“There’s nothing so sweet as wallowing in it is there?” (Winterson, 26)
This quote highlights the narrator’s desire for dramatic and emotionally charged relationships making it seem as if they enjoy the inevitable demise of romance. Their frequent attraction to married women illuminates their conscious effort to engage in relationships that are set up for failure. At this point in the novel, the reader becomes accustomed to the narrator’s cyclical short-lived affairs. Despite recognizing the narrator’s toxic behaviors, the seductive and honest language complicates the reader’s preconceived notions of morality. It is clear that the narrator understands the ways in which they are complicit in the end results of their relationships but they also recognize the addictive qualities of ill-fated affairs.
Following this question, the narrator states “wallowing is sex for depressives” (26) showing the ways in which certain situations warrant unhealthy behaviors as a way of coping. They romanticize their damaging decision making skills and through this, the reader is allured by the narrator’s acute self-awareness. By posing this question, the readers ask themselves the same thing, further entangling himself or herself in the narrator’s [ir]rationality. This passage precedes the narrator’s newest relationship with a woman who is not characteristic of the narrator’s past romances and has no markers of unpredictability. After the narrator’s various passionate affairs, they choose to attempt to place themselves in a type of “normal” relationship. Soon after, the narrator craves intensity of their past relationships and the anticipated disintegration following after.