Not Proposal

Given that I do not have a girlfriend, consider the following proposition:

"I miss the woman who is not my girlfriend." The definite article here implies that there is something exceptional about the woman who is not my girlfriend, and there is! But it's not readily identifiable to an addressee. The deictics of the sentence fall apart because when all women are women who are not my girl-friend, it is unclear to any addressee who the woman who is not my girlfriend might be. The indefinite "I miss a woman who is not my girlfriend" is much more readily accepted as true. No additional context is needed. "A woman who is not my girlfriend," is readily intelligible, but vague enough so as to not be useful in identifying the woman (it does retain its use in characterizing the speaker as someone who is mourning the absence of a woman who is defined by a lack of romantic proximity to this speaker.

This meaning is more pragmatic than semantic, though. The woman in question may be the speaker's wife, for instance, so that assumption would not hold. Because this example is true to life, I can assure you that the woman who is not my girlfriend is even further from being my wife). More deictically sound than "a woman who is not my girlfriend" is "the woman who is my not girlfriend." Here, given the possessive "my," the woman is defined through a possessive relationship to the speaker. It is clear that she is not his girlfriend, but being "my not girlfriend" lends a personal specificity that allows an addressee to more clearly envision the relation between speaker and the object of the proposition.

I miss my not girlfriend. She is not my girlfriend and she is not near me. While she has always been not my girlfriend, she was at one point near me and I've grown chemically dependent on that presence. Now, my not girlfriend is not near me and I am not well. Where she has been and currently is not, there are vestiges of her presence. I am smelling not her. The scent of not her is on my pillows. This is the chemistry of her skin, but her skin is not her. She is not in the gifts she has given me. Looking at pieces of her intention will conjure not her, but the idea of her. I miss my not girlfriend so much I've begun to miss things that are not her. I miss her, and so I miss her touch. Her touch is not her. I miss the earnest of her affect. The earnest of her affect is not her. I miss her unabashed cringe. Her unabashed cringe is not her. And even if it were, she is not my girlfriend. Still, I grope and I grasp. Everything within reach is not my not girl-friend. This simply will not do.

Asa