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Truesday: On Giving it a Bad Name
*The views expressed in Truesday are those of the author and do not represent Austinist as a whole.* -The Editors
Have you ever been shot in the face? By someone you really trusted? Someone you were INVESTED in? It has to be a difficult situation to deal with. The knee-jerk feelings of betrayal settling in and amongst the memories of more pleasant associations with your attacker. Scrumptious Christmas dinners by candle light, pats on the back after a good game of tennis doubles, and all those brilliantly lucrative transactions that passed between you two.
And now this? Buck shot to the neck? What the fuck, man?
It would have to lead even the most moderately perceptive mind to wonder. Especially if the shooter has a particularly strong history of cold, calculated moves. Someone who you’ve never seen fly off the handle or snap-judge anything with such brazen abandon. Certainly not a person who would mistake your face for that of flying game, when guns are involved. The questions would come with double the fury if the trigger-puller had a particularly long rap-sheet that was built on never making a mistake. One constructed of self-proclaimed righteousness. So righteous in fact, that even when a decision was made that appeared to be faulted in every way, they stuck to their guns, so to speak, and maintained that their actions were fully appropriate. Not only were their actions always appropriate, but to even question their motivation was to completely undermine not only your relationship with them, but your relationship with yourself, grandma, and apple fucking pie.
Or so they told you.
So what now? You’ve got buckshot in your left eye, and they’ve never made a mistake in their life to date. Where does that leave you two? Should you ask them if you’ve done something wrong? Is the relationship over?
The questions bully forth with relentlessly increasing urgency.
Did they mean to do that? Were they trying to tell me something? Was it an extremely brutal show of passive-aggressive force? Or was it just a really, really regrettable lapse in sound judgment? Can a person shoot someone else in the face without knowing what they were doing? Seriously?
It’s an awfully compleximicated situation. So many angles to consider. So much weight placed upon motivation, so little placed upon random human error. Digging into my own memory, based on this wholly hypothetical scenario of friend-shoots-friend’s-face-without-stated-cause, I come up with some pretty germane shit. Especially around this time of year.
Usually it’s my fault. That’s right. I’m usually the one holding the proverbial smoking gun. I was the one wielding a tool of destructive capacity without real regard as to the potential fall-out. Well armed, but in a purely metaphorical way, honest (good thing, too!).
Valentine’s Day. The greatest potential weapon tool made available for the average man. It’s like a stepping stool, really. A man can accept it as an opportunity to “take things to the next level” by placing it underneath the delicate feet of a burgeoning relationship and watch with hidden pride as things ascend. Or he can mangle it into a passive-aggressive escape hatch by lifting it high above his head with both hands, WWF style, and then proceed to bludgeon the gasping relationship to embittered shards of someone else’s future therapy bills.
And rarely does a man realize that he’s irreverently waving this potential around. He probably thinks little to nothing of the day itself, even if he’s a model mate in every other respect. Normally, he has clue: not as to the earth-shattering, explosive volatility of the situation at hand. How closely he will be monitored throughout the entire process, or how the resulting ripples from the impact of Valentine’s will be felt for months, if not years, to come. He’s probably stumbling around it like W.C. Fields when he should be tip-toeing like Baryshnikov.
If all relationships are a hunt, then come mid-February, his safety is carelessly off and she’s secretly knit herself a frilly cap made of duck feathers. To keep warm, of course. It’s a highly compromised situation for the average man, with his average (on a good day) reaction time and inability to consider that she would want to dress the part. He’s going to have his guard down, and hers will be keenly sharp. So keen that there are, quite possibly, places in her brain dedicated solely to the ever-burned memory of what happens next. There will be no second chances here.
In other words, if he accidentally metaphorically shoots her in the metaphorical face, he better damn sure mean it. And then he better run like a motherfucker. Because when she heals… sweet jeebs. He better be out of range. At least in a different area code. For a month or two, minimum.
So, it boils down to this: Guys, if you haven’t thought of something yet, you better think quick. Because you are currently wandering a field with a loaded shot gun, and she’s out there somewhere with a goddamn bird on her head. There's only one way it can end. Saying you’re sorry won’t cut it.
Trust me, I wish it would. For the love of pete I wish it would.
It wasn’t that long ago that I, myself, hastily pulled the trigger on what I thought was a fleeing quail, only to find the limping remains of my relationship after the smoke cleared. Forgetting Valentine’s Day is one thing, but admitting that you absolutely abhor the vacant, board-room invented, Cupid-arrow-to-the-groin nature of the “one-time purchase of everlasting devotion!” holiday… well, let’s just say I was swinging that loose analogy of a step stool with all the style and grace of a one-eyed four year-old tee-baller at the plate. It might as well have been buckshot. I might as well have reloaded, unloaded, reloaded and then unloaded again. She sure as hell took it like I did.
Hopefully she’ll be too busy this year to read this column. Hopefully.
And hopefully none of you guys out there will make the mistake of doing nothing, even if that’s exactly what every fiber of your being tells you to. You don’t want to be backpedaling for a whole year. You don’t want to be trying to explain how it could have happened. How could you have been so thoughtless? How could you have pulled the trigger like that? Do you hate her or something? Have you no feelings, you heartless beast?
Oh... Good times. Such good times.
She’ll assume you meant it, even if that’s the furthest from the truth. Every last pellet. Trust me on that. Now go and be good.
Merry Valentine’s Day to you all, and gentlemen: make sure the safety’s ON.
