I have a feeling there are two kinds of jealousy, and one is normal; some visceral, animal emotion whence you get fucking pissed at the idea of your sweetie with someone else. And not just in some “I can’t trust you, adios” or “you slut, you’re going to give me a disease” type way either – I guess it amounts to possessiveness, the same anger one gets when a possession is stolen, even if it gets stolen by someone who can . . . uhm . . . make it happier . . . I don’t fucking know.
But there’s a second kind of jealousy – or maybe this second kind is just an intellectualization of the first, or maybe it isn’t jealousy at all. Which is, one can think the words or deeds of his* lover are calculated to make him viscerally, bestially jealous. And one associates, right or wrong, such provocation with insecurity; thinking a person who engages in it does so to get some visible, violent reassurance of importance, being too insecure to be convinced of this importance with tenderness - and hence is probably ultimately a shitty lover because confident tenderness is the tits. So the 'provoked' lover gets pissy, dissappointed, even exhausted.
Do you know what I mean? Is this actually jealousy or is there a better name for it? Anyways, I’m perturbed at the moment because I have a feeling some people who are dear to me are getting needlessly provoked into the second type of jealousy, and it’s wiping them out. I hate seeing people get wiped out by each other. It’s the worst non-traumatic emotion I can think of, hands down – fucking horrible – like a goddamn looooong T.S. Eliot poem minus the imagery. And it can last for months, years even, because it's not quite enough all at once to make you stop loving whoever and after awhile you figure it's just normal. But is it totally unrealistic not just to hope, but to expect our relationships would be more refreshing tham exhausting?
Figaro isn’t tiring or provoking yet. Although he did talk too long about how nice Maggie Cheung looked in her wardrobe from In the Mood for Love , which (though true) I resented after I made a specific effort to spare his feelings by not mentioning the dream I’d just had about getting magnificently plowed by Stéphane Rousseau**. But martyr complexes are a different issue altogether.
*Just let me use the masculine as generic, please, it’s easier.
** Neither Figaro nor Stéphane Rousseau read this blog.
6 commenti:
I'm not sure I understand. Are you talking about when one partner deliberately goes out of their way to provoke the other partner into jealousy, in the vain hope that jealousy is some kind of display of attachment, thus allaying insecurities about their own attractiveness?
(See also, "He Hit Me, And It Felt Like A Kiss" by The Crystals.)
Yes, goodness, you said that so much more concisely. I suppose lots of people do it a little but lately I've been seeing such obvious examples of it.
If it's deliberate, than that's totally f*cked up. But I suspect that with a lot of people, it's not deliberate - it's this subconscious attention seeking behaviour which is reinforced by the attention it gets. In which case, that's what therapy/CBT is for.
I used to get accused of this sort of thing (back when I bothered having relationships) but usually by insecure fuckwits who didn't realise that my having a crush on some popstar was nothing to do with them or their ego, though they would take it as a smear on them due to their own insecurities.
Though that's probably not what you're talking about.
Not exactly what I'm talking about, no . . . though in the abstract yes, I guess. The examples at hand involve things more concrete than pop stars.
I guess what makes me pissy is that maybe it is an unconscious reaction to insecurity, but that's a shitty excuse because it's not fair to remain unconscious of something that causes your sweetie so much annoyance and dissappointment. But maybe I'm saying that today because it's friends who are getting provoked rather than provoking and I'm endlessly partial.
Well, that's why I've always been more in favour of pop star crushes than IRL crushes - because the former do not have the ability to damage relationships in the same way. I mean, who's ever going to actually run off with, say, the guitarist from Secret Machines? While having a crush in the same way on, for instance, the local bartender, is threatening in a slightly different way.
Anyway, insecurity doesn't excuse these things, but it does explain it. However, explanations are useless unless someone can somehow confront (is that the right word? maybe something less confrontational? "call them on"?) them on this, and suggest "Dude/Dudette, sort it out!"
Then again, what do I know about relationships?
Yeah . . . and one can only acknowledge one's own insecurity, and then hope Loverman/woman can work with them on it, rather than work with the insecurity on them. Trust, etc. Wearisome.
Who knows anything about anything, the only thing I know about relationships is that if I like someone, I should eat breakfast with them. Maybe a nice omelette with portobello mushrooms and ricotta and a delicious fruit salad.
Anyways, I like to take the divide a step further and confine my crushes to the dead or imaginary. Right now Figaro is only getting competition from Haydn, who, while no beauty queen, gave great head (in my imagination at least).
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