When you have feels for some dumb asshole, how do you get him to fall in love with you, or, if he's already in love with you, how do you get him to show his affection/love like an adult? Or is that too much to ask even in the witchcraft and wizardly world?
While I pondered your question, I went out to tend to my patch of thornapple. I took my pewter spade and dug at the weeds advancing around its base. “Why would I know anything about tempting the affection of one who sees not my glory?” I thought. “What time would I have for the fools of this realm who flinch at the touch of strong feeling?” I noticed I was digging at the weeds with unnecessary vigor. My spade struck the earth with overmuch force—brutality even. As a witch I do not turn away from myself—I leave no part of myself unknown. Most of the time.
You may have remarked that I have made mention of maelstroms with increasing frequency as of late. This is not mere chance, I must confess. It is because I was in love with one. This battered at the door of my memory; I did not wish to see who knocked, yet I knew.
In the beginning, I did not dream that my acquaintance with this maelstrom would become anything more than the affection between two powerful forces. We met as I traveled to my sea cave and he would visit me there on occasion. I was always glad to see him but I thought little of him when he departed. I had and have other preoccupations: Enigmas, Tasks, and so on. I had no need of a broommate.
And yet one day with the force of a dust storm called down by Ilumer, Storm-god, I was swept away with longing. I could not outrun or outfly it. It poured down my gullet and was in me. I could think of nothing else.
For a brief, a very brief time, we were together. It was. Well you know how it was. It was like that. I felt the Wheel of Time stop turning and believed it would stay arrested in that moment. And then he was gone. Of course I could have gone to him: it is not difficult for a witch to locate a maelstrom. But he knew that. He knew that I could have found him, and he knew I would not debase myself thusly if he did not come to me.
Though I felt much debased. Despondent. I cackled not for many moons. Many, many moons. A strange pain shot through my limbs at every thought of the maelstrom. I would, I am ashamed to say, sometimes fly nearby his chosen spot in the vast, cold ocean and pretend I was not looking at him but would look. Once he looked back. Only once.
And yet now I think of this maelstrom, the one who ran from me, and I think, as the Sightless say: oh yeah. That. I think: what an odd interlude. It was all very serious and yet it was not. I will not detail the broommates I have taken since then, but they have been wonderful and vexing and fascinating and strange. What a wide realm! I sometimes forget. A maelstrom is after all a being of particular fascinations. He spun me to the very depths.
However we are all beings of particular fascinations. A broommate worthy of you will stride gladly, boldly through your door. This broommate will admire your visage and look you in the eye, even if to catch your eye would terrify most (been there). I could offer spells, but I will not. Ungiving is ungiving. Let ungiving make him Unworthy. Leave this Flinchy McFlincherson out in the cold open sea they have chosen for themselves. Tis but a brief moment before you also will think only: oh yeah. That.
I had my eyes dye-laited this morning (a special process involving goat’s milk obtained during a lunar eclipse and the powder of six crushed tourmaline gems; a bit out of fashion but I find it enhances the mesmerizing sparkle of my gaze just-so), so while my Sight remains ever crystalline, my sight is a little fucked. Reading your message, squinting my pearlescent eyes, I at first thought you had FIELDS for some dumb asshole! I nearly spirited myself to your abode that very second, so fearful was I that you were preparing to violate the first of the three cardinal rules by which I live: 1) Never give your land to a man! (For reasons I cannot express, 2 & 3 must not be revealed at the present.
Oh, how I cackled with relief when my vision cleared. Just feels, feels! Feels, which can be provoked by seemingly anything: sunrise from the outer atmosphere; the speedy regrowth of a tooth that has fallen out; a perfectly murky chalice of swamp tea. And, yes, unfortunately: human boys.
The truth, though hard at first to stomach: you cannot coax better or different behavior from a dumb asshole by changing your own behavior. The dice fall as they may, you cannot coax better or different behavior from a dumb asshole at all, by any means. Once the dumb asshole has revealed himself to you thrice — once you have gazed three times into the boring (shallow) depths of his be-asshol’d soul — it is best to turn around and walk away. (Hence the old rhyme: “Once he be an asshole thrice, to entertain him is a vice.”)
This will sting briefly, and then the sting will fade to nothing. (I find it useful in these moments to gaze at a particularly beautiful face until the sting fades; if you enjoy the sting, just ride that wave of feeling to the shore.)
In this dimension, time is finite. Spend yours on yourself, and/or on love not emitted from an asshole.
For all the reasons my sisters have shared, your time, luminous mind, feels, fields, eels, etc. are wasted on dumb assholes-though to your credit, not as wasted as they would be on smart assholes, who are the eleventh plague, that which was too terrible for even the fierce witch known today as the J Source to look square in the weaving of Exodus.
But you asked and I will answer. I give you a series of relatively simple ice and fire enchantments. Simple, BUT. The timing of them must be precise, and because we desire these dumb assholes, feels or eels distract us… why, we have better ideas! we can change things faster!
As a result, this series is executed correctly by at most, three witches in an Age. Strangely, in this Age, two of those three were in The Waitresses. Hail and Praise, Sisters Patty Dona(many)hue(d) and Tracy Wormworth, Wyrmworker. (In the Age before last, I was one of the three. In this, I have fumbled it a few times and decided to refrain.)
Before I begin. I assure you that there are many other ways to receive, encourage, or happen into love, this is simply the way to force it. May I also assure you this sequence is, while a powerful binding, not an everlasting knot.
Ice spell 1: Squamish. Become or summon a chill wind that brushes the side of his face, forces a shiver and a hunch, a turn to sight the source by which point the source has moved to assay again past the other side. Be near him but only peripherally visible. If he looks at you, move. If he looks for you, leave the room. When he is done looking you return to taunt the corners of his eyes again. Brighter burners may catch his attention in the meantime. He may go home with them. He may fall in love with them. Many lose their way here. The feels are too strong, the eels need feeding, “I must intervene!” Do not. Stay, at nine or three o’clock, always, otherwise occupied, always.
Fire Spell 1: Hestia’s Embrace. Notice him, finally, and notice him with praise. None is too extravagant if you have first iced him well. Be a hot hearthfire that brings him even to flush as if with embarrassment at being so lauded. Ask questions you know the answer to, admire his tattoos. Just admire the shit out of his tattoos just literally—literally—nonstop. He will find a comfortable warmth now, settle in before your praise, put his feet up, have his valet bring him his dressing gown. You are comfortable now too, is this not what you wanted, you before each other, him at ease? DO NOT STAY HERE. Many. Many are lost at this phase. DO NOT STAY HERE. He will warm up then stride out into the world glowing with warmth stolen from you. DO NOT STAY HERE.
Ice Spell 2: Sister Siachen. The flame goes out and an otherworldly chill creeps into the room. You were right there! No. Now you are the ice below ice, the unmelting heart of a glacier, the ancient river that chills the whole earth even as we assault it, hail ice-river, you have been loved, we grieve you in your wasting. Nothing is warm near you. The once cozy heart-hearth room is a tiny ice cave in your side in which he huddles. Many here ache seeing their longed-for, even beloved, dumb asshole suffer, and err in igniting fully again to melt his terror and unease. They too are lost.
Fire Spell 2: The Damp Matchbook. He fumbles for warmth. He tries to light a match. It fails. He tries to light a match. It fails. He tries to light a match. It works!
A gust sets it out. He tries again, more failures, then a brief success. You see of course that you are. Every second-to-sixth match, and you are the gust. That praise he had settled into before, back in the hearthspell, so comfortable, so assured, seems to come back to him but. So thinly. So rarely. But just. Often. Enough. That he thinks it might save his life. If you are going to fuck him now is the time. You may—in fact, do—sleep over. But do not drink his coffee, that is, we know, how Hades trapped Persephone. Do not program his name in your iPhone; that is a spell that takes eons to undo because it backs up both to the internet and the Other internet.
While you are willing to continue the match-spell, he is yours.
You see that if you have, in fact, feels for him, it will be excruciating to complete and continue this sequence. And. You may hate this man for his weakness by the end. Also this is just not very nice, is this the witchcraft you want to master? But. You asked.
As for your second question. If he loves you and will not speak it, well, you have done the admirable and correct thing by attempting to make a man do work before asking it of a woman (that is, of yourself—of course I See you, Asker, and See that you are a woman). But that having failed, the only hope is to speak your own affection. Even if he spurns it, there is freedom.
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