That crazy girl, who was mental

Communication breakdown

A few years ago my dear friend and former flatmate Alice and I came up with a way of referring to a type of situation a certain kind of young man would create in a dating context. We called it “That crazy girl, who was mental.” 

The situation they would create was one which was bound to drive you completely up the walls. In fact it often seemed to have been masterminded specifically for this purpose. For example, you might go on three really good dates, and they would talk a lot about how much they were enjoying themselves, and you would both talk about what you would do the next time (a certain show in a gallery, say) and then when you texted to organise the exact time to meet, they would never respond. Or you might sleep with them and after they would ask you when you had last cried, seemingly trying to force a degree of intimacy, and then when you texted again to meet up they would send a long essay explaining that they weren’t looking for a serious relationship (I swear this one really happened). I could go on. But you get the idea.  

We called these situations “That crazy girl, who was mental” because it seemed clear that if you responded directly to the way they had been acting, by asking for an explanation, say, or telling them they had wasted your time, or even saying that if they had only wanted to hook up they didn’t need to misrepresent their intentions and could just have said that, then they would frame this as you being crazy, obsessive, a stalker, and so on. And you would be slotted into this box of “That crazy girl, who was mental.” 

Well, they wouldn’t have called you that directly. They would probably just have ignored the message. But you knew that was how you would be described. And if you saw them again, bumped into them in a bar or a pub, say, you would be pointed at and whispered about as the crazed stalker.  

Regardless of whether you cared about being the crazed stalker or not, you were still backed into a corner because there was no way to get an explanation, more context, or to have a conversation about what had happened. 

We spoke a lot about it; about why it was so maddening, and why they did it. One maddening thing was that the situation was often one they simply didn’t need to create to get whatever it was they wanted. The level of intimacy they fostered wasn’t necessary to get you to have sex with them, say. 

Another was that you didn’t know to what extent you had been tricked; which of the things they said had been meant earnestly at the time but changed on reflection, and which were simply lies. It also seemed to assume views and opinions of you (or even an entire personality) that you didn’t hold: That you’d be prudish about sex, that you were seeking a long term relationship, that you were too emotionally unstable to be rejected directly.   

Yet another maddening thing was that the lack of information, or misleading information, caused you to ruminate more on the situation than you ever would have otherwise. A lot of good films and novels lodge themselves in your mind by artfully withholding certain pieces of information about some of the characters, in such a way that you find yourself speculating about their motivations and thoughts long after you have finished reading or watching. The characters take on a new life in your head, in that way, and this behaviour had the same effect. 

As for why they did it: At the time I thought it was either confusion, in that they thought they felt one way and then the next day realised they felt a different way and didn’t know how to explain that. Or that they sort of did it on purpose because they found the idea of driving some woman mad over themselves flattering and thought their friends would be impressed by it. I think there’s probably some truth to both of those as reasons, but now I’m not sure if that’s the whole story.  

I do think a lot of people probably love the idea of themselves as someone capable of driving another person to distraction in a romantic context. And not just men. As time has gone on I’ve noticed a few women I know who fabricate their own version of “That crazy girl, who was mental” in a dating context too.

But I no longer think of this as something that applies to romantic contexts only. Now I wonder if it’s a more fundamental thing related to the different ways that different kinds of people communicate, and how some people are basically straightforward in the things they say and do while others struggle to be. 

A while ago I wrote a piece about ghosting and spoke to a lot of people who often create romantic situations like the ones I’ve described above. They were, broadly, incredibly cagey and furtive; their evasiveness really stuck with me. They all seemed sort of terrified of other people, but also of feelings. Of the idea of how explosive something like rejection might be as a concept. It was fascinating. 

Over Christmas I was drinking with my younger brother and some of his friends. I got talking to one of them about some of this stuff, from the perspective of how hard he finds all of it. The difficulty of seeing yourself as vulnerable when other people see you as tough, the problems with trying to initiate intimacy, how hard it is to talk to anyone about anything. A lot of young people seem to struggle with communication at the minute. Which doesn’t surprise me; there’s so much of it that it can feel very overwhelming. But he seemed absolutely terrified of other people, and what they could do to him. It was striking.

I didn’t really have anything useful to say. The usual platitudes: everyone feels like they get put into boxes that don’t fit, talking about feelings is often awkward, everyone finds other people hard to read. But it reminded me of “That crazy girl, who was mental”. Not because I think he is in the habit of doing this (although he might be I didn’t ask) but because both these things feel like problems that could be solved with more information. If guards were dropped a little (maybe a lot). If direct communication wasn’t often made to feel weirdly transgressive. I don’t know if there’s any bigger point in here, about young people and communication. But I can’t stop thinking about it. 

Till next time! xxxx

Some Things I Liked Lately: 

• This essay by Mary Gaitskill, on her lost and depressed creative writing students.

  I also wondered why the only options were inaction or hauling the student before a committee. I wondered what would happen if he was instead required to sit down with the assistant dean and myself and answer certain questions. What exactly are you thinking? Why are you writing to your old lady professor about young men raping old ladies with whom they are acquainted? I didn’t suggest this for the same reason that I didn’t respond to that part of the email; I did not want to feed it. But I think a face-to-face sit-down that was not about a personal relationship between him and me but which involved university personnel — someone supportive — would have been different. It could have been exactly what I think students — not just students, but most people now — are missing: physical engagement requiring that you look the person to whom you are speaking in the eye.

• I ADORRRRRED this short story. My agent mentioned Tom Drury the other day, and I had never heard of him. I started reading this story and couldn’t stop and when I finished it I immediately ordered three of his books. What a great opener:

  One day, a bottle almost hits us. It’s a brown quart bottle that falls out of the sky. We are in the arroyo, the dogs and me, walking.