As a teenager I had an array of crushes. I didn’t know astrology yet, but the worst was on a boy whose Mars was square my Saturn. And his Saturn was conjunct my Mars. Despite this heavy energy, I saw a floaty, moody sort of person. I didn’t really know it at the time but he was coming from a stereotypical middle class background with all the brain damage that comes with it, its rigid rules of social behavior to adequately suck up to The Man while not appearing like a low-morals person. And then here I show up, what the fuck rules where? Viva la revolution! I’m sure I was quite enticing. And then I made it worse by flirting with him. I’m sure his psychological state was a lot of “why has god sent me this temptress?” and similar inability to put words to what was going on for poor, innocent boy.
Instead of dating then like we should have, it was delayed by years. He picked up further insecurities in that time and then dropped them in my lap a few months into it, as if I was there to answer for every girl/woman ever. Everything I did that didn’t cleanly reflect his needs of the moment was a source of tension, eventually leading into us nonstop fighting about absolutely nothing until I was wishing he would just get hit by a bus. I ended up spending a lot of time after thinking about relationships and society pushing idiots into idiot situations “because that’s what you do” and otherwise questioning The Point.
Way before then, though, he and I were talking. I must have written something creative or talked about some dream I had or something on level of fiction. He told me that what I had shared reminded him of David Lynch. Who? Explain. He told me I’d like Lost Highway. It had recently come out and was either on tape or airing on TV, so I saw it not too long after. I have no idea what I saw in my teenage lack of patience, but I did not interpret the movie kindly. What the fuck did that have anything to do with me? And I quickly forgot anything about the movie, beyond it being convoluted and hard to follow. Maybe that was ultimately his point. And maybe that’s fair.
My movies project reminding me that I have forgotten too many things led to me finally rewatching Lost Highway a few days ago. Verdict: I don’t think my ex quite understood how he viewed me. The dark humor there is immense, thinking of how upset he was about his insecurity getting set off when we were together, meanwhile movie has lady protagonist being literally fucked on screen in front of horrified male protagonist. It was very “Ticks & Leeches” of him to recommend that movie at me in particular, of all movies ever. Literals never happened, but he sure seemed to want them to for as insanely he concentrated on the possibility. It might have been just as well.
And then I get to laugh more about that time we were talking a couple of years after we broke up. I told him I had just gone on a date with a new boy. Ex seemed concerned that I might be spending time with a potential drug user, given my feelings about the concept, and asked about weed. Instead of letting it go, he joked, asking me if on our date my new boy had “the munchies”. Annoyed, I responded with the conversation killer “only for me ;)”. Fucking set off that insecurity. Isn’t that a lovely picture? And what a great pun. Jokes are fun. But my ex pretended he didn’t understand, somehow, and suddenly had to leave. I’m not sure where the failure to compute happened, but in any case, I don’t believe it was a lack of understanding. More likely the jesusy hypermonogamy trigger got pulled imagining some boy having “the munchies” for me. Yep, didn’t make it through typing that sentence without laughing. Poor, innocent boy, man, whatever the hell.
And the other day I joked about it being possible to slip and fall in a bed, so I haven’t changed in the least.
In any case, Lost Highway wasn’t convoluted to adult eyes, but it was still perhaps obviously confusing for the lack of explanation going on. Also: What the hell was teenage me doing watching this? Didn’t I have homework to do?