I left the party and walked back to my hotel. He blatantly ignored me and left me to fend for myself, a drugged-out nobody among agents, starlets and the rest of the sharks that populate a C-list Hollywood event. for a screening of a movie he was in, and at the post-screening party, he was all over a co-star. I’d storm out of my apartment, and he’d follow me, crouching across the street to watch me cry. My first real relationship out of high school was Sid and Nancy fucked up. They’re what I like to call the Seven Stages of Scorn and they go a little bit like this… Stage #1: Tears and Melodrama I built walls around my heart and created dams in my psyche.Īll of which is to say I know a thing or two about Congreve’s quote and that nasty, deep-seated feeling of scorn and each of the ways it manifests: tears and melodrama, weaponized sexuality, emotional manipulation, passive-aggressive verbal abuse, suspicion, rage, vengeance and detachment. In other words, instead of facing my fears of rejection head on, I ran from them. I became pure scorn and sculpted an entire identity out of contempt. My entire ego solidified around my spiteful determination to reject men first and to do whatever it took to shield the vulnerable part of me from feeling the sting of being dismissed. I wanted to be an untouchable man-eater and kill my feelings, too.įor better or worse, over the next two decades I did just that. Gwyneth Paltrow’s character instantly became my hero. I was broken and determined to never be dependent on a man for anything ever again - a feeling that was greatly aided by the release of the movie version of Great Expectations. I do remember a defining moment in my development, circa 1998. Speaking just for myself, I’m sure I was open-hearted at one point, but I can’t for the life of me remember when that was or when my heart started to harden. As my friend Lindsey likes to say, “People don’t mind being used, they mind being discarded.” Other times it’s completely warranted: Maybe your girlfriend catches you sexting with an ex. Sometimes it’s unwarranted: Maybe you were harmlessly chatting with a co-worker and your significant other got jealous. Nor is scorn limited to simple, run-of-the-mill rejection.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |