Gloves Off

[anonniemouse]

Please use this post for discussion of those contentious, murky, triggering issues too complex to discuss/moderate on the main post.

Note that this post is NOT a free-for-all and will still be modded for slurs, namecalling, doxxing and trolling. But fair warning that it will not be moderated for discussion of issues some find triggering (trans issues, mental illness, etc.) and that if you choose to participate here, you do so at your own risk.

Comments

Re: Andy and self-loathing?

[(Anonymous)]

Enh, I dunno if this is ANDY, but I have sorta known another really hardcore narcissist, and followed them for a long time (at a safe, far distance).

And something that struck me about him was how, underneath the grandiosity and pompousness and the grandstanding... there seemed to be this deep inchoate terror and dread, just below the surface. It was like this guy was running, running, running, constantly trying to fill this enormous void within himself with the Greatest Most Important Things Ever, because he couldn't bear to admit that he was a vaccuum, a hollow, empty man.

I don't think he was consciously AWARE of this, I want to emphasize that. But as I watched him dash back and forth like a demented beaver on acid, constantly trying to be the most important thing since sliced bread... I found it pathetic. The man was dangerous and terrifying and hurt so many people, and I found myself realizing that he had done so many awful things, and for what? He couldn't even truly ENJOY it, it seemed like.

Like, oh sure, he'd get some brief transitory pleasure at tearing down anyone who criticized him (threatened that superficial surface layer of perfection)... but it was like on some level, he raged so hard because THEY SCARED HIM SO BADLY. On some level, somewhere he'd never look or admit to, he knew they were right, and THAT'S why he'd go completely fucking apeshit if you told him his fanfiction wasn't Shakespeare. Because it threatened that fragile, paper-thin mask of perfection that he needed to believe existed.

His obsessive need to be constantly 100% perfect 100% of the time doomed him to eternal mediocrity, because he could never finish anything, never achieve anything of substance, never LEARN anything. He's middle-aged now, and he still acts and creates work on par of a gifted teenager.

I think that he's a dangerous, terrible person I never want to know. But I also think that he lives in a special hell of his own making that I am glad never to know. And he is never, ever going to escape it.

Now, if he could just stop destroying everybody around him in his constant need to outrun that hell, that'd be awesome, but that's the least probable thing of all.

Re: Andy and self-loathing?

[(Anonymous)]

Well-put. Thanks, Anon!

Re: Andy and self-loathing?

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

Thanks! Yeah, it's a weird feeling. Like I said, I find this guy totally reprehensible... but at the same time I kind of pity him, because the things that probably torment him are things I'll never have to worry about. It's like knowing there's somebody who's deeply, existentially afraid of washing dishes, but will never admit it and instead do all these horrible things PURELY to avoid ever having to wash a single fucking dish in their life. Sure, it's ugly and awful... but I never, EVER have even CONSIDERED having my life run by dish-washing.