MANIAC - LOVE DERANGED

by Violet Shaw

  The realization that he was a mega-flop, and that the situation was simply impossible, was bitter and weighed heavily.

  And it wasn’t even about him personally, but much more about the fact that she had deluded herself, that she had become a victim of her own delusion.

  She often asked herself what she saw in him. What did she actually want from him?

  At the beginning she had admired his positive world-view, and she felt good in his presence; he was indeed successful in making her glow.

  She was startled by the thought that she had almost actually fallen for him, and ruined her life with him. While all her friends were becoming ever more successful in their professional and financial lives, she would have lost ground because of the wrong partner in life, and developed backward.

  She couldn’t shake the feeling that she had sold herself too cheaply with him, that she was superior to him intellectually, financially, and socially. Their relationship didn’t take place on the same plane.

  From successful investment banker to a model without substance. Even now she already had to make allowances for him and his deficits, and take backward steps. Ultimately, her life with Ben would have ended in a self-realization trip in a VW-bus.

  They were sitting together in a café on a Sunday afternoon after Ben had sent her a text-message with which he actually wanted to break up with her: “Dear Valerie, I’ve thought about it a long time, but our relationship doesn’t make any sense any more. I think it would be better if we ended it.”

  She was shocked by the message which, despite all the complications, came at her out of the blue.

  Now there was little left of his emotions. To break up via a text-message, to say good-bye this way, was more than tasteless and uncultured. And far less than she deserved.

  When they met at the café, Ben showed himself to be cowardly and uncourageous; he tried at first to avoid the situation which was unpleasant for him.

  As was typical, he fell into a monologue about the development of a child’s psyche, which then led to his favorite subject, whether life were predetermined or whether one had control over it.

  As always, he posited that it was predetermined, and that made everything so practical for him, since he didn’t have to assume any responsibility for it. Fundamentally, others were at fault: parents, family, society, and the state; they had degraded the people.

  Pleased with himself and assured of his own splendor, he sat before her as he delivered his monologue. Valerie sensed that suddenly – or was it always so? – he felt himself to be more than great.

  She felt a growing antipathy toward him; he was becoming more and more repulsive, downright unpleasant.

  He only knew himself and his own world. He was intolerant of everything that didn’t correspond to his own world, his own thoughts.

  What irritated and astonished her the most, was his absolutely uncritical perception of himself.

  He maintained a self-perception that was far from reality and which never allowed him to doubt himself. He was afflicted by a great over-valuation of himself, and never questioned himself or his life at any point.

  That was the astonishing thing about him, this apparent discrepancy between his – at least in her eyes – boring little life, and his interpretation of this reality as a grandiose masterwork.

  She suddenly also found him unattractive. He sat across from her, pale and gaunt, and delivered his monologue; apparently he also considered himself to be a brilliant orator.

  “What do you believe?” he asked her unexpectedly.

  “Do you believe in God or some other Power? Do you believe in life after death, in reincarnation?” He looked at her with a challenging expression.

  Oh, so now he was coming at her with this. That’s why he wanted out. He was apparently too cowardly to end the relationship by offering a humane and acceptable explanation for his abrupt change in feeling.

  Instead, he wanted to transfer the guilt specifically to her superficiality, her lack of religion. He wanted her to take the blame. She found his behavior tasteless and immensely cheap.

  What did religion have to do with them both? She regretted that she had met with him again, even if for the last time. She was very tired and had no interest in him any more.

  “I thought that we were meeting for another reason entirely, actually. I really can’t see a connection here with religious faith as much as I try!” Valerie said in a tone that sounded angrier than she had actually intended.

  Ben looked at her, inclined his head to the side, and replied calmly: “Yes, right. The reason that we’re here. You wanted to know why I want to end the relationship?”

  Valerie nodded.

  “Well,” he continued casually, “it’s because I feel myself to be physically rejected by you. I have the feeling that your powers of reason say “yes,” but your body says “no!” And besides, I find you to be ungrateful, for you never say thank you properly when I invite you out!”

  Excuse me? What is this miser talking about? Valerie thought to herself.

  Despite his critique of her, she remained uncharacteristically quiet.

  She didn’t love him anyway, of that she was absolutely certain. He hadn’t recognized her person at all in the relationship, couldn’t really acknowledge her, since he was lacking in so many ways. Naturally he wasn’t even aware of it, because, in addition to many other reasons, his self-perception and his perception of others were totally unrelated. He was simply too stupid and therefore felt that he was right.

  She felt only the urge finally to be rid of him. Ben exhausted her to the point of madness. Everything with him had suddenly become exhausting, especially since he continually maintained and defended his psycho-, eso- and eco-world view.

  Any further argument with him would be unnecessary and pointless.

  “Yes, you’re right, we’re unfortunately not suited and therefore we should just leave it at that. Let’s not discuss it further or argue, it’s to no avail. Let’s just draw a final line and close out!”

  Valerie sensed that she didn’t have a man next to her, but rather a loser, a sissy.

  She had to reserve tables in restaurants, she had to pay for herself, and at the end of the evening she had to drive him home since he had no license and therefore didn’t own a car. And meanwhile she had to listen to his complaints that she drove “strangely,” and accelerated badly, so that he almost became sick in the passenger seat next to her, and then too, that he felt rejected by her emotionally that evening.

  So, what was she to admire, appreciate, or love about him?

  He revealed himself as impudent and presumptive, and stupidly cheeky.

  And between them there was not only a class-war but also a role-reversal.

  Ultimately, only his annoying, world-renouncing, hyper-sensitive, kindergarten-psyche remained.

  He was still a child – and 36 years old.

  It seemed to Valerie as if he were still wearing his onesie and couldn’t pull himself out of this situation to develop further, either emotionally or spiritually.

  A friend of Valerie once characterized Ben as being “like a child, who wants to be cuddled the whole day long and doesn’t want to work.” My heavens, Valerie asked herself, what kind of man had his mother raised? Presumably one that belonged to the “Cuddle Generation,” and she was apparently proud of him!

  And what made it even more difficult with him was the fact that one couldn’t quite define whether Ben was gay, or callow, or simply a sissy.

  The demarcations were fluid, nothing was precisely defined or classified. When even well-known hetero – and classic macho--men like Seal or David Beckham polished their fingernails in lively colors and traversed the world with hairless chests, calling themselves metrosexuals, where can one draw the line?

  The borderline between individual sexuality and genders fluctuated more and more. There was really nothing wrong with this, but one could need or demand to have a little clarity with his or her partner in
regard to sexual preference.

  To top it all, in a very short period of time, Ben had stopped appreciating her. He began to criticize her for being late, for example, which was due to the fact that she was the only one of the two of them who had worked all day. And, if she happened to be irritated or stressed as a result of the workday, he had absolutely no understanding of her situation. He lived according to the “I am the most important person in the world” principle. Of course, he wanted to be praised by Valerie for this great view of life, and most probably even embraced.

  “Optically, I would like to have a woman like you, but otherwise she should be more involved in the eco-world, you know, simply more emotional, and able to be more involved with me.”

  The fronts between them had hardened. The bottom of their relationship had been reached.

  Lately, Valerie had thought about Jason more and more: “One always had to pay, either before or after!”

  He was to her the epitome of masculinity.

  Not, because she intended to be kept by someone, but as a woman she at least wanted to feel that the man was in the financial position to afford a “romantic dinner” together. And as a woman she didn’t want to buy roses for herself.

  The model only irritated her at this point, and now she was ready to end the situation with him. She had no interest in him whatsoever. He simply repelled her.

  After just a brief period of time, there was nothing left of the euphoria that she had felt at the beginning.

  There was no future with him, and Valerie didn’t wish for one.

  Valerie spent a sleepless night following the break-up. Her thoughts circled again and again around what had happened.

  She restlessly paced up and down in her bedroom during the night, not being able to lie down peacefully and rest; and sleep was out of the question. Periodically she would lie down on her bed, which now seemed much too big for her alone.

  Actually Ben should have been lying next to her tonight.

  Countless times in the last week, she had imagined how their first night together would be in the past week.

  In her euphoria and happy anticipation her thoughts had turned somersaults. She should have been lying in his arms, happily and immensely satisfied – a situation from which she was currently far removed.

  She was particularly annoyed that she had become a victim of her illusions of a little bit of luck in love, and succumbed. She had, and it was very atypical of her, stopped protecting herself from her emotions, in that she had believed in her own good fortune, an idea that she hadn’t taken into consideration for a long time.

  Love always happened to others. Of course, cupid’s arrow had also managed to strike her several times, although the state of being in love was always of short duration for her. Most of the time the chosen one revealed himself after a short, sometimes a little longer, period of time as a mega-flop, a major misery, as a catastrophe par excellence.

  Either the men were married, coke-heads, gay, latently gay, or, in the worst-case scenario – all of the above: a coke-head, gay, father of a family.

  She felt as if she could expect nothing of love in her life in the future, and wanted to shield herself from love accordingly.

  Love wouldn’t get her anymore, she swore to herself. She didn’t want any part of that merry-go-round of feelings. It always followed the same sequence: covertly enthusiastic, in love, undying love, profoundly happy, rejection, disillusion, disappointment, unhappiness; at the end, every time, she felt unloved and empty . . . before everything would start again from the beginning. This wretched, debilitating game should be played by others. She was done. Finally.

  Ultimately it was a call from Jason that brought Valerie out of her mulling and brooding, and gave her wings again in response to his irresistible charm.

  And his words contained everything that she wished from a man: “Valerie, you’re not only sexy, you’re also very intelligent!”

  Despite all of the well-deserved criticism of him – he was life, nonetheless! He personified life for her. Only with him and through him did she really feel alive.

  And it wasn’t only sex. No, it was much, much more.

  He succeeded again and again to win her back, to enchant her, to bind her to him anew.

  He was life’s elixir to her and he robbed her of her life at the same time.

  It was more or less unclear to her what comprised this fascination that entrapped her again and again.

  The attraction to him probably lay in the feeling of flying that he gave her, coupled with the fear of the eventual emergency landing with him.

  He was like the enjoyment of a forbidden cigarette.

  Valerie admired him for his job, his professional success, and his independence. And he was a bird of paradise. Lawless.

  At the same time, he was also full of energy, dynamic, and passion for her. He burned like fire. Ablaze.

  He possessed the God-given gift to enchant other people captivate them, so that they were prepared to do anything for him.

  And he was the anti-bourgeois personified, absolutely unconventional. Fantastic.

  No one could make her as happy and elicit such energy from her.

  He was simply her Jason. 100,000 times he had disappointed her. 100,000 times he had also made her happy. It was pure insanity with him.

  She could experience life so intensely with no one else. Being with Jason was like flying; free from everything. And everything was possible.

  All hail to life! Nonetheless, life was not simple. Without him, it was far more relaxed, but unexciting and boring.

  And besides, Valerie had become more aware that she loved being free. She also loved Jason so much for this reason: he never impeded or restrained her, and she never had the feeling that the longer she was with him, the more he would infringe on her freedom.

  No, quite the opposite, actually. With him she could remain as free as she wanted to be and lead an independent life – despite love.

  All the other men that she had met in the meantime had tried again and again to limit her – physically or emotionally; in the worst cases, on both levels. As a result of this possessive behavior, all her new relationships foundered.

  A man could appeal to her so much in the beginning – but as soon as he began to cling to her and to make demands, she lost interest in him. Mostly it was worse than that – she began to reject him.

  She was free and independent – and that’s also how she wanted to be with a man. But with her immense need for freedom, she came up against ignorance with most of her partners for she didn’t want to see them every day and to spend her life only with one person -- she loved her own other life much too much.

  And for this reason she always went back to Jason, because with him she could be free and attached and at the same time unattached. He made no demands on her, rather, entirely the opposite; she could meet and even have sex with other men.

  When he found out about it, he suffered and was jealous from time to time, but it also made him really hot. He had never left her or made accusations because of an affair – it was a hard, but also modern game, exactly to her taste.

  As Valerie entered the Burger & Lobster Bank yesterday, a hectic party atmosphere prevailed. The so-called chic-set of Munich now gathered here regularly, and Jason was, and of course, felt he had to be a part of it. He was one of the regulars of the group – and not only that, he also belonged to the international jet-set, of course.

  First Valerie had to fight her way through the mass of people. All the tables were already taken and the ambiance was at a high-revs point. And that was so typical of Munich. One sat with the, or better yet, his or her, clique, at some difficult to pin-point location. And it was very important that one didn’t appear alone or as a couple. No, to be of any social importance and not to appear stand-offish, to create a reason for being there, so to speak, one had to be seen as part of one’s clique.

  The clique was the alpha and omega of prevailing socially in Muni
ch. It was so conventional and provincial. Yet no one dared question these age-old rules of society, much less to circumvent them.

  It really made no difference if one fit into the clique and properly meshed with the others, for as a rule no one in the clique had any interest in anyone else. The clique served only as social arbiter, as security, and as protective shield from the world outside, for the purpose of being seen. More or less according to the motto: “I am [a part of the] Clique, so I am!”

  Jason and Valerie greeted each other warmly, but Jason was totally annoyed by his so-called friends, since none of them were paying any attention to him.

  “Hellooo!!!!” he tried getting everyone’s attention to focus on him, but they, wrapped up in themselves, were busy flirting wildly.

  But his persistence was finally successful, for two of his friends who were currently flirting with some girls, turned in his direction: “Hey, people!” Jason was now more than annoyed. “Could you please already say hello to Valerie?! Say hello properly!” His friends seemed hardly impressed, but did give Valerie a friendly look.

  “Hello, Valerie!” they finally shouted as a chorus, almost in one voice, only to turn toward their girls the next moment.

  “Oh, we can forget them, they’re busy picking up girls!”

  Jason had in the meantime turned his attention to Valerie again. “It’s all porno here anyway!”

  “Pardon me? Porno? Are these all professionals?” Valerie said skeptically, and seemed amused.

  “No, not that, but everybody here has had something going at some point with everybody else!”

  Oh, there he was again, the old Jason. He immediately wanted to shock her again. Just as before and always. Apparently he had forgotten that Valerie was no longer the little child, that she had grown up. And his infantile comments couldn’t bother her; they rolled off her back.

  “Oh, that’s normal. Munich is simply too small. What choices do these poor folks have other than to mess around with the old camels?!”