If you have already observed the behavior above, it would be unusual if you did not also notice that when you finally do get around to talking, your new companion does not ask you a single question. Do not shrug and think, “No big deal. They’re interesting and attractive. We’ll get to me soon enough.”
Here’s what you are not understanding: people who behave like this are generally under the impression that when they are talking about themselves for hours on end, a mutually fascinating conversation is taking place.
A friend of mine dated a man who, on the very first date—a time when unnerving truths are often accidentally confessed—mentioned that people often complained that he talked too much. Because she found him interesting, she laughed off his remark as self-deprecating. Then, in the course of things, she found that she could never get a word in edgewise. When she attempted to correct this disparity by charging ahead and trying to insert a few remarks of her own into his monologue, he broke up with her on the grounds that she was making him uncomfortable. And therein lies the detail that she didn’t understand: People like this are only comfortable when they are allowed to be assholes.
2. A WORRISOME LEVEL OF INTEREST IN YOU
You might think that this is what you have always wanted. At last! A captive audience who can’t get enough of you. But it is wise to exercise caution around a person who has a million questions for you yet seems to give out little personal information of their own. More than likely they are keeping something secret—probably something that would change your mind about them if you knew it. They are treading water by distracting you with your own details. Sorry to have to be the one to point this out. I know it was fun to finally hear yourself talk.
3. A WEIRDLY COMPETITIVE ANGLE ON EVERYTHING
As soon as you get a foothold in the conversation, your new companion busts in and says, “Exactly. I know, I know.” And the next thing you know, they have hijacked the story to something they thought about while they were forced to endure the inconvenience of having to pretend to be listening to you.
This is sometimes seen walking hand in hand with a tactic I call “topping,” wherein someone needs, for some reason, to best your story wherever they can. If you don’t feel well, recently they felt much worse than that. If you got a new car, they got one that is so unbelievable it makes your car look substandard.
A third variation on this theme involves someone complaining about their achievements as though they were problems.
Example 1: “I’m so depressed. This huge new book deal I got is putting me into a really bad tax bracket.”
Example 2: “My life is such a mess. There are three different incredible guys in love with me right now, but none of them is ‘the one.’ ”
This allows the asshole in question to wear the camouflage of a humble victim, thereby provoking your sympathy rather than your envy. Yet in that very same smooth moment, all the attention is refocused on them and their superior situation! I call this “The Asshole’s Double Play.”
4. NO IDEA WHO THEY ARE TALKING TO
If someone tells you the same story over and over and doesn’t precede the retelling with “Did I tell you this already?,” that means (a) they are telling this story to so many people that they cannot keep track of who has heard it before and (b) you are not important enough for them to remember what they have said to you. They live their lives like they are on a personal promotional junket and therefore say the same things to everyone they see. Your job is to offer a round of applause, a few positive affirmations, and a greenroom with a buffet and an open bar. Of course, the latter can, and frequently does, lead to several other very compatible substance abuse problems. Fun!
5. AN INABILITY TO EXPLAIN WHERE THEY HAVE BEEN
Once upon a time I had the experience of dating someone who kept “disappearing.” One minute it seemed like we were intimate; the next he was nowhere to be found. In a postcoital afterglow, I’d try to make contact via calls or even presents. When I got no response at all, I would talk to friends about it. Every last one of them seemed to have a lot of insight.
“I think he gets really depressed,” said one, who claimed to know him well.
“He’s really insecure,” said another one.
“He’s so freaked out about his career,” said a third.
“He was so upset by his divorce that he’s still afraid to get too close to someone he loves,” said a fourth.
All of these things seemed plausible and made me feel great empathy. How sad for this poor talented guy who tragically undervalued himself and was riddled with pain, uncertainty, and crippling self-doubt. Love had let him down, yes. That was sad. But once he realized that he was “safe” at last, everything would change. What a bright and happy day that would be for us both!
Here’s what I forgot: it’s not possible to disappear and still be alive. At least not in the dimension in which most of us are still living. I am excluding participants in a witness protection program or international spy ring, because, though not impossible, neither is all that likely. At least among my friends, if they can be believed.
This didn’t exactly dawn on me out of the blue. It took an incident in which I learned the names of the tens of other people this particular guy was seeing. And thus did I discover the true meaning of “disappearing” in the context of a romantic entanglement: other cast members in this drama, many with whom you are not yet acquainted but will be. A few may be principal cast. Others may be five-lines-and-under. Possibly they have not heard your name yet, either. Or maybe they have. But best of all, the whole bunch of you are destined to meet under the very worst of circumstances. Go ahead and start figuring out the funny things you are going to say to them all right now.
6. NO WAY TO KEEP THEM FROM GETTING UPSET
Beware the demented fight that erupts out of nowhere. One minute you are talking about potato salad, the next you are being called a castrating bitch. I was once watching TV with a guy who began to exhibit this syndrome right after I mentioned liking an actress on the show that was playing. Next thing I knew, I was being told to leave because the person to whom I was talking had turned my praise for an actress neither of us knew personally into an attack on his character and his place in the world.
When this happens, don’t waste your time pacing in a circle with your friends, ruminating about the heartrending details of his unfortunate childhood. It really doesn’t matter how much pressure he is under because there is a recession. That’s beside the point. You have bumped into an early warning sign of a complicated personality disorder that means no difference of opinion will be tolerated. And yes, unfortunately, this still applies if the person is “really cute.”
7. NO WAY TO AVOID THE MANY THINGS THAT THEY FIND ICKY
Be wary of people with juvenile issues about ickiness.
Food is an area of special alarm. (An exception can be made if the person in question is under ten, in which case the problem doesn’t fit this essay.) If you notice your new adult companion moving the food around on their plate so it doesn’t touch any other food, or picking at something you cooked, then holding it on their fork, sniffing it, and wrinkling their nose like a bunny, watch carefully for other things on this list.
Fussiness about food is one of those traits that come with a list of auxiliary characteristics, including, some will argue, being bad in bed. In fact, since there’s no one else here, I will be the one who will argue that. Face it: there are lots of gooey, drippy, damp and clammy, bumpy, and aromatic things that happen in the course of intimate relations with another human being. Even paying special attention to cleanliness and hygiene doesn’t change the truth that we are all covered with germs and hairs and assorted viscous fluids that the body itself proudly invented! And there is nothing at all that can be done about the existence of most of these things, short of setting up daily life in a quarantined area or a steaming-hot shower stall.
The same is true for fears about going out, fears about staying in, fears about
checking locks or stoves or lights, fears about conspiracies, being watched, or catching an illness. All portend the opposite of a lusty good time. Unless you stand to inherit a lot of money by spending one night in a haunted house with a group of strangers, there’s not much to be gained by living in terror.
8. AN ABUNDANCE (OR LACK) OF VANITY
If your new companion shows up smelling bad, it probably isn’t because they were so excited about being with you that they forgot to shower. More than likely, they’re not tuned in to worrying about other how people see them. In case it’s not clear, you do want someone who tries to make a good first impression on you. A total lack of awareness about how they are being received means that the person lives in their own parallel, self-absorbed world. If this sounds like something you would find desirable in a companion, I suggest rescuing a dog or a cat.
The opposite condition is equally lethal. A little vanity is fetching: a sign of a healthy ego. But people who are so wrapped up in their looks and the impression they think they are making on others that they cannot kiss you for fear of disturbing the magnificent tableau they have created have relegated you to the role of audience member. If you catch someone checking their reflection in the silverware or sucking in their cheeks and fixing their hair in the shiny surface of their iPhone while you’re talking or, worst of all, recording videos of themselves while they’re doing any of the above in order to post them on YouTube or Facebook, well, I think by now you know what you must do.
9. TOO MUCH TOO SOON
Exercise extreme caution in the face of any declaration of love that happens too soon. The offer of a commitment from someone who barely knows you is not romantic. It is more likely a sign of lethal flakiness, a smokescreen to distract you from some standard-issue things that you will soon notice are missing, like intimacy, friendship, your Social Security number, your American Express card, your jewelry, your iPod, your keys.
10. TOO GLIB
We’re raised to admire people who are charming and witty. Playful banter is the way movie and television couples talk. But remember, in real life there is no TiVo, and a life too full of witty sitcom banter is one of Dante’s original nine circles of hell. Think of it: there you are, stuck with someone who is coming up with zany ripostes when you’re trying to communicate. Do you really want a smart little answer to everything? When you say, “How are you?,” do you really want to hear someone reply, “Compared to what?” Uh-oh … I may have just described myself.
11. AN EERIE RESEMBLANCE TO ONE OR BOTH OF YOUR PARENTS
This is the most important point of all: Beware of anyone who reminds you of the parent with whom you do not get along. Ask yourself this question every time you are instantly attracted to someone problematic: Does this conflict remind me of the ones I had with Mommy or Daddy? If the answer is yes, you have stumbled into Mother Nature’s greatest camouflage trick. Shrinks call it repetition compulsion. The mind-bogglingly unfair rules of it are as follows: A brand-new version of the same old parental issues with which you have struggled for years are repackaged and sold back to you in the form of an attractive and compelling member of whichever sex attracts you. To make sure you don’t catch on, this new, improved version of Mommy or Daddy is age-appropriate, stylistically perfect for your generation, and available in lavish contemporary colors. But make no mistake: it will turn out that your unconscious picked this fetching but hot-tempered bass player in an indie band, who makes you feel like a misbehaving teenager not because they were perfect but because your unconscious recognizes this sexy new person as a stand-in for your mother.
“But,” I can hear you saying, “since I adore my parents, doesn’t that mean this relationship I am unconsciously repeating is a good thing?”
Well, maybe. But in that case, you wouldn’t be charging into your golden years and still dating assholes, now, would you?
These issues are so complex and confusing that it’s fair to wonder if we should all throw up our hands in despair. And I think we all would if it weren’t for the unfortunate truth that humans are pack animals. We are meant to live in tribes. Most of us find a life of complete isolation tiring and unnerving. We like the laughter, insights, and distractions that come from being with other people. We also like the sex, the rides to the doctor’s office, and the help carrying groceries in from the car.
Therefore, it behooves us to pick our partners as carefully as we can. The only other option is to become the asshole ourselves and try to beat everyone else at their own game. That might explain why, as people get older, they also seem to get meaner and grouchier. They look back on a life of being nice to everyone and think, “Well, that didn’t really work, did it? Enough of everyone else’s bullshit. This time around, the rest of you assholes can just cope with me.”
A Chance to Dance
IT’S FIVE A.M. AND ANDY IS STANDING IN THE DOORWAY OF THE bedroom in which I am fast asleep. Why is he calling my name at this hour? “Merrill!” he says, and then he says it again, louder: “Merrill! Wake up! I think there’s a fire.”
“Shit,” I say, wishing I hadn’t just heard that. As I open my eyes, I can hear the sixty-mile-an-hour Santa Ana winds blowing outside.
When I first moved to Southern California at the tail end of the seventies, I loved the Santa Anas. There was something mysterious and sexy about these unseasonably warm winds from the desert that brought an incongruous blast of hot air into the middle of the chillier fall or winter weather. In my mind, their arrival always triggered a chorus of “Here come those Santa Ana winds again” from “Babylon Sisters,” a Steely Dan song I love.
It didn’t take too many years of living here, however, before the sexiness and mystery morphed into anxiety and dread. Now the Santa Anas mean only one thing: the crazy people of Southern California have declared another statewide holiday on which they will crawl out of their catacombs and head to one of L.A.’s many dry, overgrown hillsides to dance gaily and fling lit matches. If there is a full moon, like there was last night, well, talk about an embarrassment of riches.
“I think there’s a fire,” Andy says again.
“Why?” I ask, trying to will it gone. “I didn’t hear anything about a fire.” When I get up and go to the window, it looks like the Babylon Sisters know whereof they sing. The Santa Anas are flattening all the trees in the front yard down to a forty-five-degree angle, and the early morning sky is coming up a sickly gray-orange, like a Creamsicle that fell into the mud. There are a lot of jarring color combinations in Southern California. You see them every day in someone’s fuchsia-and-bright-orange hair or in the chemical concoctions that join forces to create the gorgeous pastel-yellow-khaki-and-magenta smog sunsets. But the scariest colors of them all are hazy yellow, porno pink, salmon, and gray puddling together in the sky, because that means fire. The only thing worse is if you add a sprinkling of ashes, a filthy snow flurry made up of bits and pieces of people’s incinerated lives … like we’ve got today.
Last year, the city I live in caught fire three times. But despite the substantial loss of property, we don’t get much sympathy from the rest of Southern California, because we’re in the famously un-disadvantaged city of Malibu, fabled in story and song, beloved by movie starlets and other natural disasters. When bad things befall us, everyone seems to feel like we had it coming.
The fire that took place around Thanksgiving 2007 was a particular standout for a couple of reasons. For one, it was the first fire in which the newscasters seemed to have held a secret meeting and agreed to use the word “event” as often as humanly possible. Suddenly, the Santa Ana winds were a “wind event” and a “Santa Ana event.” The fire was, of course, a “fire event.” I don’t know what committee decided that the words “fire” and “wind” weren’t descriptive enough on their own and now needed the word “event” to give them more heft, but every time someone repeated that word, it made me wonder what I’d been charged for my tickets and where I needed to go to apply for a refund.
Standi
ng at the window, looking at the sickly sky, I felt like I was in an encore performance of what was becoming an annual situation: wildfire season and its attendant adversities. In 1993, the first time a uniformed fireman came to my door to announce mandatory evacuation, I had already spent the entire night awake, watching aerial shots of iridescent hot spots in the dry grass while listening to the ravings of over-caffeinated, bedraggled reporters proving their mettle by standing on hillsides looking a little too proud of their charcoal-smudged faces and flapping ponchos as they analyzed every glowing ember like it was a plot point in a horror movie. Because I lived alone at the time, it never felt safe to go to sleep for even a second. I sat there exhausted and wired, hour after hour, watching the path of the advancing fire like it was an approaching enemy army or a news update about a maniac escaped from an asylum who was now running wild in my neighborhood. The broadcasts could show me his mug shot, tell me where he had been and who he had already hurt, but not where he was going to show up next.
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