This section was my workspace for philosophy essays between July 2006 and April 2008.
I call this "Prehistoric Kilroy" because it gave me practice for more
disciplined essays in Kilroy Cafe.Also see my philophical blog and Twitter feed.
Issue #51, 12/21/2006
The Grudge
— or —
The Male vs. Female Broken Heart Smackdown
By Glenn Campbell
Family Court Philosopher
In the battlefield of romance, there are two questions
that are asked over and over:
A: "Why are men such assholes?" and
B: "Why are women such assholes?"
The experience seems universal: You fall in love, or at
least start heading that way, and this person who looked so
perfect does something dastardly that shatters your faith
in the opposite sex. Six months or six years into the
relationship, you discover that they were lying to you all
along. They aren't the person they initially portrayed
themselves as. They are a user and an abuser, and you fell
for their con game.
Members of your own sex would never behave in this way. Your
same-sex friends are all honorable, and they share your
observations about the other gender: assholes, every one.
It's enough to make you swear off those jerks and turn to
members of your own sex for deep emotional fulfillment.
That's when you discover a startling truth: Members of your
own sex are assholes, too!
You could generalize the question and just ask, "Why are
people such assholes?" but this doesn't cut to the heart of
the issue. A more meaningful question is:
C: "What is there about romance that brings out the asshole
in people?"
Your same-sex friends seem honorable because you don't have
the same expectations of them, and you interact with them
only when it is comfortable for both of you. There is a lot
about your friends that you have never had an opportunity to
experience, because you have never seen them under extreme
emotional pressure.
You might learn more about your same-sex friend if you
accompanied them through their divorce proceedings. If you
are there to see the relationship collapse, then you might start
asking one or both of these questions:
D. "How did my friend become so mean?" and/or
E. "How did my friend fall for this jerk to begin with?"
When your friend is getting divorced, they no doubt have a
horrifying tale to tell about their partner's abuse. You are
hearing only one side of the story, of course. If you talk
to their spouse, you'll hear an entirely different account: It
was your friend who was abusive. No doubt, there are plenty
of lies and half-truths floating around, and it can be
challenging to sort them out. Only one thing is certain: You
didn't know your friend as well as you thought you did.
Only in romance are the stakes so high. The expectations,
in fact, are supernatural. You expect the other person to
walk on water. They are supposed to solve your existential
problems, like "How do I give my life meaning?" and "How do
I stop being alone?" You can accept a lot of bullshit when
you are desperate and your whole life seems to be on the
line.
There are con artists of both sexes who set out from the
beginning to woo the lovelorn, drain their bank accounts,
then split. These cases are rare, however. More often, the
deception is mutual and exists as much inside you as it does
in them.
When you "fell in love," you chose to see in the other
person what you wanted to see, and you ignored everything
else. Of the thousand personality traits they exhibited,
you focussed in on the few that served your needs. "We have
so much in common," you said, while you closed your eyes to
everything you didn't have in common. If some disturbing
trait emerged in the beginning, you may have brushed it under the
carpet because you don't want to be alone again and have to
start over. "I can work with that," you said.
When what you ignored comes back to haunt you and the
relationship collapses, you may react in the opposite
direction in any new relationship, seizing on any minor
difference as a reason to reject it. Over time, your
frustration with the opposite sex can become a twisted and
dysfunctional grudge. You despise those assholes but are
still drawn to them. Of course, that's not much of a basis
for a successful relationship.
But if you chose to see something that wasn't there, it is
hard to blame the opposite sex. It's like looking up at the
stars and seeing the constellations. The stars didn't
intend to display those meaningful patterns; you made them up
in your head. If you make decisions based on what you think
the stars are telling you, it isn't necessarily the stars
fault if you choose poorly.
Everyone has a personality, and it doesn't change very much
in adulthood. The person you divorced is pretty much the
same person you married; you are just seeing more of them.
All of the data you needed was present before the marriage,
but you didn't look for it and you chose not see it when it
presented itself. Throughout all of this, the other person
was just being who they were. It was you who chose to deify
them.
You can say that both men and woman are assholes, but that's
not very helpful. People are people, and are going to
respond in certain ways to existential stress. Loneliness
and meaninglessness each have their own effects on people.
To try to find love, people will put on an act and will
blindly accept the act of others. It's not a matter of one
sex or another being defective. It's a problem of perception
and how desperation can alter it.
Men's and women's brains may be structured differently, but
that's not as big a gulf as the natural barriers between any
two individuals. With your same-sex friends, the
relationship only goes so deep. In romance, you desperately
want a greater merging, to a degree that might not be
possible.
And, frankly, most people may indeed be assholes, at least
under stress. People, generally speaking, are pretty screwed up.
Perhaps mental illness is not the exception in the human
species but the overwhelming rule. When we try to dig below
the friendly facade of our companions, we might find a lot of ugly
things we don't want to see. Intimacy gives us a special
opportunity to experience this underside.
To survive at romance, what we need is less desperation and
more clarity of observation. There are no white knights.
Who you see in front of you
is really a little lost child dressed up like a
white knight and trying to play the role. To know this
person and not be deluded about him, you need to understand
the child inside. He evolved in a certain way to deal with
the problems of his existance, and you are probably not going to
change that basic style.
He is not going to rescue you, and you can't rescue him. The
most you can expect is occasional contact, where one little
lost child talks to the other and shares some of their
experience. It's not going to be a solution to any of your major
problems, which are yours alone to solve. It might just
be a little bittersweet companionship along the way.
—G.C.
Reader Comments
“see INTIMACY, n., from "Devil's Dictionary" by A. Bierce”
—tularetrump@hotmail.com 12/21/06 (rating=2)
“One of the most depressing texts I ever read, which basically make me conclude that men are not worth any of the heartache they give. Whether the author liked it or not, men are far more game-playing than women.”
— 4/12/07
“seems like unbiased truth”
— 6/13/07 (rating=3)
“Excellent; insightful!”
— 9/8/07 (rating=5)
“the conclusion is merciful”
—struggling 11/27/09 (rating=3)