order to gain approval and desire from men who have bought into that frame of judgment.

This mindset is dangerous and wrong — for both men and woman.

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I was watching a football game when Phillip came into a restaurant near my house Saturday night. He spoke to me as he came in, but I was too absorbed in the game to pay much attention. But as this homeless man took a seat at the table next to me — as he typically does — I was struck even more than usual by the contrasts between us.

I just bought a new car Friday and I’m very happy with it. It’s not really a new car. It’s not some luxury model. It’s a Toyota Camry and it’s a couple of years old. But it’s much nicer than the 14-year-old Corolla I’ve been driving for the last six years or so. By comparison, it feels like luxury.

Suddenly, the new car made me painfully conscious of the differences between Phillip and me. It wasn’t that I regretted what I had. I didn’t feel guilty for having nice things. But I was suddenly grateful for the things I had.

I noticed the shoes that Phillip was wearing tonight. They were a pair that he had proudly shown me about six weeks ago. He had gone to visit a church where he sometimes gets help and the preacher had surprised him that day with these shoes.

I had arrived at the restaurant tonight in a nice new car. He had arrived in donated shoes.

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