Hurl, Interrupted
Six years ago, I was dating this guy on the East Coast. He and I share a deep love of the arts. We started arguing on the sidewalk, and I got so upset that I vomited all over myself. He refused to drive me home or let me back into his apartment to change. Finally, he gave me a pair of pants, but he made me change in the stairwell. Shortly afterward, I moved out west. I told him I still loved him and couldn't get him out of my system, but his response was downright cruel. Eventually, I fell in love with my current boyfriend. Well, East Coast Guy now wants me back. I do miss our mutual passion for theater and art. (West Coast Guy isn't interested in attending artistic events.) However, I've had poor job-hunting luck and I'm fearful about my financial future, and West Coast Guy recently made me his heir. I'm tortured. Should I give East Coast Guy another chance?
--Torn
Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm wrote that mature love is "I need you because I love you." Rather different from "I need you because I don't want to be living in a packing crate when I'm 50."
As for the love you could have...it seems that -- awww! -- even now, East Coast Guy wants to be the reason you walk home alone in an upchuck-decorated dress. (Sell framed, numbered snippings and it's art!) Your entertaining a re-up with a guy who treated you so cruelly is bizarre -- unless you consider a psychological gotcha called "the Zeigarnik effect." Social psychologists Roy Baumeister and Brad Bushman explain that when a task or goal gets interrupted, the automatic, unconscious part of our brain keeps pinging the conscious part, nagging us to finish up whatever we've left incomplete. (Unfortunately, our subconscious is only interested in getting the thing finished, not whether the guy in question is a complete douche-iopath.)
A way to shut off the Zeigarnik effect is to complete the incomplete thing -- like by ending it for good with East Coast Guy or maybe picking up where you left off. But before you do the latter, consider another factor that's surely in effect here -- the cognitive bias of "selective perception." This is our tendency to go all forgetsenheimer's about the stuff that's emotionally uncomfortable (ego battering, for example). Shoving it in some mental closet allows us to focus on more appealing beliefs, like "I can always count on him -- to share my enthusiasm for gallery openings where everybody has complicated hair."
Real love draws lines in how somebody treats you -- how even when they're angry, they act lovingly (assuming you haven't, say, sauteed their parrot and served it up with a side of peas). As for whether you need a more arts-going man, that's something to figure out before you get all relationshippy with somebody who'd rather stay home watching YouTube videos of a raccoon riding a Roomba. But also consider that life involves trade-offs, like maybe going to arts events with a friend instead of demanding that your partner meet your every need like a giant human Costco: "Love me, leave me money, and live to attend haunting performance art, like a woman reading a Chinese takeout menu for nine hours straight and then clipping her toenails and lighting them on fire."
Should you give East Coast Guy another chance? No. You said it yourself: his response to your declaration of love was downright cruel. As was his refusal to let you into his apartment to change your clothes. Going back to him will simply show him that he can be a total asshole to you, but all he has to do is give your space, call you, and you'll come crawling back.
Sounds like a wonderful relationship, doesn't it?
I'm more concerned about your current boyfriend that you claim you fell in love with. If you're so "in love" with him, why are you even considering returning to such a cad?
Yeah, you have a shared passion for the arts, but is it really such a good trade off being being treated like shit?
I'm questioning your feelings for West Coast Guy. You say you fell in love with him, but you're willing to up and leave him for a guy that treated you like shit. And to top it all off, your comments about making you his heir make you sound like a gold-digger.
Patrick at November 10, 2015 6:08 PM
LW needs to dump both of them and start over.
jefe at November 10, 2015 6:29 PM
LW, learn to argue before you make ANY move. You lost back then, and badly; you need to learn how to make your opponent barf.
Radwaste at November 10, 2015 7:03 PM
First off, East Coast asshole is an asshole. He's not unfinished business, he's a shit sandwich you don't need another bite of.
Secondly, having different interests, and other friends, allows you to continue to be interested and interesting to your romantic partner.
By not constantly being together, you have stories to tell each other. You can tell him about the pretentious amateur critic who gave an enraptured review of a post-post-post-modern piece that turned out to be someone's dropped hors d'oeuvres plate. He can tell you about how he finally learned the real trick to the do-si-do in square dancing. You may not really "get" why the other likes it, but the fact your partner had a pleasant day should make you happy.
The Original Kit at November 10, 2015 7:28 PM
This letter has got to be one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen sent to an advice columnist.
Cousin Dave at November 10, 2015 7:37 PM
East coast guy may be an asshole, but it also may be that whatever happened during that incident scared him enough that he was afraid to let her in his car or his home.
I've never seen anyone get so upset that they puked all over themselves - have you? Would you want to be isolated with that person afterwards?
pcard at November 10, 2015 10:07 PM
Pcard I'm with you. I question the mental stability of someone who gets so riled they throw up. Notice she didn't mention what the argument was about. Maybe he was about to break up with her when she decided to make a scene in public by hurling all over the sidewalk. In that case I would have left her out on the doorstep too!
Bartak at November 11, 2015 12:26 AM
LW is a walking poster for Alpha Fux / Beta Bux.
Snoopy at November 11, 2015 3:25 AM
@pcard
You bring up some very good points. And now I have that scene from the Exorcist running thru my head, and it won't go away.
This woman sounds like a pretentious art twit, and mentally unbalanced. She needs to do a little psych repair before she is good relationship material.
Isab at November 11, 2015 7:28 AM
I'm woefully behind on my knowledge of MRA lingo, but if I'm interpreting Snoopy's sweet sentiment correctly, it means that poverty-stricken artsy New York dudes are now considered "Alpha" material. That will make a lot of my scrawny neurotic East Coast pals very happy. At last, the pussy fountain will shower the "looks and talks like Woody Allen but has $32 dollars in the bank" crowd. Oh happy day!
Anathema at November 11, 2015 8:04 AM
"Torn" sounds like a clueless millenial.
She needs to dump East Coast guy, and West Coast guy needs to dump her. If West Coast guy knew she was hung up on some asshole who treats her like dirt, he would be wise to take her back out of his will.
By the way, I agree with the other comment -- she sounds like a gold digger. And I get that she likes artsy fartsy stuff, but "deep love of the arts"??? P-R-E-T-E-N-T-I-O-U-S
Richard at November 11, 2015 8:35 AM
Wow. LR is a real peach. Hopefully she's young and will learn.
Even more hopefully the beta on the west coast will see her for what she is . . . . but I kinda doubt it.
Sad all around.
Railmeat at November 11, 2015 10:12 AM
Dear Lord, where do these people come from?!!!
ahw at November 11, 2015 12:03 PM
"made me his heir" heir? really. Is he 80? Is she planning on offing the guy?
Joe J at November 12, 2015 9:59 PM
OK.
Do not go back to East Coast guy.
Seriously evaluate your feelings for West Coast guy... are you having cold feet? Are you one of those women who thinks the excitement of drama eclipses the stability of a good, solid love?
How old are you? I hope you are in your twenties.
I think you should be alone for a little while. I think you need to not be with a guy for a bit.
East Coast guy is not a good match, you're in love with some image you have of him, not him.
West Coast guy might be someone you could have a solid love with, but right now, you don't, and it isn't fair for him if you're spending your time dreaming about East Coast guy.
If all that is stopping you from being with West Coast guy is that he isn't into all the same stuff with you, is there a workaround?
For example, I like musicals, he likes symphony, so we find opera is a good happy medium. And sometimes we go to musicals for me and symphony for him.
Would West Coast go for more traditional art, as opposed to avant garde edgy stuff? Would he go to an art show if it were yours?
I get where you're coming from, I miss dancing around bonfires in the middle of the woods with my Pagan friends, I miss corseting up and going to go get tied up at the local goth club, and I've lost my edge for sure, but I'm really happy.
Sometimes the "cool" stuff, the "scene" we think we should belong to is not as important as it was when we were younger.
You get to an age where "So, what kind of music do you listen to" isn't the question you ask when trying to determine who should be your friend.
NicoleK at November 13, 2015 10:01 AM
Anathema,
The whole, "Girls go for cool bad boys when they are young but then settle for stable guys" thing is a big part of that whole narrative.
NicoleK at November 13, 2015 10:03 AM
The whole, "Girls go for cool bad boys when they are young but then settle for stable guys" thing is a big part of that whole narrative.
I know this is a thing. As a stable guy, what the hell kind of deal is that for me? I get you after you decide to stop being cool, interesting and more sexually open? I get you forever...after you decide to be boring and missionary?
Gee thanks.
FIDO at November 14, 2015 7:15 AM
I think it goes both ways... people in their twenties don't really know how to choose partners and go gor "Oo, she's hot!" "Oo, he is in a band!" and have not figured out how to pick 'em.
They also do not know how to BE a good partner.
So you get each other when you have both grown up.
NicoleK at November 14, 2015 7:56 AM
You get her after she has decided to stop sleeping around, and be faithful and true. Doesn't mean she won't try new positions.
NicoleK at November 14, 2015 7:57 AM
Shrug. Been on a lot of marriage sites where the women write about how they used to be very sexually free with their "Mr. Right Now". But once married, they left that stuff behind HARD because they associated that sex with that whole lifestyle. This was a recurring theme. Hubbies tend to resent finding out they are getting the 'lunch menu' instead of the full course menu as a 'reward' for being the wife's soul mate.
Plus I don't know a lot of 'bad boys' who turned their lives around to be stable guys. Stable guys tend to be stable guys. That is what 'stable' means.
And yet, this woman is getting sweaty panties over this guy who pretty much treated her like dirt and yet Mr. Stable she is going to ditch.
Classy woman.
FIDO at November 14, 2015 6:19 PM
Yes. But Mr. Stableguy will find someone nice.
I do know guys who sowed their wild oats and then grew up.
NicoleK at November 17, 2015 2:07 PM
I'm inclined to reserve judgment against East Coast Guy's "cruel" behavior without knowing what happened in her half of the argument. But, regardless of who said or did this or that, bottom line is it does not sound like you have the basis of a stable relationship with East Coast Guy ... whether he is a cruel asshole or just some guy whose buttons you pushed doesn't really matter, what matters is the two of you end up in ugly bitter arguments.
Lobster at November 18, 2015 2:41 PM
@"Hubbies tend to resent finding out they are getting the 'lunch menu' instead of the full course menu as a 'reward' for being the wife's soul mate"
Yup, and it's time men start 'manning up' and saying, sorry, this isn't good enough.
Lobster at November 18, 2015 2:45 PM
LW sounds like a real peach. I also don't understand how she puked all over herself. Hell, even when I was totally shit-faced and didn't make it to the toilet in time, I still managed to bend over and puke on the ground, not on my pants.
Erica at December 5, 2015 8:52 PM
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