Smashed Up Integrity

Let me tell you about someone I've met recently, a person I'm going to refer to as Ruiner Rose. She's your average 23 year old girl, living in the shadow of her boyfriend, Jerky Jim, and in the constant admiring gaze of Random Randy. Rose is one of those young adults who like to show their sadness and lack of satisfaction with their lives via doing pretty extreme things.

(A bracketed passage to all the depressed people in the world: cutting yourself isn't extreme by any means. It's a cliché.)

I've met Rose last weekend when I was having a drink with a few pals of mine in a pub. Parting apart from her company, suddenly she comes to our table and asks if we wanted to play a match of table football with her. Sure, we answer and introduce ourselves. Before the game starts she tells us how much she likes the sound of breaking glass. "It's the best sound ever." After the match she demonstrates how serious she was about this: she drinks her beer and smashes the glass to the table. Again. And again. And one more time.

It was nice meeting you, weirdo, we think and sit back to our table. But still keeping an eye on Rose. She doesn't go back to her friends' table to their epic card game play. Instead she does what The Fuck You Man likes to call angsting. She just sits near the football table with her head bent down, her fingers caressing the remains of the glass. After a while she gets her coat, says goodbye and leaves.

Ten seconds of thinking, then I get up, say "I'll be back in ten minutes" and go after her. At the pub entrance I meet with Random Randy, your typical nice boy (imagine a strange hybrid of Daniel Craig and Kåre Hedebrant with an attitude that's kinda pathetic even when you compare it to my natural shyness). I ask him if he saw a girl around here, and where did she go. He shows me the direction and within a minute I reach Rose.

First thing, I assure her that I'm not hitting on her, but like, I really-really want to talk if she has the time. She isn't in a hurry, so we start to talk, when Randy shows up with the lamest "can I put my hand in your panties?"-type smile, says hello, and asks if he bothers us. "Just a little bit", I say. "Yeah, you really do", replies Rose, so Randy says sorry and walks back to the pub. I really feel sorry for him. You can't blame someone if he wanted to have Rose's company. The girl has nice looks, I have to admit, and it's hardly fair that I totally occupied her. But whatever, this is life. Cut to the chase.

A few minutes later me and Rose are sitting on the side of the curb, and she tells me everything. An awful lot of things, actually, but here's the point: she wants more from her life. More than sitting in pubs and playing card games. It's not her type of stuff, her buddies bore her. Also, she can't get out from her three year old on/off relationship with a guy who's good company but can't really understand her. She wants more than school, work and hanging out like this. The only really good things in her life are a few really close good friends who accept her that way. Unconditional love and all that stuff.

But she isn't satisfied. Anxiety, depression, social fears, and all the things you should leave behind with your teenage years are all around her neck, and the only thing that helps her feeling better is the glass breaking. The sound gives her a jolt, and the thought of destroying something is somehow uplifting for Rose. That reminds me of Fight Club, I say, and she agrees. Yes, she saw it and thought it's a classic that needs to be seen by everyone. At that moment when she says this, I feel a strange bond with Rose. For a young woman she's really like a cool and intelligent guy, dealing with most of the problems and pessimistic thoughts as I do. I'd love to have her as a sister. And damn, you can imagine how much I wanted to make her feel better. To help her. At any cost.

Now, wall-of-text-haters, here comes the interesting part. Twenty-few minutes passes when the boyfriend, Jerky Jim calls her. Turns out he's down there with the other friends at the table, but for now he's a bit concerned about where has his girlfriend gone. He really wants to meet her, so Rose tells him we're out there. The guy shows up, sits besides us, starts the caressing-hugging-howareyou-prettyone ritual with her girlfriend, and says to me "Go on, just keep talking, I love chatting, too" with the famous "Get away from my chick, go fuck your mother" look on his face.

Not the best feeling when a this kind of guy's girl pays more attention to you, says "You know, you don't understand me at all" to him and finally hugs you as saying goodbye. Whatever, the next few minutes were interesting. I gave away a few encouraging words to Rose, and some advices about life that she could fallow if she wants to. Jim was laughing at us in a poor over-the-top theatrical way, saying that Rose doesn't have any problems at all, and we are both way too young to know anything about life. He's at a university, and if I ever get there, I'll know more. With my 19 years I'm just a kid, pretending to know something. It's good that I'm thinking about rights and wrongs but that doesn't mean I have the answers. "I haven't stated that." This particular statement, he completely ignored of course. Otherwise, it was nice meeting him, too.

Alright now, here's a few nice things, simple manners in the case you want a relationship that won't ends up as a total waste. You know how it goes, I'm not offering anything more than my opinion. Advices that you can take, if you want to:

• First, if your girlfriend has any kind of problem, you don't ignore it. You can love it, you can make her do something about it (even if this leads to fights, think about the greater good), or just simply live with it, but do not pretend it doesn't exist. You know you lie. Your girl knows it. Not healthy to your mind/soul, the relationship and your circle of friends.
  
  
• That circle. If it's having a good time in a public place, and she is among your friends, you don't pretend like she wasn't there. Especially when her body language shouts "Hi there, I'm just about to snap, burst into tears and cut my wrists with shattered glass. And how are you doing?"
  
  
• If she does feel awkward, you ask her what's the matter, talk to and cheer her up, even pay for the glasses she broke (that's optional, of course. Rose said they were quite cheap, by the way :-]).
  

Simple things. If you like someone you should treat her/him this way. Even if she's just a kid who doesn't know anything about herself or the world. Or if she's a crazed psycho. That's a fact you definitely shouldn't ignore, though.

Whatever. I wish the best to Rose and good luck for Jerky Jim with keeping his girlfriend. At least there's two people on Earth who understand her more than he ever could.

Maybe even Randy would be better at that. Aw, that poor guy.