Let's Make It Traditional

I read Proust has a passage on how an old lady passed her time imagining her whole household, with everyone inside, completely burning down. Now, if anyone confronted her with her fantasy she would have stoutly denied them, but a valid interpretation is that this portrayal presents the complexity of human psyche more accurately.
After all, you can jerk off to something you would never ever actually want to do, the pop magazines with sexual quizzes say.

Last week, I attended a rowdy dinner in honour of my 15th high school graduation anniversary. Yes, it's always nice to pick an intimate restaurant, get wasted, meet old flames, and ruin everyone else's dinner by mentioning words like prick every third sentence.

And amid our grown-up admitting stuff, a friend told the story of how he fell in love with a hooker, he being a sailor. And - it's not one of those light-hearted funny stories but the fated moment in someone's life. He was half-crazy that he would never see her again, retching the night away.
And when I warned my conservative buddy that he should listen because this guy is telling him something usually considered abnormal, he indignantly and bravely shouted: it is normal!