trade-off
Posted on: February 29, 2020
The most effective way to get over somebody is radical disappointment. To some extent we are all bound to let down the very people we love and be let down by them. Disappointment cannot be avoided as part of our everyday life and it comes in different strands. Most of these letdowns are trivial and benign and can be absorbed with ease by our relationships. But there are a couple of disappointments that are so gross and shockingly malign that changes our overview completely. You suddenly realize the person you love is not who you thought he was or who pretended to be. You are forced to adjust his image to the point it no longer resembles the original you fell for. The law of identity comes into force. What you thought is an A is a B. Whoever he pretended to be he is not. The person you love does not exist. There’s nobody to get over after all. In fairness, you may still experience a sense of loss and confusion since your love has lost its object but it’s more like a phantom pain and far from the agony of a heartbreak. Your past history is revised and your narrative rewritten.
Radical disappointment is to love what is chemotherapy to cancer. It cures but at a cost. It has some nasty side effects. It causes nausea and you feel grossed out. You are left with a sense of repulsion at the sickening thought that you were close to that person. You know that sense of dread and repugnance you entertain when you see a cockroach or a snake in your proximity. The idea of being close or touched by them makes your stomach cringe or vomit. It’s a strong reaction to complete alterity and otherness, embedded deeply in our DNA. You realize you were on intimate terms with someone so fundamentally different that gives you the ick. The idea that you touched them makes your skin crawls. It’s like an upside down version of the fairy tale where you kiss the prince and he turns into a frog. Yuck.
Radical disappointment is liberating. It doesn’t come cheap since it sets you free at the price of puking your guts out but it’s definitely worth your while. It’s a good trade-off even though costly. It replaces your love with repulsion. It replaces your lover with a stranger you despise. It replaces the heartache with a headache which is admittedly a nuisance but much easier to shake off. Thank God the mask eventually fell off and the charade is over. Truth is a beautiful thing. Hell to the liars.
nolongerinbetween 
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