Medios Audiovisuales Informáticos

CATASTROPHES

Why do I care so much about whether or not my friend likes my new girlfriend?

Clearly, I enjoy spending time with my friend – and I also enjoy spending time with my girlfriend. It certainly would be convenient for me if they also enjoyed spending time with each other, so I would not end up torn between a complicated and antipathetic social situation.

That is the story that I tell myself. But that is not the truth.

In this book – as in every book I write, every article I publish, and every podcast I record – I will consistently and continually tell you that deep down, you always already know the truth about everything.

The truth is that good people always like other good people. Good people do not like bad people, and bad people do not like good people.

With bad people, it is more unstable. They will really “like” each other, then really dislike each other, and so on.

If my best friend is a good person, and my new girlfriend is also a good person, I will feel no more stress in introducing them to each other than I would in introducing cream to my coffee.

It is not that I dislike the social awkwardness that will result if they do not like each other. Oh no, it is far worse than that!

What I am really afraid of is discovering the true nature of my relationships – and thus of myself.

THE TRUTH I AM AVOIDING…

If my best friend dislikes my new girlfriend, it is either because my best friend is corrupt and my new girlfriend is virtuous – or vice versa – or because they are both corrupt, in ways that do not serve each other’s immediate needs, but rather remind each other of their respective corruption.

Thus if my new girlfriend and my best friend do not get along, that says something rather terrible about – who?

My new girlfriend? My best friend? No, of course not.

About me.

This next part may sound very strange – but give me a paragraph or two, and perhaps it will make some sense. ☺

By introducing my new girlfriend to my best friend with the anxious hope that they will somehow “get along,” I am asking them to cover up the corruption that we are all enmeshed in.

I am asking everyone to pretend that we are all good – and there is only one reason why I would do that, or why they would agree to participate in such a corrupt fraud.

Because we are not good.

We will do almost anything to avoid that knowledge – not because we

fear our own corruption, but because we desire to continue our own corruption.

If my best friend is corrupt and my new girlfriend is not corrupt, then she will judge – not my best friend, but rather me.

If my best friend is not corrupt, but my new girlfriend is, then they will dislike each other, of course – but some rather grim fallout will result from their meeting.

If I introduce a false, insecure and manipulative girlfriend to my best friend, obviously I am doing so in the hopes that they will “get along.” If my best friend is a good man, then he will be highly insulted by this, and will say:

“Why would you introduce this woman to me and express a desire that we ‘get along’? Are you not aware that she is false and manipulative? Are you not aware that she is vain and shallow? Are you not aware that she talked about herself for over an hour, not asking me a single question? Are you not aware that she told me everything about her childhood – which was not pleasant – on our very first meeting? Do you not see that she lacks any rational sense of boundaries? Do you not see how self- involved and narcissistic she is?”

If I reply that I noticed none of these things, then my friend is going to be even more insulted, and say:

“But you value me as your best friend, and I exhibit none of these traits – in fact, I would consider it personally dishonourable to act in such a manner! I assumed that you valued my integrity, consideration, courage and so on because you could tell them apart from their respective opposites. If you tell me that I am the best singer in the world, and then it turns out that you are completely deaf, then clearly I cannot take your praise seriously at all – in fact, your former ‘praise’ of me would be revealed as false and manipulative, since you have no ability whatsoever to judge the quality of my singing! Thus if you cannot tell the difference between this woman and myself, then clearly you have no right to call me your ‘best friend,’ but have rather used that term to manipulate me.”

In response, I might protest that I did notice these troublesome habits in this woman, but it slipped my mind for a moment.

“Very well,” my friend will reply, “now I am even more insulted, because you introduced this woman to me in the hopes that I would like her! You recognize that she is shallow, false and manipulative; you also recognize that I am virtuous, honest and direct, and yet you genuinely and honestly believed that I would like her? Yet you claim that I am your best friend – and that you love me – because of my virtues. How is it, then, that you expect me to like this woman because of her vices? Why are we subjected to such opposite standards? No, it cannot be possible that you expected me to like her – the best that you could have hoped for was that I would

pretend to like her – for your benefit, and hers of course. In other words, you wanted me to sacrifice my integrity for the sake of your shallow lusts!”

Now, when faced with such a stern and inescapable accusation, what would my response be?

I could get mad at my friend – thus confirming his diagnosis and effectively ending the friendship – or I could apologize profusely, promise to get help with my dangerous and slippery “dark side,” and immediately break it off with this corrupt woman.

If I were capable of this kind of integrity, though, I would never have tried to manipulate my virtuous friend into pretending to “like” my new girlfriend in the first place.

In fact, we can very reasonably go one step further and say that since I was the kind of man who had no problem whatsoever with manipulating a virtuous friend for my own selfish and corrupt ends, there is no possibility whatsoever that I would have a virtuous friend to begin with!

And that, my friends, is the knowledge that I am striving desperately to avoid – not my fear that my friends are immoral, but my desire to keep my immoral friends.

The moment that our own corruption becomes genuinely clear to us, we are immediately propelled into wrenching change.

We avoid the truth about our own corruption because we prefer our own corruption to the dreadful alternative…

The alcoholic keeps drinking because he is enmeshed in a social network of mutual destruction.

Deep down, the alcoholic is not afraid of sobriety; he is afraid of being attacked by his fellow alcoholics and enablers.

INTRODUCING MYSELF TO MYSELF…

Thus, when I attempt to control the results of the first meeting between my best friend and my new girlfriend, I am really attempting to control my own anxiety by manipulating others.

This much we understand – but let us go one step further.

Why do I feel anxiety in the first place?

Well, I feel anxiety because I know the truth, and I am rejecting the truth. In my real life, I do not feel anxiety when my wife comes home, because I am always overjoyed to see her. I rush down the stairs into her arms, and smother her with kisses.

I do not feel anxiety when I receive an e-mail from a trusted friend. I do feel anxiety whenever I receive an e-mail from an embittered enemy – for the simple reason that these e-mails often contain unpleasant attacks which upset me.

In other words, I feel anxiety when I instinctively feel the signs of an impending attack.

Anxiety is a form of beneficial alertness, essential for survival throughout the history of our species. Anxiety is the crack of a stick in a thick bush on a dark night. Anxiety alerts us to impending danger.

Anxiety is part of our “fight or flight” neurological mechanism, designed to make the presence of danger uncomfortable – and so aid us in avoiding or escaping it.