A few months ago I was in the company of someone I briefly knew long ago but haven’t seen in a while; stunningly attractive, well-educated, well-dressed, complete bitch. She was out with a group of mutual friends, engaging very few of them, all the while involved in a text message exchange with a man she was obviously interested in. As I’m admiring her ability to command attention (and her choice of the low-cut white shirt), I start to pick up morsels of her story. I find out that she’s interested in a guy with a bad reputation, even worse is he has absolutely no interest in her. So shes living to win over a man who is unavailable to her except to mess up her bed sheets after striking out or getting drunk. Lorenzo from A Bronx Tale echoes: “The saddest thing in life is wasted talent.” Miss Havisham calls her a beautiful fool. The man stops texting her and she is visibly upset. She is narcissistic, but only out of her own insecurity. She is lost, but she is captivating -- particularly to me.
I remember having a drink with my best friend and asking him why he thought women always wanted what they could never have. He laughed, telling me that some have “daddy issues,” and it manifests itself in this type of insecure behavior. While the concept was never unfamiliar to me (think strippers), I focused on exactly how it applies to the women I encounter.
Carl Jung called it the Electra Complex: the idea that a woman’s perception of a man begins with her father figure. Because of this, she forms a subconscious bond with him that make her receptive to his traits. If the traits are positive, the attraction follows suit, but if they are negative, she desires to defeat the trait. OK, so if a girl has a father who is emotionally unavailable due to work, extramarital affairs, etc., she chooses a similar companion. She wants to change them, essentially achieving victory... over him, her father, and for herself.
Well, shit. I can think of at least of few of those who have been my dates.
One girl I knew was in love with a celebrity prior to our “friendship” (her words). A rock star, who would spend his time on the road drinking and sleeping with groupies. She loved him for his talent, for the fact that he was difficult to put a leash on, and especially that he lived a lifestyle which she could not control. If things were perfect, they were not appealing, and I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure she never felt she deserved to be happy. Despite her lack of desire for up-front confrontation, she needed a healthy amount of drama to make the relationship seem legitimate. So as a result of our different drama quotient (amongst other things I'm sure), she didn’t want me to pursue her any further. Even now, I still think she is a great person...and I have to thank her for doing me a huge favor, as it would have changed both our lives for the worse.
Another girl I spent time with had been cheated on. Her mom was unmarried and mistrusted most men, so her daughter believed from a young age to expect the worst. She rewarded the men she chose with passive-aggressive behavior once she won them over, making them feel inadequate and over-dramatic. She was always on offense, so she had no guard to put up, and it was because she was let down so often. It was my own mistake to think that it would change. It never did, at least not with me, and so it went. Relationships like these are like fat kids on see-saws…there is always an imbalance of power, and someone goes slamming on the concrete.
So then I found good old Oedipus, Freud's mirror of Electra, which zeros in on a man's relationship with his mother. Men, according to Freud, will often project feelings about their mothers on their relationships with other women. That seemed ok. I have two women in my life I would like my partner to emulate. But next came that punched-in-the-stomach feeling.
Do I have Mommy issues?
My mother is a worldly person, a hard worker, well-spoken. My stepmother has infinite patience and a calming ability to reason with even the most high-strung and erratic of people. Both of them helped and consoled me through hard times. Even more important, though, is they call me out on my shortcomings. I know this is a good thing. I would even like to believe it has made me a better man. But when I realized I search for these "mother" traits in women, I was reminded why it is I’m still single.
Maybe it's not an “issue” at all. An issue would be going after negative or abusive qualities, and somehow making it a moral victory. Taking the best traits of two very important women and using them as a baseline is not settling for something that just isn't good enough.
But here’s the thing, I’m still face to face with the beautiful, sophisticated, narcissistic bitch who is wasting her time on the emotionally unavailable and abusive man of her dreams. As a matter of fact I think she just got a text.
And I am still captivated by her.
Fuck Freud.
