AUTHOR'S NOTES
This is a piece I began working on several years ago, then dropped because I thought no one would really be all that interested in the interior workings of Niles' and Maris' relationship. However, now that she's back in center (non-)view on the show, I thought this might go over better.
A warning: This is not a fast-moving "potboiler," as they say, where there's a new plot turn every other paragraph. It's much more concernced with the psychological evolution of their relationship and what that reveals about Niles' character than it is with dramatic events. If that's not your thing, it may bore you. However, it's not entirely devoid of plot either, and I've tried to stay very faithful to the characters as they are on the show. So now you know. :)
Feedback is very, very welcome. I'll be posting a chapter or two a day right up to the point where I stopped writing years ago, so you can figure on at least ten or so chapters. (Each chapter will be one diary entry, by the way, which means some chapters will be very short and some very long. Oh, and also by the way, like I said, the beginning chapters will be two years old, so if the writing strikes you as crappy, remember, I was a youngun' back then. ;)) However, if people don't seem interested in the story - in other words, if I don't get any feedback - I'll probably leave it at that. So if you like it, let me know, and I'll see that you get more. :)
Without further ado.
Twelve Years of His Life: A Diary of the Maris Years
April 3, 1986
Met a woman at Cafe Nervosa today. Quite an attractive woman, too. So, of course, I panicked. I began by introducing myself as Criles Nane; then, asking her to join me for coffee, my hands shook so badly that I spilled my own all over her front (and down her decolletage; that damned swooping neckline was part of the reason I spilled it in the first place). Why did I even bother, anyway? If only I had been raised Catholic I could become a priest and put an end to this miserable frustration forever. I'd be forced to reconcile myself. By now I don't see any option other than to give up - if only my head could convince my heart (and hormones) of the fact. I'm twenty-nine and I have never been in a serious relationship... good God, I'm a twenty-nine year old virgin. Every so often that hits me fully, and I wonder if there's anyone in this world quite so pathetic as I.
I can't discuss this with anybody. It's not like I have any close friends; there were some at Yale, but we drifted apart after college, and so I have nobody. How does one even go about making friends? I really haven't any idea. When I was young, I had Frasier, of course. When he left for college, I suffered through the remaining years of prep school, borne up by my sense that I was smarter than the rest, that that was my place in the world. At that point I could be at the top of the class and a teacher's pet, and that was consolation enough. And there was Mother. At Yale, and later at Cambridge, there were friendships of proximity: roommates, classmates, clubs. But what is one to do when one's on one's own, living an adult life?
In high society, of course, there are no mysteries. There are certain people you must approach and with whom it behooves you to become acquainted; if you secure a friendly relationship with them, then you're in, and presto-chango, you have a circle. Of course, there is a distinct procedure to the act of initiating such an acquaintanceship. And naturally it's a tenuous bond at first, requiring a separate series of steps in order to strengthen and cement the relationship - but it's almost scientific in its precision, the lack of gray areas. It's all laid out very clearly, which is wonderful. Ah, the dance of elitism... But I'm not nearly well enough established in my field to have any hope of breaking into any such circle. Mother's status as a fairly eminent psychiatrist would be something of an in, I suppose, but then there's Dad, with his blue-collar background - and he is the parent who's still living. No, I'll have to wait for that - wait till I attain some recognition as a psychiatrist in my own right. For the moment, I'm at a loss.
But, of course, it isn't the lack of friendships which bothers me so much. My life certainly isn't lacking in personal interaction; helping my patients through their problems is extremely gratifying, almost like an idealized friendship - a friendship where I am truly needed and where my advice matters. Where I matter. I suppose most of the purpose of friendship is to provide mutual help. So I've got that down. But I want a woman. There, I've said it. In fact, I'll go further. I want sex. I'm sick of dreaming and, er, well, you know. oh, of course I know, and who else is going to read this? But I don't just want sex, either. I want someone to come home to - someone to care about and care for - someone to love. (Isn't that some wretched song by - oh, how would I know who it's by? I've heard it on the radio. The chorus goes "Can anybody find me somebody to love?" Oh, dear Lord, when I start looking to popular rock and roll hits to express my emotions, I must indeed be in dire straits.) You know, at this point I'm not even sure I understand the concept of love. I love my family, of course, but that's inevitable. Half my patients come to me and confide that they love their parents or siblings and hate them at the same time. I long to experience the searing rapture which has inspired most of the most magnificent works of art, even as I admit that I haven't the faintest conception what such a searing rapture would actually feel like. What does it mean to love someone passionately - that merging of soul (and, yes, body) which has preoccupied all the greatest poets, prosaists, and artists for centuries? I read Shakespearean sonnets and I feel that they might as well be written in Sanskrit.
Can anybody find me somebody to love?
This is a piece I began working on several years ago, then dropped because I thought no one would really be all that interested in the interior workings of Niles' and Maris' relationship. However, now that she's back in center (non-)view on the show, I thought this might go over better.
A warning: This is not a fast-moving "potboiler," as they say, where there's a new plot turn every other paragraph. It's much more concernced with the psychological evolution of their relationship and what that reveals about Niles' character than it is with dramatic events. If that's not your thing, it may bore you. However, it's not entirely devoid of plot either, and I've tried to stay very faithful to the characters as they are on the show. So now you know. :)
Feedback is very, very welcome. I'll be posting a chapter or two a day right up to the point where I stopped writing years ago, so you can figure on at least ten or so chapters. (Each chapter will be one diary entry, by the way, which means some chapters will be very short and some very long. Oh, and also by the way, like I said, the beginning chapters will be two years old, so if the writing strikes you as crappy, remember, I was a youngun' back then. ;)) However, if people don't seem interested in the story - in other words, if I don't get any feedback - I'll probably leave it at that. So if you like it, let me know, and I'll see that you get more. :)
Without further ado.
Twelve Years of His Life: A Diary of the Maris Years
April 3, 1986
Met a woman at Cafe Nervosa today. Quite an attractive woman, too. So, of course, I panicked. I began by introducing myself as Criles Nane; then, asking her to join me for coffee, my hands shook so badly that I spilled my own all over her front (and down her decolletage; that damned swooping neckline was part of the reason I spilled it in the first place). Why did I even bother, anyway? If only I had been raised Catholic I could become a priest and put an end to this miserable frustration forever. I'd be forced to reconcile myself. By now I don't see any option other than to give up - if only my head could convince my heart (and hormones) of the fact. I'm twenty-nine and I have never been in a serious relationship... good God, I'm a twenty-nine year old virgin. Every so often that hits me fully, and I wonder if there's anyone in this world quite so pathetic as I.
I can't discuss this with anybody. It's not like I have any close friends; there were some at Yale, but we drifted apart after college, and so I have nobody. How does one even go about making friends? I really haven't any idea. When I was young, I had Frasier, of course. When he left for college, I suffered through the remaining years of prep school, borne up by my sense that I was smarter than the rest, that that was my place in the world. At that point I could be at the top of the class and a teacher's pet, and that was consolation enough. And there was Mother. At Yale, and later at Cambridge, there were friendships of proximity: roommates, classmates, clubs. But what is one to do when one's on one's own, living an adult life?
In high society, of course, there are no mysteries. There are certain people you must approach and with whom it behooves you to become acquainted; if you secure a friendly relationship with them, then you're in, and presto-chango, you have a circle. Of course, there is a distinct procedure to the act of initiating such an acquaintanceship. And naturally it's a tenuous bond at first, requiring a separate series of steps in order to strengthen and cement the relationship - but it's almost scientific in its precision, the lack of gray areas. It's all laid out very clearly, which is wonderful. Ah, the dance of elitism... But I'm not nearly well enough established in my field to have any hope of breaking into any such circle. Mother's status as a fairly eminent psychiatrist would be something of an in, I suppose, but then there's Dad, with his blue-collar background - and he is the parent who's still living. No, I'll have to wait for that - wait till I attain some recognition as a psychiatrist in my own right. For the moment, I'm at a loss.
But, of course, it isn't the lack of friendships which bothers me so much. My life certainly isn't lacking in personal interaction; helping my patients through their problems is extremely gratifying, almost like an idealized friendship - a friendship where I am truly needed and where my advice matters. Where I matter. I suppose most of the purpose of friendship is to provide mutual help. So I've got that down. But I want a woman. There, I've said it. In fact, I'll go further. I want sex. I'm sick of dreaming and, er, well, you know. oh, of course I know, and who else is going to read this? But I don't just want sex, either. I want someone to come home to - someone to care about and care for - someone to love. (Isn't that some wretched song by - oh, how would I know who it's by? I've heard it on the radio. The chorus goes "Can anybody find me somebody to love?" Oh, dear Lord, when I start looking to popular rock and roll hits to express my emotions, I must indeed be in dire straits.) You know, at this point I'm not even sure I understand the concept of love. I love my family, of course, but that's inevitable. Half my patients come to me and confide that they love their parents or siblings and hate them at the same time. I long to experience the searing rapture which has inspired most of the most magnificent works of art, even as I admit that I haven't the faintest conception what such a searing rapture would actually feel like. What does it mean to love someone passionately - that merging of soul (and, yes, body) which has preoccupied all the greatest poets, prosaists, and artists for centuries? I read Shakespearean sonnets and I feel that they might as well be written in Sanskrit.
Can anybody find me somebody to love?