OF DESTROYERS and SWEETNESS AND LIGHT
(or, The Long-Ass Entry I Wrote Instead of Reading Torts)

There's someone here I don't want to get to know.

Okay, there's actually lots of people here I don't want to get to know. But this one is different. This is one is a destroyer.

Aeschylus called Helen of Troy a "destroyer of ships, destroyer of men, destroyer of cities." You probably all know someone a little like this. These are people who leave destruction behind them when they leave -- and they leave often. These are people that you can't help but like. They are charming but not sleazy. They are quietly attractive, not brassy. The first time you see them, they stand out somehow, but you can’t quite put your finger on it. It’s not that they’re beautiful – though they can be. It’s not that they purposely draw attention to themselves by being particularly amusing or brilliant. It’s not just sexual attractiveness, though that’s always there. It is simply that, for whatever reason, they are irresistible. Should you find yourself on the receiving end of their attention, you feel the world narrow down to just you and that person.

But if you start getting to know them, you start feeling a little uncomfortable. There are troubled pasts. There are many broken hearts. There is usually something big, something traumatic in their stories. But it’s not the things that are there that disturb you. It’s not the things that have happened that give you a prickly feeling in your scalp. It’s the thing that isn’t there. Call it morality, call it conscience, call it emotion – whatever you call it, it’s not there. What’s there is coolness. Blankness. Emptiness. They’ve been able to survive Very Bad Things, but it hasn’t humanized them. It’s left them with an indestructible core against which others collide, and fall, and shatter.

That’s when you start thinking that this person’s girlfriend or boyfriend isn’t so lucky after all. You find out there have been many partners, and nearly all of them have been devastated when this person left. You find out that their partners have always been the ones to give more, to want more, and that they were unsatisfied, but couldn’t give it up. You find out about strange, intense relationships with older people. It’s all very dramatic. It’s all very tragic.

That’s when you thank your lucky stars you’re not one of them. And you run the other way.

There are two destroyers here that I know. Perhaps it’s just perverse chance that they are dating each other. I’m reminded of the old physics puzzle of what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. What happens when two destroyers meet each other? Do they both walk away, their destructiveness made neutral by each other? Do they destroy each other? Do we find out who the bigger destroyer is? Do they find love and happiness, and sweetness and light?

You don’t really believe it would wind up being the last option, do you?

In the 1993 movie “Damage,” Juliette Binoche’s character has an affair with the father of her fiancée, and eventually brings that whole family to its knees. At one point she warns Jeremy Irons that she is damaged, and that damaged people know how to survive. That is how they are dangerous. I watched that movie years ago, but I’ve been thinking of it recently. I’ve been starting to spend a little too much time with one of the destroyers, I think.

On to something a little less melodramatic – I went out last week to a Crimson College Law and Med Student gathering at a bar and re-met someone I’d met on the first or second day of school. Nice guy. We exchanged some pleasantries, I impolitely and purposely ignored him as I played pool, he disappeared. But what should appear in my student box this week but a note from Nice Guy, asked if I’d be interested in lunch or dinner someday. At the end of the note, he signed his name and added in parentheses: “we met at the beginning of the year and last week at [the bar].”

Very brave, and I applaud the courage. I appreciate the straightforwardness, too, especially in comparison to Friend, whose inability to decide anything makes hk want to repeatedly hit her head against her whitewashed dorm room walls. But … no. Sorry, Nice Guy. There just ain’t anything there.

And speaking of Friend, I have to point out some sweetness and light, because damn it, those periodic moments of sweetness and light do keep tipping things the other way when I’ve had enough. Last night I went to a grad student orchestra concert, about which I’d asked Friend multiple times about his interest in coming along – first verbally, then through forwarding the info on email, then verbally again, then verbally AGAIN about 45 minutes before the bloody concert. The last time, I got really irritated, because damn it, what is so hard about answering the question, “do you want to go to this concert?” It’s not that I was lacking in people to go with – I’d have gone by myself, even, but it turned out that there were people from The Clique going, so I didn’t care about that. I just wanted an answer (starting to sound like a familiar refrain, eh?).

So 45 minutes before I’m leaving, Friend says that he was going to go play hoops with the guys, but that I asked him first, so he’d go with me. I was annoyed by this, since – hey, I’m not forcing you to go, Friend! If you want to go shoot hoops, go! If you want to go to the concert, go! But don’t be all, “I’ll feel so guilty if I don’t go with you even though I’ve made plans to do something else.” (Yes, I know I do that too – hypocritical hk here.) Friend humorously and accurately said, “You know, there’s no way for me to win here, is there? If I don’t go to the concert, I’ll feel bad, but if I do go, you’ll just think that I’m going because I feel bad.” Well, um, yes. Your point?

Friend said he’d try to come to the concert after basketball, and I was like, whatever dude, do what you want. It’s okay. So I went to the concert with the Clique and we actually left at intermission, and then I found out later that Friend had actually come after intermission and looked for me. Aw. And he didn’t even try to make me feel guilty about leaving, which I totally would have done if the roles had been reversed. Aw.