Will you ever love me again, and if so, what will that feel like?

I’ve been giving something a lot of thought lately. The issue I’m wrestling with isn’t an easy one. It has te potential to change my conception of myself as a man, my identity, my life itself. I’ve consulted some friends, and others close to me, the ones who know me best.
The question is this:
Am I the kind of asshole who wears a cravat?
Increasingly, I think the answer may be: yes.

Berlinerdom

Hear me out.
I’ve long wanted to wear a cravat. Ever since watching Scooby-Doo as a child, I would sit and stare at that strange piece of red mystery that hung from Fred’s neck, just above his proud, jutting chest.
“Wow!” I thought ot myself as a six-year-old. “What is that?”
That was just a tiny slice of panache. That was flair: deep, manly, heterosexual flair. That was the human equivalent of a lion’s mane.
And I wanted it. I wanted it so very badly. That red exclamation point of virility. But my mother sat me down and explained why I couldn’t have one. Cravat’s were extinct, she told me. They died out in the sixties, the last having been seen worn by George Lazenby.

Neues museum

And so I packed up my dreams of wearing a cravat. Packed them up and hit them away in that part of myself where I stored all my other childhood dreams. We all have that special cabinet within ourselves, don’t we? THat place where we store teh dreams of being a fighter pilot, a Jedi Knight, a cowboy. The dreams we still take out and play with now and then. I thought my childhood dream was safely stowed away forever.
Until I came to Berlin.

Intersection of Karl-Marx Allee and Paris Commune

And here, at the dawn of the 21st century, on the cusp of a new era for humankind, the men of Berlin have cast off the shackles of a low and meager past, and turned their eyes to the bright new tomorrow…nay, *today* of the cravat. They are *everywhere*. They crowd the street with color and light, and once again men produly assert their masculinity with that splash of insouciant color around the neck.
They are, in a word, total assholes.
The kind of asshole I want to be.
My greatest fear is that when I return home, people will say that I’m still the same asshole who left. But with a cravat, people will say “He left for Europe for a few months, and now he’s the sort of asshole who wears a cravat.” And I hope before I get myself killed on my journeys (there actually is sort of a prophecy about my demise, more on that later) I’ll accidentally impregnate some lucky girl with the Son of Vagabond. And I hope when he’s old enough he’ll turn to his saintly mother and ask:
“Mom? What kind of an asshole was my dad?”
And she’ll look soulfully off into the deistance, into the mists of time where the memoryt of one passionate night in Kuala Lampur resides and she’ll say: “Son, your father was the kind of assjole who waore a cravat.”
And he’ll grimace, and sigh and say “Oh. *That* kind of asshole.”
Yes indeed, brothers and sisters. That kind of asshole.
They cost 6 euros at Esprit.