Red Room Where the Writers Are

    I’m working on a new short story.  About halfway through, my brain stopped coming up with witty dialogue.  This happens from time to time and so I did what I always do, I put on a movie I’ve seen a hundred times and let the rhythm of the actors help guide me through stilted and uninteresting dialogue.  Last night I put on Annie Hall.  This was a mistake.

            In the opening monologue, Woody Allen quotes Groucho Marx.  Every time I hear the quote I think about how applicable it is to my life.  These days, as I sort through the wreckage of relationships past trying to make sense of my life and purpose, it seemed all the more prescient.

            “I would never want to belong to any club that would have me for a member.” Could there be any more fitting allegory for my love life?  It is disturbing to find myself emotionally aligned with Woody Allen’s most famous and perhaps most demented character but it still rings true nonetheless.  Last night, after watching it, I was overcome with melancholy, thinking that I could chalk up all of my failed relationships to this one parable.

            This morning, I see it differently.  While I still recognize the truths behind the statement, I am less convinced than I was that this reflects poorly on me.  I don’t mean to suggest that the relationships of my past were with women that didn’t deserve me.  Far from it.  Rather what I think this means to my life is how much, both consciously and subconsciously, I have gone out of my way to destroy relationships from the inside.

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a bit of a dramatic streak.  Reading this, you would be hard-pressed to disagree, I’m sure. Still though, I feel as if relationships and love should be viewed through an overly dramatic lens.  What other event or emotion can cause such dramatic swings in mood.  Besides the election, which I’ll be getting into tonight, I can’t think of any. 

What I’ve discovered is that when I fall in love, my first immediate reaction is to start picking apart what’s wrong with the person I fell in love with, particularly if they’re in love with me.  This self-hating narcissism is exhausting and watching Annie Hall I realized how much of it is affected.  I’m not unique and I’m not the first person to feel this way.  Instead, I’m a symptom of a disease, stretching all the way back to Groucho. 

So as I sit here and rationalize on Sunday morning, I wonder if there are steps that can be taken to change this attitude.  Will I ever be able to look at a woman who enjoys my company and not spend most of my time thinking I could be with someone better solely because the person I’m with chose me!? As unhealthy as this mindset is, I think that recognition and acceptance of it is crucial to any emotional growth I want to achieve.

Finally, I’ll just say this.  So many people are in relationships because they want to be with someone, not because they necessarily want who they’re with.  All my life I have pursued relationships with people that I genuinely liked and been okay during the solitary periods in between.  I am at peace with my idiosyncrasies simply because I have no other choice.  But still, I’m okay with them.