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Vulcan tendencies

This column original appeared in print in July, 2006.

RIP, Mr. Spock (photo courtesy of nypost.com)

RIP, Mr. Spock (photo courtesy of nypost.com)

“I’ve never understood the female capacity to avoid a direct answer to any question.” – Mr. Spock, Star Trek

I get asked all the time by friends, strangers, readers of this column, and the occasional ex-boyfriend, — why I’m “still” single.

Sometimes I answer metaphorically: I say I’m from another planet (which most people seem to find insultingly easy to believe). I threaten to take off my normal “human female” costume to reveal myself as the reptilian she-devil from Planet To-Hell-and-Back that I am.

Sometimes I answer with the truth: that I was married, once. To a man I thought accepted me, scales and all.

Other times, I lie. I say I’m afraid of commitment. I blame my lack of culinary skills. I ramble on about my boring wardrobe, or I cry crocodile tears and say “I have NO idea.”

But I do know why I’m single, and I’m pretty sure I can lay the blame entirely at the stoic feet of Mister Spock.

Growing up, we didn’t watch much television, but one show my brothers and I caught as often as possible was Star Trek. I loved the beginning music. I loved the sky of stars across the screen. I loved the words: “Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise …”

I completely embraced the philosophy of intergalactic adventure and decided to apply it to my own earth-bound existence. I would lie flat out in the backyard, arms flung wide, saying “Life, the final frontier.”

I boldly accepted my mission “to explore strange new worlds.” I was thoroughly ready to “go where no man has gone before …. “

Only one problem. I was a girl. I was supposedly too “emotional” for captaining my own ship.

Maybe that explains my infatuation. Not with the oh-so-manly Captain Kirk, or the roguish Scotty. No, I was head over heels for Mr. Spock. I loved his relentless logic. I didn’t find him irritating; I found him inspiring.
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I even loved his human side. I loved it when some emotion nearly penetrated his too-thick cranium. I loved it when he lost his intellectual balance. I loved it when he came this close to being human. I even loved it when he got brought up short by some acerbic put-down from Bones.

I was fascinated by Spock’s dichotomy – the push and pull between the mind and the heart.

So, I cultivated dispassion. I developed a mania for sending messages of peace-loving prosperity with my V-forming fingers. I mastered an impassive gaze. (Or so I thought; pictures from that period reveal a girl suffering from facial contortions so severe no wonder the most common phrase I heard was “If you’re not careful, your face is going to freeze that way.”)

I developed an irksome penchant for using 12 words when three would have done (a habit I maintain to this day). I became extravagant in my employment of the perfect, sardonically-arched eyebrow.

My desire to be Spock-like manifested in the way I reasoned, spoke, even in the choices I made. I probably can thank my general eschewal of drugs and alcohol (at least in my younger years) to the fact that I didn’t want to lose control of my faculties – which would have been very un-Spock-like, indeed.

So deep was my identification with Spock’s mind and approach to life, love, and thinking, that I may well have been the first and possibly only case of a televisional Vulcan mind-meld.

By senior year, I enjoyed a three-day suspension from school because I had the intellectual sangfroid to ask a teacher “Is that a rhetorical question or do you expect me to answer?” in response to his illogical screeching of “Just who the hell do you think you are, young lady!?”

As a woman, I graduated to frustrating no end of men with my maddening mind. I’m sure I’ve squelched many a romantic moment by musing aloud on the impracticality of love. Plus, unlike Spock, I couldn’t always maintain my grasp on logic — especially when I was grasping for love (something at least, finally, I’ve grown out of).

The Trekked-out truth is that I can wear my “earth woman” suit ‘til the cows come home, but inevitably, my disguise falls away. The hat falls off, and men see me for the pointy-eared, logic-loving Vulcan vixen that I am.

My vulcanic tendencies are more likely to inspire frantic cries of “Beam me up, Scotty,” than an impassioned treatise on the logic of love. — Ergo, my single status.

And, that’s about as direct an answer as I can give; apologies to Mr. Spock.

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Posted on July 10th, 2006Comments RSS Feed
6 Responses to Vulcan tendencies
  1. John W. Perkins
    October 10, 2008 at 1:31 pm

    “Live long and prosper!”

  2. Men are “highly illogical” MC….. always remember that quote!

  3. Being held hostage in a Blue State
    October 11, 2008 at 8:06 am

    Unlike NIT and WIT above rather than jump on the gender train and suck up,

    Before Star Trek vulcanization was known as a process used and promoted by Firestone Tires it had nothing to do with some pointy eared space traveler. Your most common of dictionaries defines it as: the process of treating crude or synthetic rubber or plastic materials chemically to give it useful properties such as strength elasticity and/or stability. The dynamics of any relationship or tire require those properties. How you get there is the process.

    A second way to look at it view would be there is a sox for every shoe. As such, shoes from the most stylish to the most functional only work with the appropriate sox. Certianly you wouldn’t advocate an athletic sox with an open toed sling back. From Marshalls to Neimans you’ll find the right combination.

    Rehashing this “old” stuff has become a bit of a bore, what’s wrong brain freeze? Writers Cramp?

    The Mensa club will now complain I was mean, harsh, cruel, ………etc etc. They could benefit from a chemical enhancement of a different kind.

  4. Well,well, well look who is giving romantic advice ..Dr.Nil!And you would be correct Hans Gruber I am Wit!I sure know you have a lot of sox as opposed to sex hmmm?
    Actually you did make a bit of sense BS but enough on that I must be own my way to do some world shakin…Remember MC “sometimes nothing is a real cool hand”…..Luke

  5. That would be ON my way yikes….What I have here is failure to communicate …… Sheeeeshh MC!

  6. Being held hostage in a Blue State
    October 12, 2008 at 12:34 am

    Wit how easily you rise to the bait. It was not romantic advise merely an observation of human nature something which based upon your comments it is obvious you know very little about.

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