the beat goes on

Joan, 35, married a musician old enough to be her father. She had what she thought was an amicable separation with him but by staying in the same marital apartment block with a male neighbor with whom her husband remains friendly her amicability was stretched to the limit.

"My husband, Ken, is a huge Beatles fan and believes, like I do, that war is wrong and that people should love one another," says Joan. "The Beatles said it all in their classic song, All You Need is Love, but the type of love the Beatles sang about is not exactly the type you'd apply to everyone."

"I was incredibly naive and idealistic when I met Ken and he seduced me into having sex with him and I hated it," sighs Joan. "Nevertheless, I carried my loving idealism to extremes by marrying a man for whom I merely felt a sort of cosmic brotherly or neighborly love."

"It took me a long time to realize that some people are totally unlovable in any sense of the word," laughs Joan. "and while it was never in my being to hate Ken, the experience of being trapped in a miserable marriage with a drunkard and pot-head soon cured me of idealism."

"Because neither of us wanted to hurt our son, we agreed to separate on amicable terms," says Joan, "but the big mistake I made was to stay in the same apartment with a neighbor who remained friendly with Ken. It was a cheap apartment and far too convenient for work and shopping for me to move, but had I known what my ex was up to I would have been out of there like a shot."

"The neighbor Ken remained in contact with was an older man, a Vietnam vet, who lived with his mother and had mental problems," says Joan, "and when Ken visited to pick up our son for visitation rights he'd always drop by and see this guy."

"I never bothered too much about this," says Joan. "As long as peace prevailed - which it did after a while - I didn't care much what Ken did, but I did get suspicious when he started chiding me for not being neighborly towards this old guy and his ancient mother."

"The guy and his mother were creepy and I avoided them as much as I could," says Joan, "and I got really scared when the old guy started bailing me up at the front door with a silly smile on his face when I'd come home from work."

"He always seemed to be hanging around outside my apartment when I had visitors," says Joan, "and one day I even saw him rifling through my garbage bin."
"When I caught him at my mailbox one evening I confronted him and told him not to touch my mail," says Joan, "and he went on a long and rambling sermon about the evils of divorce and the joys of love and marriage."

"Hello! Where have I heard that garbage before!"

"I just brushed him off as a loony," says Joan, "but later it occurred to me that this guy was not only spying on me but also making a play for me, probably encouraged by the fact that I had married an older man -- maybe the dope thought all old men turned me on -- or maybe he had been encouraged by Ken himself. Why else would Ken tell me to be more 'neighborly'?"

"The next time I saw Ken I told him that the old guy was annoying me and I requested that he stopped visiting him and putting ideas into the old man's addled brain," says Joan, "and Ken had the cheek to start spouting all that All You Need is Love rubbish that he'd used on me years before."

"Despite my anger I had to laugh at the prospect of loving in any way whatsoever that deranged old man," says Joan. "Ignore, yes, but have a friendly neighborly relationship with, no way!"

"Ken seems to believe that if you're not in a loving relationship with everyone around you then you're in a hateful relationship with them," sighs Joan. "That's magical thinking - the sort of magical mushroom thinking that inspired his heroes the Beatles to write All You Need is Love. And when Ken talks about love, he means s-e-x, and that's exactly what the old neighbor had in mind, too. It's repulsive!"

"God know what Ken had said to that guy," sighs Joan. "I should have known better than to think that he would get on with his life without causing me further trouble."

"To me, indifference is the opposite to love, not hate," says Joan. "Hate is an aspect of love, a incredibly strong feeling that you can only feel for someone you might otherwise love. I don't hate anyone! I love only a few people. I like a lot of people. I am totally indifferent to everyone else."

"Finally, when I got really exasperated with Ken and the ridiculous turn his conversation was taking," says Joan, "he uttered a word that I particularly dislike - 'sorry'."

"Sorry is a word that always follows abuse - I lived with it daily in my marriage - and I don't want to hear it any more, especially from him," says Joan. "When his message was All You Need is Love, it seemed incongruous he would upset me and then say sorry. What's loving about that sort of behavior?"

"It worked on me when I so young and so green I might as well have been a lettuce," laughs Joan, "but now that I'm older and wiser I can't stand the Beatles and their All You Need is Love rubbish."

"I moved out of the apartment shortly after that episode," says Joan, "but can you believe that Ken used his visitation rights to get to know my new neighbors?"

"The other day one of them said to me: 'he's such a nice guy, why are you divorcing him?'," sighs Joan. "I kept my mouth shut - for my son's sake - but I'm beginning to think that Ken is going to continue to drive me nuts divorce or no divorce."