Breaking Up With District 9 Is Hard To Do
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Folks, for a while I’ve been meeting regularly with a guy who I’ll call Dean. And by meeting with him, I mean he comes to my apartment/office, gives me money, and I tell him what to do.
Dean was down in the dumps. You see, his girlfriend had just ended their relationship, which, by all accounts, had lots of great sex in it. I wish I could tell you more, but there’s a little thing called client confidentiality.
So, naturally, Dean was grieving and missing what he enjoyed about that experience. “I feel like I just got bulldozed, Dr. Matt,” he said to me. I found this to be a bit of exaggeration, since the feeling of being bulldozed would likely be a kind of bone-crushing sensation that leads to one’s death. He continued: “It just makes me angry. It wasn’t right what happened, and I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”
“Anger is good, Dean,” I said. “It’s an important part of the process. But, are you sure you know what you’re angry at?”
He frowned at me. “What do you mean?” he said.
“Well, it sounds to me like you think you were a victim,” I said.
“Of course,” said Dean. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Dean,” I said, “why would you think that you would have to do something wrong for someone to leave a relationship? Who says it has anything to do with you?”
That seemed to stop Dean in his tracks, so I elaborated a bit more. I didn’t want to elaborate too much, because I was thinking of seeing that new District 9 movie, and whenever I looked at Dean I could only think about alien weaponry. But, anyway, I continued: “People leave relationships for their own reasons, and even the reasons aren’t so important. In fact, the reasons are usually stupid. What’s important is that she has free will, and so do you, and this time she exercised it in a way that you didn’t like. It’s not more personal that that. She made a decision that you wouldn’t have.”
“But Dr. Matt, even my friends say this was wrong,” he said, still giving me that I’m-a-victim voice.
“Listen, Dean, I’d beware of your friends’ statements about the relationship if I were you. They love you, and they don’t like to see you hurt, but they weren’t in the relationship. So they reach for the closest thing they can think of, which was when they feel they were wronged in a relationship. I’m not saying they’re right or wrong; I just think you should stick to your feelings and not theirs.”
Dean ran his hands through his hair, thinking about this, and that movement of his arm made me think of that scene in the movie preview for District 9, where the robot reaches up to grab a rocket. I glanced at the clock, noting that I still had some time, so I kept talking.
“Relationships are interesting. When you come to a road block, say one that has been put up in an internment camp for aliens, then either you both go around it, or neither of you go around. If only one of you goes around it, perhaps because you see some fresh raw meat on the other side, then you’re no longer in the relationship.”
“Uh, I don’t understand, Dr. Matt,” said Dean.
I could see that Dean still had a lot of work to do. “The point is, Dean, that you walked a pretty long distance on that road together. As a result, you, personally, are a lot further along that road than you were, and so is she. Be grateful for it.”
Dean looked confused. “But… am I still in an alien internment camp looking for raw meat?” I thought he posed an excellent question, a question I wanted answered by that evening, so I ended our session.
I called up Midgie and we tried to see that District 9, but it was all sold out. Midgie suggested seeing Julie and Julia, which I did not want to see, but I convinced myself that not wanting to see something was not a big issue when it came to enjoying the pleasure of another person’s company.
Just My Thoughts,
Dr. Matt
