This morning I got up at six-thirty to go for a walk with my friend Cate. When we set out, the sun was just coming up, and there was an unaccountable smell of campfire smoke in the air. We passed by a homeless person sleeping under the bridge. At least, I hoped he (she?) was simply asleep – his face was covered by his sleeping bag, and only his boots were showing, so it was impossible to tell for sure.
These kinds of details are totally irrelevant to this blog, except insofar as they communicate something about my actual experience, about what's relevant to me. So: the smoky smell, and a cast-off person who may or may not have been asleep. More important than what I'm going to recount next, which is a bit of silliness -- and yet, even minor dramas illustrate important themes.
As we walked, Cate was speculating about what it's going to be like when Luke, a man she met on OK Cupid some time ago, comes to visit next month. Luke lives on the east coast, and neither he nor Cate has the money for frivolous travel, so their interactions have all been over the phone until now. I don't know how likely it is that anything “exciting” will happen, as the tenor of their conversations has been more friendly than romantic, and Cate isn't the (only) reason he'll be in town. Nevertheless, she finds herself wondering if they will perhaps hit it off.
“I hope Harry gets really jealous,” she said.
WTF?
Why would anyone wish jealousy on someone else? It's like hoping someone gets the flu.
I was reminded of something Denali was telling me about Montana, his ex-girlfriend, who apparently attempted to make her current boyfriend jealous by making out with some other guy. Typical fourteen-year-old shenanigans.
Okay, I'll just say it: I had a judgmental moment. Attempting to manipulate others' emotions is something we all do, but flirting/making out/having sex with someone in hopes of making someone else jealous is a pretty childish maneuver.
I used to make a point of telling my high school boyfriend, Jack, about any interactions with other boys that pleased me. I shared every compliment and innuendo – not because I wanted to make him jealous, precisely, although I didn't especially mind if that was the result, but because I had something to prove. I wanted Jack know that he was dating a valuable person, someone who excited desire or admiration in others.
I guess I do understand the motive behind Cate's little “let's make him jealous” game. She doubts her own worth. As do we all: it's part of the experience of being human.
However, my experience of jealousy – my own and others' – has shown me that it's not something to mess around with. I can honestly say that, at least in my post-adolescent life, the only times I've ever been tempted to make someone jealous have been times when I was feeling really jealous myself.
I chalk that up to the fact that human beings tend to visit Planet Tit-for-Tat whenever we feel we've been wronged. You hurt me, so I'll hurt you back – then you'll see how I feel! Never mind that this approach rarely results in us getting what we really want, which is empathy. We may understand, intellectually, that “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,” but we often can't restrain ourselves from hurting those we believe to be the cause of our own pain.
Chronic low self-esteem – which is something most adolescents experience, along with a fair number of adults – is a kind of chronic pain. It causes a person to behave badly, in all kinds of ways. Sometimes it causes a person to hurt someone she loves, in a misguided attempt to feel better about herself. Sometimes, it causes a person to end up alone under a bridge on a frosty night.
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