Over lunch, M and I talked about the woman whom I interviewed. I told M about the bruises I saw on the woman's arms and the matter-of-fact way she showed them to me during the interview. The woman said that her husband, who came home drunk last night, hit her. She was applying for the job because she felt that this was a way for him to see that she was useful, too. I just couldn't understand it. Why are some women such a glutton for punishment? And in this day and age when every possible liberty has been afforded us. Why do they let men do this? Is love the only thing we can blame or is it something else; something more legit and comprehensible to the average human being?

M gets remarkably trite when she's eating. She tells me that no one wants to get hurt, that no one's actually asking for it. I tell her that I know that. Then M continues with her spiel on how abuse takes different forms, reminding me of one instance that I would have gladly forgotten. M is particularly adept at illustrating befuddling situations; her trick is to find something about that experience that you can relate to in another, but not so different, level so that you can understand it from where you're coming from.

"Or we can think of it this way, " she says, " that women do all these remarkably insipid things because they want to cope with the life they've chosen. They want to say, Hey, world, I'm okay. The superhumanwoman complex."

"Nah."

"Alright. You might be thinking about the "motherly instinct" phenomenon which I used to buy but I don't anymore because so many people are using it as a sorry excuse. It has become redundant. Anyway, has it ever occured to anyone that women put up with bad men -- not because they think by doing this, they'll be loved more or that eventually she'll be able to turn him into someone decent --but women do it because they're trying their hardest to find out why they still love the person after everything that went on? It's more of nostalgia than love, really. Same goes for people who cheat on their significant others, for people who run after the same person for years. They want to put a finger on the reasons why they still love her or him, why they can't find it in themselves to leave. They think, maybe tomorrow is the day that he will wake up from whatever it is that's ailing him and he'll remember me. You see, they can't miss a single second of the nightmare they're living in. That's because they might regret turning their backs on the person on that very day when everything turns back to normal again. All that we as bystanders can do is sit still and hope that they would realize how tired they've gotten of chasing the ghost of the person who they fell in love with. Because some people don't get it. Some people don't get that people change."

And after this long tirade, she resumes eating her lunch. Today, it's Cesar Salad from Wendy's and a cheese sandwich. I sit beside her and stare at nothing.