Men are simple
creatures.
What man hasn’t played Russian
Roulette at least once in his life for the sake of love or lust? Well, hopefully
very few of us have actually put a bullet in a revolver, spun the chamber, put
the gun to our head and pulled the trigger. Yet we’ve all done things to
impress a lover that are so irrational and have such unnecessary downside, that
in the absence of pheromones we’d never dream of doing them.
I’ve been riveted by the
reckless selfishness of Kaci Hickox which has been playing out in the media.
Ms. Hickox is the nurse who returned to the U.S. from treating Ebola patients
in West Africa and is now flaunting her unwillingness to be quarantined during
what we believe to be the virus’ incubation period. I’ve also been riveted by the plight of her
boyfriend Ted Wilbur, who despite all logic and any instinct for self
preservation, has been cavorting around the state of Maine with Ms. Hickox.
I genuinely feel badly for
Mr. Wilbur, who has found himself with a terrible dilemma. On the one hand he wants
to be supportive of his girlfriend. From what one reads on the news Ms. Hickox is very
strong willed (read: nuts). She’s likely being very vocal with Mr. Wilbur that
if he loves her he needs support her as she experiences her fifteen minutes
of fame as the potential Typhoid Mary of the 21st century. She’s probably telling him that if he’s not at her side then he, like
the rest of the world, must be against her and doesn’t deserve her.
On the other hand, Mr. Wilbur
knows that his girlfriend might have EBOLA!! Not a cold. Not the flu. Not even chicken pox. EBOLA!! He
knows that if she ends up having the virus, since he’s in close contact with
her (read into that what you will), he is very likely to contract it
himself. So what’s a lover to do?
Ms. Hickox went to Africa to
treat Ebola patients, which signals that she must have some general empathy for humanity as a
whole. One would have hoped that she would also have had some concern for the emotional
and physical well being of the man she apparently loves. After all the
quarantine is 21 days, not 21 years.
But alas, it didn’t go down that
way for Mr. Wilbur and that’s where the pheromones kick in. So he's convinced
himself that it’ll probably be okay, that Ms. Hickox probably doesn’t have
Ebola, that if she has Ebola he probably won’t get it from her, and that even if
he does, not everyone dies from it.
I watch Mr. Wilbur put the
bullet in the chamber and spin it, and as he points the gun at his own head I
marvel again at the notion that love, and lust, are blind and illogical.
In this case, hopefully it's Ebola free as well.