06-16-2018, 01:37 AM
I would like to proceed now to the exposition and analysis of a story of emotional addiction. I state that the story I’m about to tell and analyze is not a true story but an example of school to point out the concepts related to the most serious diseases of a couple relationship. Nonetheless, the elements that I will take into consideration present themselves in real stories, studying their meaning here will therefore be useful to recognize in time the elements that seriously discourage the continuation of a couple relationship or it would be better to say a presumed couple relationship. But let's get to the story.
The characters are three, the first, Luke, is a 23-year-old guy who, treated by his parents as the weak link of the family, in relation to his married 35-year-old brother now fully realized at a social and economic level, has progressively lost self-esteem and is desperately looking for a guy to solve his problems in order to finally begin to feel loved.
The second character is John, a 26-year-old guy who has undergone periods of severe depression and has ended up in a relationship of substantial dependence on the third protagonist of our story, Richard, a 35year-old man with a very determined and sometimes aggressive character that manages a small autonomous economic activity.
John doesn’t study, doesn’t work and doesn’t look for a job because he would have great difficulty in entering a working environment. Richard is aware of all this and keeps him home at his own expense. John's family, which has always considered John as a patient, not because of his homosexuality, which was also known to his family, but because of his depression, has favored the relationship between John and Richard, aware that this would finally have removed John from the family, a fact considered highly desirable by his parents because of the frequent depressive crises of John and the presence of two younger brothers of John, still adolescents.
Luke meets John on a dating site, talks a lot with him, and is informed by John of his depression but not of the fact that John has lived with Richard for years.
Luke identifies himself with John and conceives the idea that no one better than him can assist John and that John, if properly supported by him, will be able to get out of depression and recover completely.
Between Luke and John a relationship develops slowly taking on all the characteristics of the relationship of love. Luke feels in love. The relationship develops without any pathological characteristics, Luke is enthusiastic, then fully unexpected elements intervene that arouse some perplexities in Luke: during their conversations in chat, John is absent for long periods of time. One day John, speaking with Luke, attributes to Luke a sentence that Luke remembers never having said, Luke avoids emphasizing the thing, which remains only a sporadic fact.
Luke and John describe themselves physically to each other, John says he is slim and well proportioned, but a couple of days later he says that he eats too much and that maybe it is the drugs that make him gain weight, even this fact remains only an episode and Luke tries not to give it too much weight.
Another day John tells Luke not to call him the next morning because he will go to the doctor together with his parents, Luke doesn’t call him and, in the afternoon, when they newly hear each other on the phone, John asks Luke why he didn’t call him in the morning as usual . Luke avoids to remind John of the visit to the doctor and tells him that he was busy with his family, John says only "Ah, ok! The important thing is that you're fine! " and seems not to remember at all to have told Luke that he would go to the doctor. This fact leaves Luke rather perplexed, but despite everything Luke avoids addressing the issue directly and tries not to give weight to the episode.
The speeches between Luke and John, slowly, come to touch sexuality and the two decide to exchange photos. Luke passes to John his photos, but John passes to Luke the photos of Richard a few years before, when he was definitely a handsome guy, and tells him that those are his last summer's photos. Luke likes the pictures of Richard, and obviously believes they are the photos of John and Luke feels even more in love.
After a few weeks, one Friday, posing as John, Richard, in a very short conversation written in chat, proposes to Luke to meet in person the following Sunday. Luke doesn’t expect such a proposal so sudden but is very happy. He tries to contact John again, but he always gets only brief, interlocutory written answers. John (actually Richard) will take a trip of a few hours to reach Luke in his city. Luke's expectations are many, when the day of the meeting finally arrives, at the station, Luke immediately recognizes the guy of the photos, which, however, seems a little too old for 26 years, but Luke judges the question to be secondary.
Luke realizes that the voice of the guy in front of him is not very similar to that of John, whom he had heard so many times via Skype, tries to resume then the classic speeches he did with John and brings up the depression but the guy answers him abruptly it is not to talk about depression that he has taken such a long journey. Luke tries to insist and explain that he understood that the guy in front of him is not the one he talked to so often in the chat. Richard attacks him almost violently, tells him that John is his boyfriend and that Luke must absolutely not even afford to mention him and concludes: "You are just a pig who is trying to put us against each other to ruin our lives because you you're out of your mind! " and goes away cursing. Luke is literally upset.
In the evening Luke calls John via the usual skype contact and doesn’t know what to expect, but John replies as if nothing had happened, he seems absolutely calm and completely unaware of the facts, Luke avoids talking about what happened.
Weeks pass, the things between Luke and John proceed well and Luke forgets his perplexities. After a couple of months John asks Luke to meet him in person, Luke eventually accepts. On the day of the meeting, at the station, John immediately recognizes Luke but obviously Luke doesn’t recognize John who is not the guy of the photos and Luke doesn’t like him physically.
John behaves with Luke in a very casual way, he knows the typical topics of the conversations with Luke and this fact reassures Luke but he doesn’t know what to do because the guy in front of him is not that of the photos, then tries to mention the fact in very vague way: "in person you don’t look much like you are in photos" but John doesn’t follow the thing, Luke insists "but are you sure you sent me your photos and not those of some other guy?" John looks at Luke as if Luke was crazy: "What are you saying? But are you out of your mind?" (The same expression used by Richard) then John continues the speech smiling and tells Luke that now they can finally realize together all the promises that they made each other for months.
Luke tries to mention that he doesn’t feel like having sex with John without further remarking that the guy in the picture was another. John looks at him worried as if he didn’t even realize what was happening and tells him that he doesn’t understand, that he doesn’t know why Luke is perplexed, because Luke looks different from how he had always known him, and adds that he feels him distant, strange, that he is no longer the same Luke, then begins to cry, cries and repeats that in the end no one has ever really cared about him, that no one has ever believed his feelings, that no one has ever loved him, that for him life It makes no sense and it makes no sense to even go on living and says he wants to go away immediately and goes to the station without speaking a single word, Luke pursues him and begs him to stay, is worried that John can make insane gestures, tells him that he loves him, that he is too important and that he is willing to do anything to avoid losing him and that he desperately needs his presence.
After a couple of hours of insistence by Luke, John appears less anxious. John and Luke go to the hotel together. John wants to be cuddled because he says he needs it, then cuddles are transformed into sex, Luke feels forced but doesn’t have the courage to say no and up to a certain point the thing goes on, but John claims performances that Luke doesn’t like at all, John feels frustrated and misunderstood again and starts crying again but Luke doesn’t give up this time.
John resumes his things and goes away upset with the air of being able to do terrible things. Luke is assailed by anxiety, calls him and begs him to come back but John doesn’t want to know reasons stops the conversation and doesn’t come back.
After a few hours Richard calls Luke and accuses him of having ruined John's life and also his own and threatens him of serious consequences if he will contact again John, but John, secretly, contacts Luke again and begs him not to disappear and free him from Richard who keeps him succubus.
In short, at the end Luke wins his hesitations and takes his decision: to cut the bridges in a radical and definitive way with both, fortunately John and Richard live in a distant city and it is not easy for them come back to Luke.
Luke is reassured by not having given either the home address or the home phone number.
Result: Luke has lived about three years of life in illusions that then turned into anxiety and violent anxiety because Luke entered into pathological mechanisms.
It is not even a problem of guilt, those two guys were not playing, for them what they did had a sense of reality, and this is precisely why guys must learn to open their eyes very well and to distinguish falling in love from addiction.
Let's now try to analyze the story from Luke's point of view. It can certainly happen that in the relationships between two guys there are different points of view and also profound misunderstandings but, attention, it’s really another story if one of the two has behaviors that appear to lack a simple and objective logic. I mean that even if one cannot follow the logic of the other, in any case, in the absence of real diseases, everyone recognizes that the things said or done by the other follow their own logic, which may not be shared but is however a logic, that is, it has intrinsically a meaning.
When in a relationship you are faced with behaviors objectively illogical or inconsistent (example: I send you the photos of another guy stating that they are mine and then when you, seeing me in person, realize that those photos are not mine, I insist, against the evidence, in saying that they are really mine) the alarm bell must ring, the same applies when the dialogue systematically becomes a monologue, especially if it is a repetitive monologue, or when one is faced with too sudden and frequent changes of mood or subject. The excesses are always suspicious, so the stable excess of tragic tones, the perpetually distracted tone of those who never go beyond the superficial chatting and the obsessive offer or request for affective confirmations should alarm and should awaken rationality.
The wrong attitude of Luke, in the story I just told, and which, I repeat, is not a real story but only an example of school, consists in not wanting to understand and systematically removing all the elements of alarm, abandoning himself to exclusively emotional reactions.