MANIAC - LOVE DERANGED

by Violet Shaw

  He was more inhibited and old-fashioned than anyone Valerie had met up to this point; he even categorically disapproved of one-night-stands.

  Finally he seemed more feminine than she herself.

  He wasn’t a man in her eyes any more; he was a sissy, a soft-boiled egg; an anti-macho.

  He didn’t even have a driver’s license, which would have at least given him one point toward manliness.

  He wasn’t interested in sports.

  He only played sports to enhance his standing on the model-market.

  And his job as a model was not manly, in and of itself.

  He telephoned his Mom and spoke with her for many hours during the week “to consult.”

  He was overly friendly to everyone, even if they were idiots. He behaved like a puppy who wanted to be petted and who sought attention.

  Work was supposed to be fun.

  He always slept until he awakened naturally and almost provocatively wrote “Good Morning” even at 1:00 p.m. in the afternoon, as if it were a matter of fact.

  He lay alone on his bed and looked at the star-filled night sky.

  He drank no coffee, just tea and cocoa. He also drank no alcohol, had never been drunk, fully soused like a man, and could therefore never have landed in a brothel thereafter.

  When is a man a man?

  Ben, in any case, seemed less and less so from day to day. Valerie found him more and more contemptible.

  She almost would have had some empathy for him and his fragile masculinity, if he hadn’t been so narcissistic.

  A feminine attribute or a few feminine attributes would have been great, and considered pleasant, an interesting combination of soft and hard. But in their totality his feminine characteristics simply repelled Valerie.

  And his total so-called emotions pertained only to himself.

  He had no feelings for Valerie and couldn’t actually judge her correctly. He was only attentive to his own feelings. He almost had some symptoms that could be considered autistic.

  And here she was being somewhat unfair to him. She knew that she expected too much of him; she had expectations that he wasn’t at all in a position to fulfill.

  It was unfair to use her own measuring stick, and to apply it to him.

  But he was also so mercilessly self-righteous and in love with himself, in his esoteric parallel world.

  His pseudo-tolerance was only egoistic. And his tolerance limits always ended at himself.

  His comfortable stay in his parallel world could make her furiously angry.

  He was as undemanding, boring, and passive as a pothead. Nothing seemed to rob him of his equanimity – yet almost everything was too much for him.

  He gave no inkling of any dynamic characteristics whatsoever. After a time, he affected her like a sleeping pill.

  At first, she actually enjoyed the calming effect that he had on her. Everything was like a vacation with him. Renewal. Almost meditation.

  She had the feeling that with him, she had finally arrived. Everyday stress disappeared in the few hours spent with him.

  At the beginning, his abstaining from material things, his modesty, his Spartan lifestyle, almost touched her somewhat.

  Abstinence was the reason that also prompted him to reject owning a watch, a television, a car, and his preference to neither possess nor wish for anything.

  But over time she discovered that without (material) wishes and goals, one also has no ambition.

  But why should he be dynamic and full of power? In the end he lived according to the Simple Needs principle: “I need nothing to be happy except myself!”

  Why should he ultimately work harder, if he demanded nothing from life, other than a hovel in which he lived, and frozen pizza?

  Ben downright basked in his ascetic lifestyle, and happily emphasized again and again that he didn’t need anything.

  Everything should evoke the impression of a Buddhist calmness.

  But for Valerie all of this evoked less and less enthusiasm and wonder, as she slowly admitted to herself.

  His view of life was akin to self-imposed homework.

  When one did nothing, one also could not know or be assured how good, mediocre, or even bad one was, so that a passive lifestyle also simplified many things. All things considered, she felt only abhorrence and loathing for him.

  He seemed downright “dematerialized” to her.

  On their last evening together, he reported that he had undergone psychotherapy since he couldn’t seem to find a suitable wife for himself and he wanted to know the reasons why.

  Even this topic was ultimately a narcissistic gaze in the mirror at a reflection of himself.

  And why he couldn’t find a suitable wife for himself seemed self-evident. Perhaps he should have tried it once with a man?!

  But had she indeed become a victim of her own self-deception?

  On the one hand, definitely, as Valerie had to admit to herself.

  On the other hand, Ben had certainly shown his “chocolate side” at the beginning, just as Valerie unconsciously did as well.

  He wanted to appeal to her and showed himself to be loose, calm, social, positive, always in a good mood, conciliatory – in short, as a person at ease.

  Their meeting proceeded like one of his casting calls: He wanted to sell himself well, and therefore sold himself as a Sonny-boy, and was friendliness itself. His particularly positive vibe immediately transferred to Valerie. At the beginning, he presented an entirely different picture of himself. In retrospect she recognized that it was a caricature that he had presented.

  As time went on, after the getting-to-know-you phase, Ben logically gave up his casting-call-character and showed another less attractive and more demanding side of himself.

  He was unbearably narcissistic, egocentric, selfish, petty, ponderous, lazy, idle, strenuous – and this in front of the background of his ever increasing declared beliefs in the eso -, psycho -, and eco-world. Ben occupied himself continuously with the apparently insane, but for him relevant, question if life was predestined by fate and therefore one was able to influence nothing, or if a person were in charge of his or her life and its concerns.

  That he was referring to the philosophical models of the Enlightenment, particularly to Descartes and the anti-Enlightenment with these thoughts, was completely unknown to him.

  But how could it have been known? Ultimately he had not attended any university – or in Ben’s parlance – any “uni” or other institution of higher learning, where with great certainty such learning was disseminated as a matter of course, so that now the difference between the self- and the other-directed life would not only and falsely have to be based on esoteric models of thought.

  Ben was enchanted again and again by this existential question about life, which developed into an existential question about meaning for him.

  And herein he found a justification for his personal failure, since he began with the premise that life was predetermined by fate; and he therefore had no influence to bear.

  And for that reason he spent most of his time waiting.

  Waiting for opportunities, appointments, telephone calls, love.

  And as a last consequence, for his fate, since he already represented the view that he couldn’t actively structure his life himself.

  Thereby, passivity became his life’s motto, a motto that implied a lethargic approach, and that fit in very well with his situation, since he wasn’t really suitable for very much – other than looking good.

  Beyond that, a great belief in his “chosen person” status was appended to his passive fate-determined path.

  Not an approximation, the slogan “I follow the star that shines within me!” was displayed in large letters of his homepage.

  Which star was that, please? Valerie asked herself, as she surfed his home page for the first time.

  Ben was firmly convinced that he was something very special, an especially chosen person.

  Valerie couldn’t u
nderstand how he had arrived at this conclusion. Most likely some guru or perhaps even his mother had convinced him of this.

  In any case he believed in himself exactly like all of the reality show stars and other participants in the casting-cattle group believe in themselves, whereby in the 21st century the unassailable belief in oneself, combined with a self-confidence that can quickly mutate into megalomania, had become the religion of the masses, which has retreated from every self-critique, let alone self-reflection, and preaches: “Take me as I am!”

  Self-conviction and self-over-estimation were the new currency of his generation, and the new form of legitimization at the same time.

  Ultimately for Ben, a combination of the belief in a fate-directed existence and a chosen status led to a waiting phase spent doing nothing, since he would be discovered by humanity anyway in the short- or long-term, which would see something very special in him.

  The specific matter of his specialness remained in question. Presumably even he himself didn’t exactly know the answer.

  Apparently Valerie’s despair at this point in time was even greater than she was willing to admit to herself.

  Her shortage of physical closeness and the longing for a soul that is content had meanwhile become so great, that she was ready to be with a man who didn’t suit her at all. She became frightened at this realization because she had fallen victim to her own illusion, the illusion of being in love.

  She wasn’t in love with Ben, with his person, at all, but rather in love with her own illusion – to be in love. It seemed both bitter and tragic.

  She became aware that they lived on two different planets.

  And the enchantment that she brought to the relationship with Ben at the beginning turned into rejection.

  They were so different – two people who couldn’t have been more distinct.

  Their only similarity now seemed to consist of the fact that they belonged to the same cultural circle, although both probably had contrary definitions for the concept of “culture.”

  The model would define culture in the following way: Culture is the derivation of art. Art is produced by people who possess a deep, ripened soul.

  But culture also belongs to the evil capitalistic society, which undercuts the cultural product of great artists with a soul and use it [art] as an instrument to suggest to its evil society that everything is beautiful, good, and the best. Thereby, the society uses art only to divert attention from their malevolence and ultimately to make the artists dependent on them.

  Then Ben, presumably completely intoxicated by his monologue, would smile at her.

  Then Valerie would counter with her definition of culture: Art is culture. Everything can be art and therefore culture, as long as the person perceives himself or herself as an artist, which means he wants to create culture.

  Therefore the person is the creator of his or her own world and thereby self-determined, as follows the philosophy of Descartes: “I think, therefore I am.”

  In all probability, he had never heard anything about this philosophical thought process and would also not be able to follow it.

  He would now simply stare at her stupidly, empty, and hollow.

  Oh no, she couldn’t stand him anymore.

  The mere thought of this, as she imagined this conversation in her mind’s eye, was already too much.

  Although he, following her assessment and despite the varying definitions that each had of the concept of culture, could never have formulated his standpoint so clearly and so abstractly.

  No, Ben had summarized his point of view in a ten-minute, yawningly boring and inconclusive monologue.

  And Valerie hadn’t critiqued his monologue, out of shame regarding his intellectual overexertion, and because he had contradicted himself without being aware of it.

  Rather, Valerie looked at the table silently, as an expression of her embarrassment, which he would probably have judged to be a sign of her deep emotion in light of his lofty-intellectual, “super-genial” world view.

  But what did she want, and what all did she expect from a man?!

  She was searching for an intellectual womanizer. This search had proven to be utopian, and in view of its futility she should immediately abandon it.

  Either – or. Either good-looking or intelligent.

  Valerie planned to categorize the men in the future immediately, in order not to have so many expectations of them later.

  She couldn’t and wouldn’t keep on with Ben for the duration.

  His good looks weren’t enough to maintain a relationship or to build a future together.

  Besides, she often felt superior to Ben, which she unsuccessfully tried to deny.

  She discovered increasingly that this was not based on their different world views, but also on his lack of intelligence.

  At that, she was angry with herself at first blush, and doubted her own intelligence in the meantime, in that she had remained unaware of this fact for so long, i.e. that she hadn’t taken it into consideration. She had been so impressed with his good exterior, downright blinded by it, that at the beginning she was prepared to ignore all of his shortcomings of which she didn’t want to become aware.

  “Love is blind!” This flat saying that has been beaten into the ground, about which she had felt superior before, now hit her fully square.

  With his supposed capacity for feeling, love, and his goodness, he had succeeded in taking her for a ride for a while.

  He had subjected her to a certain form of brainwashing, so that her own measuring sticks gradually shifted.

  Ben’s supposed, often proclaimed goal was the “development of the spirit.”

  Valerie didn’t ask him what he specifically meant by that, knowing full well that she wouldn’t like his answer.

  Perhaps he had simply read too much of Paulo Coelho.

  And ultimately his logic wasn’t conclusive. His constant monologue about “spiritual development,” his supposed humanitarianism, and his ascetic contentment gave Valerie reason to believe that he was a bit of an actor.

  Valerie couldn’t rid herself of the suspicion that he wanted to sweet-talk her. Like a cheap gigolo, he wanted to make her submissive. Through his emotional demands he wanted to make her dependent on him, so that she wouldn’t or couldn’t live without him.

  Shortly before his first visit to her, to her great astonishment, he said to her on the telephone: “And then, when I’ve been with you for the first time, my little rabbit, then you won’t ever want to let me go. You’ll see!”

  The tone of his voice was almost prophetic. Once couldn’t hear the slightest hint of irony – Valerie was quite sure he meant it.

  In addition, Ben didn’t want to be loved just for himself, but also for his perception of the world. In his case that meant that he wanted to be loved for his declared belief in the eso - psycho – and eco – world.

  He represented a world-view that was entirely different from her own, so that she couldn’t respond to him with the necessary value judgment, recognition, and love that he expected.

  Moreover, he manifested an entirely unfamiliar compunction, in direct opposition to that which she experienced with Jason, for physical contact. He was extremely demonstrative, wanting to kiss her, embrace her, hug her, hold her hand, all day long. He was especially prone to such behavior in public.

  She was supposed to “declare” her relationship to him in public continually.

  This was a condition that, in view of her state of emotional and physical starvation, first appealed to her, but which gradually became loathsome, and caused her to want to reject him. She had the feeling that because of his demand for an over-abundance of physical interaction, she could hardly breathe.

  He didn’t have any sensibility for the “play” between attraction and rejection, which was so important to her, exactly that which she always found so exciting with Jason, and which always secretly so aroused her.

  Ben didn’t seem even to be aware of any
such “play.” That game was foreign to him; he demanded a continuous physical confirmation of his person from her.

  Valerie was also startled by the fact that he constantly articulated his need for physical attention and didn’t realize even once that it was ultimately unmanly, unsexy, and simply embarrassing.

  Nothing was embarrassing as far as he was concerned, however. He behaved like a small child that cried for satisfaction of its desires as a matter of fact, even in public.

  “What you offer me in physical closeness is not enough for me for the duration!” he said in an ice-cold tone and not at all empathetically when they broke up.

  Well, what was he, anyway? Presumably he mistook himself for a puppy who expected to be petted and snuggled the live-long day as a matter of course.

  She had to admit to herself that at the beginning she felt ultimately happy being validated by his surfeit of emotions and physicality.

  But the longer their affair lasted, the more clear it became that his carnal interest had nothing to do with her or the fact that she appealed to him or that he loved her. It was far more that he needed the emotions and the constant touching to validate himself. Valerie herself was incidental and interchangeable in her role in this.

  And, of course, he used his demand for constant physical nearness to make Valerie dependent on him, to make her bend to his will.

  This relationship had nothing to do with freedom.

  She felt cornered, both physically as well as psychically.

  And his oh-so-human emotions presented themselves as egotistic, one-sided emotionality.

  At the end, even his text-messages, in which he always professed his wish to nibble her, to embrace her a hundred times, and signed off with three-thousand “big hugs,” revolted her. He was so unexciting and unsexy.

  At first she wasn’t even aware that she was rejecting him physically. She simply felt overwhelmed by his ongoing demand for physical contact.

  He was like a burr in her side; a leech. And it was he, himself, who brought this to her attention. He lived in a dreamworld; a childish dreamworld.

  Valerie had gotten involved with a child in a dreamworld. The aversion that she felt toward him was immeasurable.