Named after a plot point in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, this phenomenon occurs when an otherwise powerful, intelligent and attractive woman goes to sleep one night and wakes up the next morning in love with an ass.
This complex mostly strikes women, although I’m sure there’s a male equivalent. (Tell me in the comments what it should be called.) I am posting this for any ladies who might be suffering this malady. You will not find it in the DSM-IV, JAMA, NIHM Journal, APA newsletter or any psychiatric treatise, yet it plagues us all the same.
Sometimes the woman knows in advance that he’s an ass, but she starts sleeping with the guy anyway. Maybe she takes additional lovers to prove to herself she is more Squirrel than Moose, to assure herself that she won’t get attached to the guy. Sometimes she doesn’t realize what an ass he is when they start dating because she’s so mesmerized by his wit, the sweat of his meaty pecks and the sparkle in his dick eyes. Or he’s simply done a spectacular job of hiding his stinky, robust cheek-a-tude.
Then, one morning, she wakes up and she’s in love.
With an ass.
If for some reason the realization that he’s an ass hasn’t already come, it hits now. Hard. The moment she gazes at his head on the pillow next to hers, her heart ka-banging against her ribcage, she also realizes that he is a world-class jack-lete with gold medals from the Jackass Olympics.
It’s not unusual for him to ask to borrow money at breakfast that morning.
And she’s stuck. She can’t love him, but there she fucking is. Her friends hate the guy — hell, maybe she hates the guy — but she cannot get away from him. She’s in luuuurv! And lust, too, probably.
Woe is she.
She’ll bide her time like a bounty hunter, waiting for the opportunity to nab that little fairy fucker, Puck, and make him taste shoe leather until he coughs up those eye drops. And in the meantime she’ll soak in frothy tubs of self-loathing, unable to understand why this has happened.
The true antidote to this complex comes when she can get away from the ass for enough time. Scraps of manufactured pride can help create the wedge until a little real pride sprouts in the gap. That weensy sprout must be watered and tended every day as it grows into a mighty forest of self-respect and she’s a woman at ease with herself, understanding just how powerful, intelligent and attractive she really is. It is then and only then that she can go out and get what she truly needs and wants.
And not a moment sooner.