At the risk of sharing domestic details, I am going to use my own recent experience as the illustration for a serious strategic dilemma.  It turns out that what I like best about stories is finding out how they got “there.”  There is an outcome of some kind, generally, for kinds of show I watch, a satisfying outcome.  Once I know what it is, I take real pleasure is watching how the elements of that outcome are assembled.  My wife, Bette, does not.  

She likes the development, the tension, and eventually, the surprising resolution.

So we differ.  I consider myself fortunate that she regards this difference as a difference of styles.   The official view of most (previously, all) the members of our book group is that it is just wrong to read or watch a story that way.  The reasons why it is wrong vary a little from time to time.  Most often it is just “That’s not the right was to read a story!” Sometimes, it takes the form of what the reader owes to the author. The author wrote it to be read in this way—front to back—so we should read it as the author intended. 

I consider myself fortunate in this matter because Bette does not take a position of this question.  She just watches or reads in the way she most enjoys and that is front to back.  Which brings us to the TV series A Man on the Inside, starring Ted Danson in the role illustrated in the picture.  Bette and I watched the first episode together.  Her response was that it was an interesting premise, even with what we both thought of as a clunky beginning.  I proposed that we watch the last episode to see if it stayed clunky all the way through.

We both liked where the story landed at the end.  It stoked my natural curiosity about how they managed to get from here to there.  Watching the pieces fall into place is enjoyable for me and if it takes several viewings, then that is what it takes.  Bette lost all interest in the show because she now knows how it comes out and the suspense of wondering how it was going to come out is the principal pleasure of watching.

I wasn’t really surprised by her reaction.  It is fully in line with what she has usually said before.  Nevertheless, I was surprised.  I proposed that we watch the next to last episode, now that we knew it arrived at an interesting conclusion.  She didn’t really see any reason to watch the next to last episode because after all, we already knew how it came out.  So I am going to need to find times other than our main TV watching time to satisfy my own curiosity..

At the risk of offering what other people call “spoilers”—taking Bette’s view of stories for granted—I will offer her an example of what I like about the story.  I now know that at the end, there is a reconciliation of two men who have somehow become estranged.  Charles, the Ted Danson character, has been pretending to be a resident in a senior center.  Because he is a genuinely good person, he does a lot of good while he is “on the job” there.  The friend whose estrangement is most vividly portrayed, is offended that Charles was not the person he said he was.  That is, of course, true.

I am quite sure that between these two men there will be an initial friction, that they will get over it, and that they will come to enjoy each other’s company.  I haven’t see that happen, but I want to.  Knowing what I know about the way the conflict is resolved, I will be free to pay attention to every small movement toward or away from it.

I will like that even though I will have to do it by myself.