Well one of the pleasures of being in a relationship is experiencing it for itself and not constantly agonizing over when it might end. It can still be meaningful even if it's only temporary - see recent proposals for finite marriage contracts as examples of perhaps a more realistic alternative to the lifetime arrangement.
As for the second part, I had a friend who was like that once who is in a relationship he's very happy with now. The way I explained the experience of moving out of that extreme introversion was like this - you know when you're at a social gathering and you get home and you're all alone and you finally exhale and relax? In a really good relationship that relaxation doesn't hit you until you're both at home together.
It's not something you can switch on and off obviously, but it's a feeling to maybe imagine opening up to. I often feel quite lonely by myself now when I never did before.
I'll keep all that in mind. It's the commitment part that really fucks with me. If you have a car that starts acting up or that you get bored with, you can always just get a new car. Or hell, if you want, you can have two cars. But with relationships, you can't be so flippant unless you just don't care about people's feelings.
I am terrified of the idea of hurting someone, and I don't really want to get hurt either, and it seems that ultimately the vast majority of relationships end up pain one way or the other.
Regarding feeling lonely by yourself, that's interesting, because I have had the opposite experience. When I was younger I was more of a social creature and would have times when I would feel lonely if I had been alone for too long, but these days it's not really a problem. As long as I hang out with one of my friends a couple of times a month I'm good. I actually suspect that the Internet has a lot to do with that. With the Internet I'm able to connect with people like you and I are connecting right now. That goes a long way to serving my need for human interaction.
I think our true moral positions are revealed when we're tested, and happy Calvin failed to realize that his were nothing more than lip service.
I agree with that statement on the face of it, but I also feel like it is in times of exceptional stress and pressure that we are our weakest. So our psychological state isn't what it normally is and things are apt to seem logical and reasonable that otherwise would not.
He could have done that without the outright manipulation though. He could have sat down with her and explained what had happened and taken her through some minor tests after she consented to them. It might have been an emotional episode but he's sitting there thinking and typing man, he's not reactively yelling or letting a word slip out of his mouth or something. There's too much consciousness of the process for me to permit it without judgement.
I might agree to meet you halfway on this one, but I feel like you're discounting the emotion of the moment. As I just said, in certain emotional and psychological states, things that are not logical or reasonable can seem to be so.
I'm not saying Calvin was in the right. I'm just saying I kind of get where he was coming from.
As for the second - I don't think we see what he's written in that moment, do we? Maybe he wrote something that made her continued awareness explicit. I don't think there's any other evidence that she had been naturally progressing toward relinquishment for us to go on.
I tried to go back and solve this mystery but for some reason my file is no longer working. I don't think that we can see what he writes though. Maybe you're correct that he specifically wrote that she would have conscious understanding of what was going on. I guess we really don't know, but it struck me as odd that earlier she suddenly spoke French and didn't think a thing about it but later on she was conscious of the manipulation.
I think he hates the genius label because he knows he can't continuously live up to it - or if he can, he just hates the pressure and expectations that come with his ability. I don't think he hates it because he doesn't want to be an actual genius, especially in the eyes of the person he's closest to, and who knows him the best.
You're probably right.
I'm sure he does find it threatening. But his choice is to retreat from that threat and act hostile toward his own mother rather than accept that she's happy with her new circumstances. I thought we'd get more of a reason to find her life choices shallow or empty somehow, but as far as I could tell she went along with a guy she liked and he seemed pretty cool, and at the very least sincere. Calvin's poor showing in this relationship is a sample of what becomes a full blown problem in his own intimate relationship, and it would have been nice to see him get over that more extensively than a single drastic action could allow.
I feel you on that. I guess I'm sympathetic because I haven't found a cure for my own neuroses. And it's not because I haven't wanted to.
