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The Case Against Marriage A Book in Progress by Glenn Campbell “Read it or weep!” Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Next Chapter>> Production Notes | College Lecture | Glenn's Home Page   NOTE: This work has been ABANDONED as too long-winded and repetitive, but you are welcome to get whatever you can from it. The essential ideas are best summarized in a single page. Most of my new philosophical musings on relationships, etc. are now found in Kilroy Cafe. —GC, 5/09

Escape from Narcissism

The Case Against Marriage - Chapter 17 - 7/30/07

When we first became conscious, we were the center of the universe. Our parents revolved around us and whenever we had needs, we cried out and they were fulfilled. Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and even God existed for us, listening to our wishes and responding to our needs.

Later, we discovered with increasing alarm that we were not the center of the universe at all but only a peripheral player, one of billions. The world, we found, didn't really care about us and for the most part didn't even know we existed. There was no Santa Claus. The whole notion that we were the center of things was a cruel set-up!

Intellectually, we can all accept that we are one of billions, but emotionally it is difficult to wrap our head around. We are all trapped to some extent in that childish me-centered universe. We no longer believe in Santa Claus but we may still believe that the world should give us what we want and that by wishful thinking alone we can make it happen.

The real world can be brutal. It operates according to its own independent physics, not ours, and our private wishes have little effect. If our ship hits an iceberg, we can pray all we want, but it is physics that determines whether the ship sinks, not God.

That me-centeredness is called "narcissism," and it can be incredibly difficult to escape. Due to our (hopefully) benevolent upbringing, we have an instinctive belief in the fairness of the world. The world, in fact, is not fair, has never been fair, and only our selective blindness makes us believe it is.

Narcissism leads us to believe that when we fall in love, our needs are going to be met. We don't see are partner for who he or she really is but for who we want them to be. If the relationship doesn't work out, we blame the other person, but it really wasn't their fault. They were merely the Rorschach ink blot upon which we projected our own desires.

Narcissism leads us to believe that either (a) things are going to all work out for the better, or (b) we're screwed no matter what we do. In fact, neither is true. The world is going to crank along according to its own rules, and whether we benefit from it or are hurt by it is mainly random.

If we invest in the stock market when it happens to be rising, we think we are golden. We see ourselves as incredibly skilled when in fact only dumb luck made us successful. We spend our good fortune as though it were endless. When the market finally falls again, we are totally unprepared for the roller coaster dip on the other side. "This isn't right," we say.

No, it isn't right. It's just the market doing its own thing. Any intentions we pinned on the market—to help us or hurt us—were our own private delusions.

Narcissism encourages us to use prayers, talismans and good luck charms to try to get what we want. To try to make success happen, we surround ourselves with the symbols of success. We deal with failure by not looking at it and pretending it doesn't exist. We consider any tragedy that happens to us to be an anomaly and not the natural state of the world.

A wedding is a narcissistic event. We are surrounding ourselves with all the symbols, good luck charms and press releases of success, thinking this will make success more likely. We think our marriage will work because we wish it to be so. We are forgetting the most important element: "It's the relationship, stupid!"

The only antidote for narcissism is to set aside your wishes and try to truly, deeply understand the independent mechanisms of the world. You can pray for rain or pray that a storm doesn't sink your ship, but the most effective approach in the long run is to thoroughly understand how the weather works. Then you are best prepared to deal with it on its own terms. What you'll find in the end is that you can't do much to change the weather; you can only predict and adapt to it and, if necessary, get out of its way.

People can fall in love and yet be remarkably clueless about their partner. They choose not to inquire too deeply because doing so could dispell their narcissistic fantasy. If you think you have married Prince Charming but he displays some un-charming attributes, you are going to sweep them under the carpet for as long as possible. You don't want to know how he really works inside because that might destroy your delusions and force you back to loneliness.

Narcissism pretty much guarantees that our first few romantic relationships are going to fail. Our expectations are too self-centered and unrealistic, and we choose our partner based on irrelevant criteria. If we remain narcissistic, then we blame the world for our own mistakes. All men/women are assholes, we claim, because we ourselves certainly didn't do anything wrong.

If we are wise, however, then we will begin to get a clue: Our romantic failures were our own damn fault. We chose not to thoroughly understand what was happening but instead let our wishes and gonads do our thinking for us.

You may get all starry-eyed about the opposite sex and want to worship them. But to truly get along with them, you have to strip them of their magic and learn see them as a childish jerk just like you. There are psychological mechanisms operating inside them, and your job is to understand these processes rationally, even if this knowledge leads you to a conclusion you don't want.

In your first attempts at romance, you tend to unrealistically idolize your romantic partner and are shocked to find later on that they are somebody different. That's you own failing, not theirs. Your partner may have told lies, but they were flimsy ones; had you not been blinded by love you would have seen through them in an instant. Your partner was just being who he is. You are the one who turned him into a White Knight.

We may think of love as a selfless giving to others, but a significant element of it is narcissism. We are drawn to someone for what we want them to be rather than who they really are.

Hopefully, after we crash and burn a few times, we'll learn a thing or two. There is a limit to how much anyone else can fulfill our own emotional needs, and wishing for something doesn't make it so.

In the beginning, we look up at the clouds and see what we want to see. After some bad experiences when clouds don't give us what we want, we may learn to look at clouds more scientifically, as water vapor and air currents. We will lose the fantasy, but we may gain a better relationship with the clouds and get more of what we want from them.

Continued in Chapter 18