The discussion on Myca’s Nice Guy™ thread reminded me of someone I had not thought about in a very long time, a woman–I’ll call her Kim–with whom I was close friends in college, whom I lost as a friend after she decided to marry a man I was convinced was no good for her, not because I dropped her as a friend, but because she dropped me. We’d been classmates, but not more than that, in sixth grade and had not seen each other until we met again as English majors during our sophomore year in college. I have no memory of how we became close friends, but we did, quickly, and, eventually, I wanted very much to turn that friendship into something more.
I don’t remember if I ever told Kim how I felt. I do remember, however, very clearly when she told me how she felt about me. We were at a beach not far from campus and she had just come out of the water and plopped down on her stomach. We started talking, most probably about something we were reading for class, when suddenly Kim sat up and faced me. “You know, Richard,” she said, “you’re like a brother to me.” I don’t remember what, if anything, I said in response, though it was certainly not what I wanted to hear. Still, our friendship was far more important to me than the possibility of a sexual relationship which might end up not working out, so I swallowed my disappointment and accepted her, and loved her, as the intimate friend I assumed she was saying was the only thing she ever wanted to be to me.
Before Kim met the man she married, she had one boyfriend that I remember, a guy I thought was a jerk long before they became a couple, not so much because he was arrogant, though he was, but because he epitomized that arrogance, at least this is how I remember feeling about it back then, by braiding and beading his hair in imitation of Bo Derek’s hairstyle in the movie 10. The semester Kim went out with him, she also moved to a dorm across campus nearer to where he lived. In fact, she might have done that to be closer to him, but I am not sure. Once–and this is what confirmed him in my mind not just as a jerk but as a true asshole–he came back with her to her old dorm room to pick up some things. I walked by the open door on my way to leave a note on another friend’s door down the hall, saw them out of the corner of my eye as I passed and figured I would pop in to say hello on my way back. At first, I didn’t think they’d seen me, but then, when I was still just a couple of doors down from where they were, I heard him say, “See, I told you that once you moved across campus, he’d forget about you.” I put the note on my other friend’s door and hurried back, but by the time I got there, Kim and her boyfriend were gone.
I know she eventually broke up with that guy–it’s funny, I remember his name, first and last–and that she, too, decided he was a jerk; and I have memories of going to at least one classical music concert with her during our senior year (if I remember correctly, she played the violin) and of there being that night what I thought might have been some sexual tension between us, though nothing came of it. Indeed, I didn’t even realize it might have been sexual tension until the following day, and then it confused me because it was so at odds with the substance of our friendship; and I remember how ambitious she was as an aspiring journalist and how much I respected the integrity of her politics and her belief that she could make a real difference in the world. Mostly, though, I remember how much I liked being with her. Just being with her. She laughed a lot, and I don’t think there was anything we could not talk about. Her friendship enriched my life, plain and simple. It made me happy, and I was deeply grateful for that.
Then, in our senior year, a speaker came to campus, a man who’d written a tremendously popular book on “how to woo and win a woman.” The school newspaper assigned Kim to cover his talk, and when she did–at least this is my memory of the story she told me the next day–she asked him during the Q&A about something that, if true, would call into question the validity of his claim to be the kind of man who could write the kind of book he’d written and be taken seriously. His response, in front of the entire audience, was to invite her out to dinner that night with the rest of the press, where he promised he would answer her question. At the dinner, he offered to give her an exclusive, private interview back in his hotel room. She went with him. At some point, if I remember correctly what she told me, I guess it became clear to her that he was interested in giving her a good deal more than an interview and she asked him to take her home, or to call a taxi. He refused and she ended up having sex with him that night.
When she told me this, I was, for obvious reasons, horrified, and I told her so, and I pleaded with her not to see him again. Even if she did not think that what he did was date rape, I said–because she didn’t–a man who behaved like that was not someone she ought to trust; but she did not listen to me, and she started going out with him. This inevitably meant that she and I saw less of each other, though we still talked on the phone pretty frequently, and then, after what seems in my recollection to have been a very short while, and I mean a very short while, she told me he’d proposed marriage and that she was thinking of accepting. I asked her if she loved him, and while she did not say no, she very pointedly did not say yes. I don’t know how much time passed before she agreed to be his wife, but she did finally do so, and that was the end of our friendship. I remember trying to call her, to write her, but she did not respond at all. I was not surprised not to be invited to the wedding. Several years after we graduated, I was talking with someone who had also been her friend when we were in college, and he said that she’d told him she wanted to cut out of her life completely anyone she’d known during her college years. She didn’t, or wouldn’t, tell him why.
I googled Kim’s name today and was surprised to discover, given her one-time desire to be a writer, that she has almost no online presence. There are a couple of references to her and her husband, recent enough that I assume they are still married, and a couple of scanned articles she wrote for our college newspaper back when we were undergraduates. I read them wistfully, remembering the strength of her voice and of her character. I hope–despite everything that what I have written here implies about the man she married, because I would wish her nothing less–that her marriage has been a good one, happy and challenging in all the right ways, and most of all loving; and I hope that she has found ways of making her life as meaningful as she once thought being a journalist would make it; mostly, though, I wish there was a way I could find out if those hopes are true, because I never had the chance to say goodbye to her, to grieve the loss of her as a friend, and I guess I would also like the opportunity to tell her that a part of me still misses her.
I am not interested in reopening the debate from Myca’s thread about the definition of Nice Guy™ and any comments which do so will be deleted.
Cross posted on It’s All Connected.
The most obvious way to explain what happened was that the man who went on to marry Kim hit on the right way to woo her. His extremely public declarations of sexual interest, in the certain knowledge that many in the audience would be thinking ‘what a predatory asshole’; the transparent ploy of offering her an ‘exclusive interview’ back at his place, in the certain knowledge that both she and any of her friends privy to it would be bound to disapprove of such evidently manipulative behaviour; the fact that he refused to do the decent thing and call a taxi when she asked for one, in the certain knowledge that a man who does not take an initial ‘no’ for an answer is regarded among enlightened people as being on the slippery slope to coercion and rape – all this was interpreted by Kim as meaning: ‘This guy must really, really, really desire me! Making a total jerk of himself in public, coming out with embarassing, sleazy, suggestive comments , laying himself open to accusations of harrassment and worse – none of that means anything to him in comparison with his overwhelming need to have and keep me! Wow!!! I’m going weak at the knees!!!’
In other words, Kim’s husband (as he now is), considering himself no doubt an expert in these matters, came to the conclusion that a lot of the disapproval expressed in enlightened society for certain kinds of blatant, insistent and even agressive courting behaviour should be treated as just another hurdle a man is expected to get over. A heterosexual man, for example, should not allow himself, according to this theory, to be put off by the feigned disapproval of either the woman he wishes to woo or of the company she keeps, he shouldn’t take an initial ‘no’ as final etc. – because the more he disregards these factors the more he demostrates the flattering intensity of his passion and the more likely he is to get his leg over.
In accordance with your wishes, Richard, I shall refrain from bringing up again the contentious term ‘nice guys’. I would, by contrast, like to bring up another, scarcely less contentious, term: ‘rape culture’. Different feminists have different views as to what this word entails, but I would have thought that the doctrine: ‘manipulate all you want, apply as much pressure as you want, don’t take “no” for an answer: all the disapproval society shows for such behaviour is hypocritical hokum intended to to test your metal’ – I would have thought that such a doctrine was bound to qualify as an example of rape culture in anybody’s book. And publicly to validate that doctrine – which is what Kim did – is by the same token publicly to validate rape culture.
Tom:
I wrote the post, as the title says, to mourn a friendship, and so, while I don’t think your comment is in any way out of line, I am going to refrain from taking on the discussion you have started, though others may want to. Emotionally and intellectually, it’s just not where I am at. I do, however, want to respond briefly to this comment of yours:
by saying, as a point of information, that this man’s behavior was precisely the opposite of the kinds of behavior he advocated in his book.
“Mettle”, not “metal”.
” Several years after we graduated, I was talking with someone who had also been her friend when we were in college, and he said that she’d told him she wanted to cut out of her life completely anyone she’d known during her college years”
Yikes. You know what that sounds like, right?
Mandolin:
I do, and there are more details that came to me after I finished writing that would seem to confirm “what that sounds like,” but since they would make it much easier to identify the people involved, and I don’t want to do that, I am not going to say more. Every time I think about this, it just makes me very, very sad.
Doug – quite right, I should have said mettle and not metal. Always one that gets away.
” Every time I think about this, it just makes me very, very sad.”
Yeah.
I know people in that situation who are too distant for me to help and–yeah.
@ Richard –
Out of curiosity, what kinds of behavior was he advocating?
I don’t intend to reopen any “Nice Guy(TM)” discussions,* but it sounds like the opposite of his behavior is stereotypical “Nice Guy”-ness… and if anyone’s advocating passive-aggressive self-desexualizing as a way to “woo and win a woman,” something’s wrong there; so I’m assuming that’s not what was in the book. Hence my curiosity.
*If this strays too close to reopening same, feel free to delete this; I won’t be upset.
@ Mandolin –
Are we assuming it’s true, or are we assuming that’s just what the cover story for the husband cutting off from her friends? If the former, then what’s it sound like?
I’d been assuming the latter, though.
Motley:
It has been decades since the book was published and so I don’t know that I can give you a detailed answer, but, suffice it to say that his book was neither about a Nice Guy (TM) approach nor about the kind of aggressiveness/aggression he displayed towards my friend.
Motley: It sounds as if the woman is being systematically isolated as part of domestic abuse.
Richard:
Huh. When you said “opposite,” that’s where my brain went.
Mandolin:
Yup, that’s what I was assuming, but it looked just a little bit odd. (Usually, as far’s I know, the victim doesn’t actually say “I want to cut off contact with X people;” usually they think they just “lost touch” with people or something like that). So a little odd, but not so much that it’s looking like anything else, I figure.
You don’t want to talk about nice guys, so I will respect that. But from the other side, from her side, there are women who, despite all outward appearance and indisputable true talent and intelligence, lack the personal grit or confidence that allows them to function as one half of an adult relationship of equals. Something in her personal history made her vulnerable to the claims of overreaching certainty and arrogance displayed by this man. Yes, it’s very sad.
If it’s anything like what happened to me, it’s being taught to obey and conform rather than question. You’d be surprised how much trouble you can have in life when you don’t know how to say no, or when you don’t realize you can.
I feel sad for your loss, but as have been itterated again and again and again on this blog. Your friend has every right to decide how to live her life. If she was attracted to this guy, then neither you nor I nor anyone else is to judge that. It’s sad that she choose to alienate all her previous friends in order to be with this man, but that’s her decision.
And yet, even a basic analysis of relational power leads one to the conclusion that a “decision” made with a looming threat of abuse, abandonment, or some other kind of punishment is no decision at all. It’s the illusion of choice. It’s not far off from the argument that a person who is under the threat of physical or emotional harm can “consent” to sex, or that a person of color in an all-white setting can “decide” not to object to a racist remark.
True choice and decision require freedom, and freedom requires that there not be punishment associated with any of the options. (I distinguish “punishment” from “consequences” because all choice has consequences, but punishment is administered by someone with more power.)