David Wallace - Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

Q….

‘So anyway the truth is I’m not sure about any of it. I’m just trying to look honestly at my record and honestly see what seems to be the pattern and what’s the likelihood of my continuing this pattern with you, which believe me I’d rather anything than do. Please believe that inflicting any pain on you is the last thing I want, sweetie. This pulling-away thing and inability to push through and as Mr. Chitwin would say close the deal —this is what I want to try and be honest with you about.’

Q….

‘And the harder and faster I’ve come after them at the beginning, wooing and pursuing and feeling completely in love, the intensity of that drive seems to be directly proportional to the intensity and urgency with which it seems I then find ways to pull away, back away. The record indicates that this sort of sudden reversal of thrust happens right when I have the sense that I’ve got them. Whatever got means — to be honest I’m not sure. It seems to mean once I know for sure and feel that now they’re as into the relationship and the future tense as I am. Have been. Was. It happens that fast. It’s terrifying when it happens. Sometimes I don’t even known what even happened until after it’s over and I’m looking back on it and trying to understand how she could have gotten so hurt, was she crazy or unnaturally clingy and dependent or am I just bad news as far as relationships go. It happens incredibly fast. It feels both fast and slow, like a car crash, where it’s almost more like you’re watching it happen than that you’re actually involved in it. Does any of this make any sense?’

Q.

‘I seem to need to keep admitting I’m really terrified you’re not going to understand. That I won’t explain it well enough or you’ll somehow through no fault of your own misinterpret what I’m saying and turn it around somehow and be hurt. I’m feeling unbelievable terror here, I have to tell you.’ Q. ‘All right. That’s the bad part. Dozens of times. At least. Forty, forty-five times, maybe. To be honest, possibly more. As in a lot more, I’m afraid. I guess I’m not even sure anymore.’

Q….

‘On the surface, in terms of the specifics, a lot of them looked pretty different, the relationships and what exactly ended up happening. Sweetie, but I’ve somehow started to see that underneath the surface all of them were largely the same. The same basic pattern. In a way, sweetie, my seeing this gives me a certain amount of hope, because maybe it means I’m becoming more able to understand myself and be honest with myself. I seem to be developing more of a sort of conscience in this area. Which a part of me finds terrifying, to be honest. The starting out so intense, in almost overdrive, and feeling as if everything depends on getting them to drop their defenses and plunge in and love me as totally as I love them, then the freaking-out thing kicks in and reverses thrust. I admit there’s a kind of dread at the idea of having a conscience in this area, as if it seems as if it’s going to take away all room to maneuver, somehow. Which is bizarre, I know, because at the beginning of the pattern I don’t want room to maneuver, the last thing I want is room to maneuver, what I want is to plunge in and get them to plunge in with me and believe in me and be together in it forever. I swear, I really almost every time seem to have believed that’s what I wanted. Which is why it doesn’t quite seem to me as if I was evil or anything, or as if I was actually lying to them or anything — even though at the end, when I seem to have reversed thrust and suddenly pulled totally out of it, they almost always all feel as if I’ve lied to them, as if if I meant what I said there’s no way I could be reversing thrust the way I’m doing now. Which I still, to be honest, don’t quite think I’ve ever done: lied. Unless I’m just rationalizing. Unless I’m some kind of psychopath who can rationalize anything and can’t even see the most obvious kinds of evil he’s perpetrating, or who doesn’t even care but wants to delude himself into believing he cares so that he can continue to see himself as a basically decent guy. The whole thing is incredibly confusing, and it’s one reason I’m so hesitant to bring it up with you, out of fear that I won’t be able to be clear about it and that you’ll misunderstand and be hurt, but I decided that if I care about you I have to have the courage to really act as if I care about you, to put caring about you before my own petty worries and confusions.’

Q.

‘Sweetie, you’re welcome. I pray you’re not being sarcastic. I’m so mixed up and terrified right now I probably couldn’t even tell.’

Q.

‘I know I should have told you some of all this about me sooner, and the pattern. Before you moved all the way out here, which believe me meant so — it made me really feel you really cared about this, us, being with me, and I want to be as caring and honest toward you as you’ve been with me. Especially because I know your moving out here was something I lobbied so hard for. School, your apartment, having to get rid of your cat — just please don’t misunderstand — your doing all that just to be with me means a great deal to me, and it’s a huge part of why I really do feel as if I love you and care so much about you, too much not to feel terrified about in any way yanking you around or hurting you somewhere down the road, which trust me given my record in this area is a possibility I’d have to be a total psychopath not to consider. That’s what I want to be able to make clear enough so that you’ll understand. Is it making at least a little sense?’

Q.

‘It’s not as simple as that. At least not the way I see it. And believe me my way of seeing it is not that I’m a totally decent guy who never does anything wrong. A better guy probably would have told you about this pattern and warned you before we even slept together, to be honest. Because I know I felt guilty after we did. Sleep together. Despite how unbelievably magical and ecstatic and right it was, you were. Probably I felt guilty because I’d been the one lobbying so hard for sleeping together so soon, and even though you were completely honest about being uncomfortable about sleeping together so soon and I already even then respected and cared for you a lot and wanted to respect your feelings but I was still so incredibly attracted to you, one of these almost irresistible thunderbolts of attraction, and felt so overwhelmed with it that even without necessarily meaning to I know I plunged in too fast and probably pressured you and rushed you to plunge into sleeping together, even though I think now on some level I probably knew how guilty and uncomfortable I was going to feel afterward.’

Q.

‘I’m not explaining it well enough. I’m not getting through. All right, now I’m really freaking out that you’re starting to feel hurt. Please believe me. The whole reason I’m having us talk about my record and what I get afraid might happen is that I don’t want it to happen, see? that I don’t want suddenly to reverse thrust and begin trying to extricate myself after you’ve given up so much and moved out here and now I’ve — now that we’re so involved. I’m praying you’ll be able to see that my telling you what always happens is a kind of proof that with you I don’t want it to happen. That I don’t want to get all testy or hypercritical or pull away and not be around for days at a time or be blatantly unfaithful in a way you’re guaranteed to find out about or any of the shitty cowardly ways I’ve used before to get out of something I’d just spent months of intensive pursuit and effort trying to get the other person to plunge into with me. Does this make any sense? Can you believe that I’m honestly trying to respect you by warning you about me, in a way? That I’m trying to be honest instead of dishonest? That I’ve decided the best way to head off this pattern where you get hurt and feel abandoned and I feel like shit is to try to be honest for once? Even if I should have done it sooner? Even when I admit it’s maybe possible that you might even interpret what I’m saying now as dishonest, as trying somehow to maybe freak you out enough so that you’ll move back out and I can get out of this? Which I don’t think is what I’m doing, but to be totally honest I can’t be a hundred percent sure? To risk that with you? Do you understand? That I’m trying as hard as I can to love you? That I’m terrified I can’t love? That I’m afraid maybe I’m just constitutionally incapable of doing anything other than pursuing and seducing and then running, plunging in and then reversing, never being honest with anybody? That I’ll never be a closer? That I might be a psychopath? Can you imagine what it takes to tell you this? That I’m terrified that after I’ve told you all this I’m going to feel so guilty and ashamed that I won’t be able even to look at you or stand to be around you, knowing that you know all this about me and now being constantly afraid of what you’re thinking all the time? That it’s even possible that my honestly here trying to head off the pattern of sending out mixed signals and pulling away is just another type of way of pulling away? Or to get you to pull away, now that I’ve got you, and maybe deep down I’m such a cowardly shit that I don’t even want to make the commitment of pulling away myself, that I want to somehow force you into doing it?’