Ah, Cambridge. Ah, Cantabrigia.
The other night I saw "Good Night, and Good Luck" at the cinema in Harvard Square, which in retrospect was not the best place to have gone to see that movie.
It was a good film, but it was not a comedy. There were a few chuckle-inducing lines and a lot of places that called for wry smiles, but it simply was not a funny movie. Which is okay. It was good. But not funny.
So why, oh why, were the moviegoers in Harvard Square cackling like jackals after every fucking line???
Was it because it was in black and white, and being in black and white lowers the comedy bar? Possibly, but probably not. Was it because people in 1950s gear are inherently comical? They kind of are, but not that funny. And a lot of guys in the audience had those same silly glasses on anyway.
Was it to let everyone else know that they, the guffawers, "got it" - that they "got" the parallels of McCarthyism to Our Own Time, how clever of them? Yeah, it kind of was. Oy, Cantabrigia.
But it was also, I think, the hysterical laughter of people whose impotent screams have become trapped in their throats - the manic shouts of "Amen!" that erupt from the windpipes of the choir when the preacher is on a roll.
Still, it was super annoying and I kept missing bits of dialog when Mister Hyena to my left started barking at things that totally weren't funny.
I am a little in love with the guy who played Edward R. Murrow, and I see Oscar all over his performance. I recommend this film on DVD, or in a theatre that is not filled with academics and aging hippies, for maximum viewing pleasure.
* * * * * * * * *
Next topic. I was reading a book today about sociopaths, or psychopaths. Apparently, as many as one in 25 people are sociopaths, although most sociopaths never do anything that will get them into major legal trouble, so they remain unidentified. I was sitting in the bookstore trying to think if I knew any anyone who lacks a conscience. I couldn't think of anybody I knew - certainly none of my friends! I have a low tolerance for unpleasant people, though, so I feel like if I have met any sociopaths in the past few years I would have stopped associating with them pretty quickly, as I would have found them either creepy or boring.
Then I read a chapter about a woman who was a "covetous psychopath", which is a person who targets people she envies for some reason in weird ways to undermine or humilate them, and I realized that I very well might have known a person just like this in high school. In fact, it is possible that I was actually the target of such a person! My friends will think I am being paranoid about this, but they thought I was being paranoid at the time and it turned out I was right, which only goes to show that just because you're paranoid doesn't mean someone's not out to get you.
Even looking back I am not sure what I could have done to have provoked this girl's ire, unless it was the fact that she had mild allopecia while I have very thick hair. There were boys involved, of course, but it's bizarre because I was younger than she was and very young looking and kind of a nerd. Okay, a big nerd. Much smarter than her, and with nicer hair, but short and boobless and dorky - so it never made sense to me why she went out of her way to mess with me, of all people! Possibly it was a combination of the first boy, on the class trip to Spain, and the fact that I always found her off-putting, even when she wasn't my nemesis; she seemed to need to be the center of attention in a creepy manipulative way. She wasn't really even in my social circle, this girl. And frankly, although I had some really lovely friends in high school, my social circle was not so prestigeous as high school cliques go. The boys involved were nice enough, too, but they were hardly the catches of the school. But I guess not all sociopaths are equally ambitious.
In addition to plotting to get [certain boy] away from me (direct quote, I will never forget: "I bet you didn't know I planned the seduction"), she went out of her way to rub it in my face during gym class (why? why bother doing this?) which made it seem like it was less about the boy than it was about scoring points off of me. Then she creepily invaded my extracurricular activity (the school play) and sucked up to various people (especially one of the leads, who was a very odd guy and not even a great friend of mine, but all of the other people who were my great friends would have had no interest in this girl becuase she was dumb and boring) and hosted the cast party, and basically haunted me like a foot stink for an entire year.
It was all very frustrating and perplexing at the time, but her being a covetous psychopath makes it make tons more sense - aside from the part about why on earth anyone would have coveted anything about dorky fifteen-year-old me in the first place. Now I have enviable qualities - boobs, academic achievements, adult relationships - but in high school? Dude, if I was in any way cool back in the day, that is news to me.
So was this girl a sociopath or just a huge bitch? I don't actually care, I just hope no one ever takes against me like that ever again. Yuck.
The other night I saw "Good Night, and Good Luck" at the cinema in Harvard Square, which in retrospect was not the best place to have gone to see that movie.
It was a good film, but it was not a comedy. There were a few chuckle-inducing lines and a lot of places that called for wry smiles, but it simply was not a funny movie. Which is okay. It was good. But not funny.
So why, oh why, were the moviegoers in Harvard Square cackling like jackals after every fucking line???
Was it because it was in black and white, and being in black and white lowers the comedy bar? Possibly, but probably not. Was it because people in 1950s gear are inherently comical? They kind of are, but not that funny. And a lot of guys in the audience had those same silly glasses on anyway.
Was it to let everyone else know that they, the guffawers, "got it" - that they "got" the parallels of McCarthyism to Our Own Time, how clever of them? Yeah, it kind of was. Oy, Cantabrigia.
But it was also, I think, the hysterical laughter of people whose impotent screams have become trapped in their throats - the manic shouts of "Amen!" that erupt from the windpipes of the choir when the preacher is on a roll.
Still, it was super annoying and I kept missing bits of dialog when Mister Hyena to my left started barking at things that totally weren't funny.
I am a little in love with the guy who played Edward R. Murrow, and I see Oscar all over his performance. I recommend this film on DVD, or in a theatre that is not filled with academics and aging hippies, for maximum viewing pleasure.
* * * * * * * * *
Next topic. I was reading a book today about sociopaths, or psychopaths. Apparently, as many as one in 25 people are sociopaths, although most sociopaths never do anything that will get them into major legal trouble, so they remain unidentified. I was sitting in the bookstore trying to think if I knew any anyone who lacks a conscience. I couldn't think of anybody I knew - certainly none of my friends! I have a low tolerance for unpleasant people, though, so I feel like if I have met any sociopaths in the past few years I would have stopped associating with them pretty quickly, as I would have found them either creepy or boring.
Then I read a chapter about a woman who was a "covetous psychopath", which is a person who targets people she envies for some reason in weird ways to undermine or humilate them, and I realized that I very well might have known a person just like this in high school. In fact, it is possible that I was actually the target of such a person! My friends will think I am being paranoid about this, but they thought I was being paranoid at the time and it turned out I was right, which only goes to show that just because you're paranoid doesn't mean someone's not out to get you.
Even looking back I am not sure what I could have done to have provoked this girl's ire, unless it was the fact that she had mild allopecia while I have very thick hair. There were boys involved, of course, but it's bizarre because I was younger than she was and very young looking and kind of a nerd. Okay, a big nerd. Much smarter than her, and with nicer hair, but short and boobless and dorky - so it never made sense to me why she went out of her way to mess with me, of all people! Possibly it was a combination of the first boy, on the class trip to Spain, and the fact that I always found her off-putting, even when she wasn't my nemesis; she seemed to need to be the center of attention in a creepy manipulative way. She wasn't really even in my social circle, this girl. And frankly, although I had some really lovely friends in high school, my social circle was not so prestigeous as high school cliques go. The boys involved were nice enough, too, but they were hardly the catches of the school. But I guess not all sociopaths are equally ambitious.
In addition to plotting to get [certain boy] away from me (direct quote, I will never forget: "I bet you didn't know I planned the seduction"), she went out of her way to rub it in my face during gym class (why? why bother doing this?) which made it seem like it was less about the boy than it was about scoring points off of me. Then she creepily invaded my extracurricular activity (the school play) and sucked up to various people (especially one of the leads, who was a very odd guy and not even a great friend of mine, but all of the other people who were my great friends would have had no interest in this girl becuase she was dumb and boring) and hosted the cast party, and basically haunted me like a foot stink for an entire year.
It was all very frustrating and perplexing at the time, but her being a covetous psychopath makes it make tons more sense - aside from the part about why on earth anyone would have coveted anything about dorky fifteen-year-old me in the first place. Now I have enviable qualities - boobs, academic achievements, adult relationships - but in high school? Dude, if I was in any way cool back in the day, that is news to me.
So was this girl a sociopath or just a huge bitch? I don't actually care, I just hope no one ever takes against me like that ever again. Yuck.
posted by Joolya at
7:00 PM
1 Comments:
Five years later, I stumble upon this blog of yours after doing a google search for "covetous psychopaths".
Basically, I was preyed on by exactly this kind of girl ten years ago -- she was a complete and total social climbing predator. She destroyed me utterly, and I will probably never recover. And of course, she got away Scot-free.
There are only a few movies about covetous psychopaths. The oldest is called "Gaslight" with Ingrid Bergman, and another is "All About Eve" with Bette Davis.
So, no -- you are most certainly NOT "paranoid" or "crazy". The nature of a covetous psychopath is so toxic and disturbing that there can be no mistakes about identifying them, either in foresight or hindsight, once you know that such people exist, and what their way of life is all about.
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